... hear me out. We all know that I'm not nor will I ever be a food blogger so when I do decide to punish you with a recipe, I promise it's good. To me, the furthest thing from a foodie. Ever.
I remember going home to visit my family several years ago and my younger siblings were laughing about dinner a few nights prior because my mom tried to trick my dad into eating mashed caulifower and passing it off as mashed potatoes. He was not having it. And if you don't know my mom, you should. Her name is Bettina and she's the best kind of character. The kind that unsuccessfully tricks her husband.
Anyway, I am a lover of cauliflower but was repulsed by the idea of mashed cauliflower. Fast forward a few years and I found myself attempting to make cauliflower rice. The results were not great and mushy because the recipe called for the cauliflower to be steamed beforehand. Fast forward another year and I found myself revisiting the idea of cauliflower rice because as I trumpeted on Thursday, Simon and are doing the Whole30 and I needed a bit of a filler for dinners.
Enter better ...
... really!
While it's not any sort of dead taste ringer for fried rice (that I love) Simon and my brothers either over compensated with compliments for how much they hated it or they really liked it.
Here's my method ...
Ingredients:
whole head of cauliflower (makes several batches to store for the week)
1/2 of an onion, chopped
3-4 teaspoons of minced garlic
3-4 tablespoons of ghee (use whatever fat you'd like, coconut oil was good too for my test run!)
any seasoning of choice (I just used a dash of sea salt)
process:
and it is kind of a process, but worth it! I just used our blender (not a Vitamix , one day!) and put about a 1/2 cup of cauliflower trees (chunks?) in the blender and used the chop option, dumped the newly chopped and repeated until the whole head was done. The blender couldn't handle more than 1/2 a cup at a time but Theo was transfixed by the process so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Melt your oil of choice in a frying pan over medium heat and add 1/5 of your onions. Stir until onions are translucent then add garlic and your faux rice. Add seasonings and stir around and around until the cauliflower has reached your desired level of softness (I reheat ours back in the pan so it's okay if it's not perfectly soft the first time). Repeat with the rest of the cauliflower crop.
And obviously you can add whatever you'd like. Veggies, meat, sauce, etc. I've been adding some avocado slices and Phoebe may or may not have the happiest bebe heart attack when I let her share my portion.
I know I'm terrible at giving culinary direction so ... questions? tell me. I think it's pretty straight forward though.
And because you are dying to know! We are on day 6 and doing okay! We are both feeling less sluggish and Simon had a headache that only comes and goes now. We made it through Sebastian's birthday celebration (cake! with Kit Kat train tracks!) just fine. Simon confessed that he felt like he was on his period because the first few days he was in a bad mood (understandably) but I think he's out of those hormonal woods, for now. I do need to get better about not taking 89 hours to make one meal which will hopefully come with time. I don't feel like "the magic" has kicked in yet but I've read that could come around day 7? But I don't feel like I would sell one of the kids for a Reeses or anything, quite yet. Your comments were super helpful on Thursday's post, thank you so much!!
I remember going home to visit my family several years ago and my younger siblings were laughing about dinner a few nights prior because my mom tried to trick my dad into eating mashed caulifower and passing it off as mashed potatoes. He was not having it. And if you don't know my mom, you should. Her name is Bettina and she's the best kind of character. The kind that unsuccessfully tricks her husband.
Anyway, I am a lover of cauliflower but was repulsed by the idea of mashed cauliflower. Fast forward a few years and I found myself attempting to make cauliflower rice. The results were not great and mushy because the recipe called for the cauliflower to be steamed beforehand. Fast forward another year and I found myself revisiting the idea of cauliflower rice because as I trumpeted on Thursday, Simon and are doing the Whole30 and I needed a bit of a filler for dinners.
Enter better ...
... really!
While it's not any sort of dead taste ringer for fried rice (that I love) Simon and my brothers either over compensated with compliments for how much they hated it or they really liked it.
Here's my method ...
Ingredients:
whole head of cauliflower (makes several batches to store for the week)
1/2 of an onion, chopped
3-4 teaspoons of minced garlic
3-4 tablespoons of ghee (use whatever fat you'd like, coconut oil was good too for my test run!)
any seasoning of choice (I just used a dash of sea salt)
process:
and it is kind of a process, but worth it! I just used our blender (not a Vitamix , one day!) and put about a 1/2 cup of cauliflower trees (chunks?) in the blender and used the chop option, dumped the newly chopped and repeated until the whole head was done. The blender couldn't handle more than 1/2 a cup at a time but Theo was transfixed by the process so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Melt your oil of choice in a frying pan over medium heat and add 1/5 of your onions. Stir until onions are translucent then add garlic and your faux rice. Add seasonings and stir around and around until the cauliflower has reached your desired level of softness (I reheat ours back in the pan so it's okay if it's not perfectly soft the first time). Repeat with the rest of the cauliflower crop.
