Cauliflower Mac and Cheese Bake

So, you've eaten most of the meat in the fridge before it goes bad, and now you have a cauliflower sitting there in the crisper, judging you, wondering when it gets a chance to shine.

This is a quick midweek dinner, and adds some delicious veggies to this rich pasta bake. It's filling, creamy and goooood. Think of a cross between cauliflower cheese and mac and cheese. Cheese is a great common denominator.

Now, it's vegetarian as a base recipe, unless you go and add bacon (which I did). I cooked the bacon in the oven and then added the sliced bits in at the end. But it would be perfectly lovely without that.

Pav Bhaji- Spiced Vegetable Mash

This is an absolutely delicious, wholesome, nourishing, spiced bowl of comfort.

Yes, there are dishes, but it's worth it

I affectionately call it spiced veggie mush, but it’s so much more than that. This is apparently a common lunch in India, where it is served with a lovely soft bap on the side. I’m salivating just thinking about it, especially with my delicious brioche bun recipe.

The good thing is, all you need are a few vegetable cupboard staples and some spices and you’re good to go. The spice mix is the only tricky bit, made by toasting and grinding whole spices.

It feels like a lot of ingredients and I know that not everyone obsessively buys whole spices. You can sub in the ground version of the spices if you need, but the flavour won’t quite be the same.

For a mix made of pre-ground spices, I’d suggest:

• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• pinch chili powder
• pinch ground cinnamon
• pinch ground cloves
• a good few twists of ground black pepper 

(the traditional recipe also calls for amchur powder which is hard to find. It is a dried mango powder and apparently is quite zesty, I just left it out because I find the chopped tomatoes zesty enough.)

I served mine with what I had to hand – wholemeal chapatti. I kind of wish I’d had a fresh brioche roll though.

Cauliflower Coconut Curry

That meal prep life

More vegetarian food! And it's absolutely delicious!

My biggest problem with doing a “weekend big shop” is that you can never trust the meat to last more than 3-4 days, so by the time you’ve hit Friday, your options are really limited.

Bright yellow loveliness

A simple way to combat this, something I really should have considered earlier, is to lose the meat. This involves expanding the selection of veggies that I eat. I have a love-hate relationship with cauliflower. I hate when it’s made to be something its not – rice/pizza bases it is NOT. However, it brings an incredible texture to soup.  And I hoped it would be nice in a curry (don’t worry, it is).

This meal is great - low in calories, main ingredients unlikely to go bad in 5 days, delicious and easy to whip up! You could also mix up the veg – spinach, peas, carrots would all work here.

Thai Green Cauliflower Soup

A pile of filled tupperware makes me happy.

"The diet starts Monday.."

But the meal prep begins Sunday night!

So, we all know of my vegetable woes.  I don't like them, as a group. I particularly hate cauliflower. It's a terrible substitute for rice and for mashed potatoes. It's just not starchy carby delicious and that's ok. It is its own thing.

Cauliflower can shine on its own without being something else. My boyfriend and I were on holiday in Croatia last year and found a little place with the most delicious food. Their fish was a revelation, but in particular the soup was the best soup I've ever had. It was like a veggie Thai green curry, and the thing that surprised me the most was that it had cauliflower in it. Delicious, healthy and silky-smooth with lovely background spice. 

Blending that veg up in a soup transforms it and it becomes magic.

Gold star for cauliflower.

Cauliflower Rice

I am incredibly out of my comfort zone here. What has led me down to the dark valley of rice substitutes, avocado pudding, and ALMOND MILK EVERYWHERE?

Well, it started off with doing a detox for 14 days. And that meant no carbs. No rice, no bread, no noodles, no muffins, no cake, no biscuits, no brioche, no NOTHING. I’m not going to lie, I was really upset. And slightly dizzy. And INCREDIBLY HANGRY ALL THE TIME.

I made it 48 hours with no carbs. This was a part of it.

It’s no secret that I love rice. I could happily eat only rice with a bit of curry sauce or peri-peri mayo for the rest of my life. Dip a tortilla wrap in it and I would be in heaven.

What I’m trying to do is to is make better choices, and exposing myself to things that I otherwise wouldn’t even think about trying. I can then incorporate the healthy stuff that still tastes good into my everyday diet. Now, I’m only on day 2, and so far I know that cauliflower mash is pretty edible. And something that all the crazy health bloggers like is cauliflower rice. So, I’ve gone from buying one cauliflower EVER in my life, to buying two this week.

I won’t lie, I can taste a good deal of the cauliflower still, but eating it with a curry mitigates that somewhat. I didn’t love this. I hate posting stuff that I’m not in love with, but my Swedish boyfriend really liked it, so I’m going against my instincts and sharing it.

It is incredibly easy, which isn’t always the case with these “healthy” alternatives. Feel free to experiment with spices, or throw in some fresh garlic when you’re blitzing it. This thing can take on a lot of flavour.

Baked Cauliflower Mash

It is a testament to my Irish upbringing that it is only now that I realise that you can mash vegetables other than potatoes.

Of course, we all had carrot and parsnip mash at the Sunday dinner table, but who really even ate that when there were spuds on offer?

Let's get real though. It is hard to get overly excited about cauliflower. But put away your prejudices and give it a go! It is tasty, filling and wholesome, and way fewer carbs than spuds. And it really is pretty tasty!

Stick in on your Easter Sunday table today and you won't be disappointed.