Cauliflower Risotto

This makes you smile through and through and fall to bed in a food choma. We learned how to cobble this together from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy.

 

We began this affair by cutting up the stalk from a head of cauliflower, a big onion, half a head of celery, and a couple of garlic cloves.

The cauliflower florets we heated in a quart of vegetable broth.

 

In a big pot we heated a bit of olive oil and some butter.

Them we added the chopped veggies and slowly heated them for 15 minutes.

While that was going we whized up a few slices of old bread, a couple of dried red chilies, and a can of anchovies.

Those we fried up in a skillet till crunchy and put them on the table for later.

When the veggies were soft we added 500g of arborio rice and turned up the heat while stirring.

 After about a minute the rice got all glassy and we added about a glass of vermouth.

 

When the vermouth was absorbed we started adding a ladle of broth, a pinch of salt, and a few of the cauliflower florets. After that was absorbed we added more. We continued with this process till the broth was gone and the rice was done, working the starch out of it, by continuously stirring and smashing it. About 20 minutes or so.

 

And then, for the coup-de-grace we added a good chunk of butter, chopped parsley, and a few handful of parmesan, turned off the heat, put the lid on and waited for a few minutes. Enough time to calm down the kitchen.

We served the risotto with some extra cheese and the spicy breadcrumbs for the parents. Pure Goodness on a plate.

Cauliflower Mac

We made our stand in killer Mac and Cheese today that originally made its way into our kitchen from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Food Revolution..

We brought a pot of water to boil and added 1 lb of pasta, salt, and one chopped head of cauliflower.

Then we placed a glass bowl on top as a lid with 8oz of cheddar cheese, and a couple handful of parmesan. In the meantime we turned on the oven to "broil".

When the cheese started to melt, we added enough heavy cream to get it a bit runny.

Some parsley and pepper.

Then we drained the pasta and cauliflower, keeping some cooking water. We tossed it into a baking dish, mixed in the cheese, and added some cooking water. Then we stuffed the whole lot into the oven for a crusty top.

While the Mac and Cheese was in the oven we prepared a quick salad (see below).

Cauliflower Soup

We chopped up 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, half a big onion, 2 garlic cloves, and 2 heads of cauliflower.

Then we heated 2 quarts of veggie broth in one pot, and sautéd the veggies in another with a some olive oil.

After about ten minutes we mixed both up and boiled it for another ten.

In the meantime we shredded 8 oz of cheddar.

Then we whized it all up with an immersion blender and added besides the cheese a dollup of mustard, salt, and pepper. Scrumptious!

We had bread with it and sprinkled some left over turkey on it, which we had cut up and fried all crispy in a pan.

The original recipe for this winner came out of Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Food Revolution.

Cauliflower and Bacon

This got mixed reviews, but was still a bit of fun to make. It needed too many pots for an easy midweek dish. It took 45 minutes, mostly due to the rice we use. We got the ideas from  a Tim Mälzer recipe out of e&t für jeden Tag.

First we started with a pot of rice. Next we boiled 1 head of cauliflower with a little butter, salt and lemon juice.(There is Lucy at work)

Then we fried some bacon strips and caramelized it with honey and seasoned it with pepper.  On the side we fried up a couple handful of breadcrumbs (real crumbs of real bread) with 2 cloves of garlic and a big chunk of butter. 

All that got nicely placed together with some parsley and Parmesan. We served it with the rice.