And obviously you can add whatever you'd like. Veggies, meat, sauce, etc. I've been adding some avocado slices and Phoebe may or may not have the happiest bebe heart attack when I let her share my portion.
I know I'm terrible at giving culinary direction so ... questions? tell me. I think it's pretty straight forward though.
And because you are dying to know! We are on day 6 and doing okay! We are both feeling less sluggish and Simon had a headache that only comes and goes now. We made it through Sebastian's birthday celebration (cake! with Kit Kat train tracks!) just fine. Simon confessed that he felt like he was on his period because the first few days he was in a bad mood (understandably) but I think he's out of those hormonal woods, for now. I do need to get better about not taking 89 hours to make one meal which will hopefully come with time. I don't feel like "the magic" has kicked in yet but I've read that could come around day 7? But I don't feel like I would sell one of the kids for a Reeses or anything, quite yet. Your comments were super helpful on Thursday's post, thank you so much!!
Yum! I actually enjoy cauliflower rice, my hubby doesn't. hang in there, my sister-in-law went on it in an effort to reverse celiac disease, she says by day 21 you feel pretty rotten. I'm on the wheat belly diet and have had the low carb flu for 5 days. Diets are fun!
ReplyDeleteand by 21, I mean 12. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHaha, okay! Bracing myself :)
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ReplyDeletewe've been doing the 4 hour body for almost 3 months now, and it's time to get some new recipes in - we're totally trying this this week! I'll be sure to scream from the social media roof tops how it works ;)
ReplyDeleteWe're at day 14 and while I feel like the cravings are gone, the food boredom has set in big time. BUT! My never-ever-cooks-anything-but-fried-eggs husband made this tonight and it was INCREDIBLE. And so easy, he says. http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/pan-roasted-chicken-lemon-garlic-green-beans
ReplyDeleteOh! And as a recent discoverer of cauli-rice myself, I found that the food processor does it a bit more quickly, if you have one!
Props to you guys for navigating birthday temptation. I could not have done it!
Cauliflower rice is a new favorite around here, as are baked sweet potato fries! You've got this :)
ReplyDeleteI used cauliflower rice in a stuffed peppers recipe instead of rice. Didn't notice a difference at all! Can you have quinoa? We use that instead of rice for stirfry.
ReplyDeleteSO, my husband competes and coaches MMA (think UFC) and this requires him to look like a beast and train like a beast, over the last few years of different meal plans etc I've nailed down a few things that we love you should try!!:)
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you can have quinoa, but I make us a yummy pork fried rice with it (or whole wheat cous cous or I guess you could use cauliflower rice) I just used lean smoked pork, fried (very min to no oil) with spring onions, precook to quinoa and then when the pork is fried I toss in the quinoa and crack in a few eggs (enough to make sure you can see bits of egg) add a little soy sauce and its as good as take outs and way healthier :) we also have a killer cauliflower pizza reciepe that I nailed the other day so yum! And I make home made sweet potato chips at home alot, with salad and steak (and gauc to dip)... oH another personal favorite is to make mince tacos, but I buy a giant head of lettuce and gentle peal each leaf off and use them as taco shells (Sooo easy) and I use fat free cottage cheese and gauc as topping:) Hope it helps, I am the laziest cook and work and train alot so all these meals are designed to be cooked in like 15mins.
I've done the Whole 30 twice--well, if you count doing it & cheating here and there. Actually my 2nd time I sort of did a semi-Whole 30 wherein I allowed legumes (I'm largely vegetarian), peanuts/peanut butter, and whey protein powder/shakes (that are sweetened with sucralose). I STILL lost 7 lbs., even with all that cheating. Anyway, the point of my comment here is this: Doing the Whole 30 over HALLOWEEN?!? Are you guys insane?? Either that or totally superhuman. I bow down to you!
ReplyDeleteSounds not bad. Ha ha. I am trying whole 30 pumpkin taco soup today by one lovely life. Crock pot baby. Smells delish! Hope it tastes great.
ReplyDeleteThis looks tasty, and I may have to give it a try. I definitely would if I didn't dislike cauliflower so much. I've tried it as "rice" before, and it didn't taste too bad, but I just don't know. However, I totally agree on needing more filler. I've been eating potatoes like it's my job (both white and sweet). It seems to help a little. Saturday was rough, and there may have been some time on the couch thinking about how I needed to eat, but I didn't have enough energy to get up and get something. The last couple of days, I've been feeling pretty good, though. My kitchen is always a disaster, though! I'm preparing meals, then cooking meals, then doing dishes, and they're all overlapping all the time because I just don't have time to do it all. Maybe if I take a sabbatical from work....
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