Roasted Head of Cauliflower

I found this idea back when I was new to the entire 'healthy' bandwagon. On one of those vegan or vegetarian blogs (I can't remember), they had a recipe as a joke for a 'roasted head of cauliflower' mocking a 'roasted head of (insert animal here)'. And I'd remembered it because the post was funny, how she had to 'sacrifice this head of cauliflower' and it was a big joke and yaddah yaddah yaddah.

For once, we actually got an entire head of cauliflower (as opposed to half of one) and we had people coming over so I asked nicely if I could make a roasted head of cauliflower. No one knew what the hell I was going on about so I made it anyway.

We eat a lot of plain, boiled veggies, so this was fine to us, but if you like a bit of spice in your life, toss on some Indian spices like cumin and... whatever else they use. And use ghee for that matter too. I used tallow on it and it didn't really work because a. the fat hardened before I could baste the head and b. the cauliflower went cold at the table and when we went back to have some more of it, it had a funny mouthfeel due to the hard fat on top.

Roasted Head of Cauliflower

Serves 8

1 head of cauliflower
3/4 cup oil of your choice
herbs and spices (optional)

Place your head of cauliflower in a steamer and cook until as cooked as it would be if you blanched it. (I did this by putting it in a strainer over a pot of boiling water).
Take it out, drain it, and put it in the fridge uncovered for a few hours so that it is dried out somewhat and isn't so wet.
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (180 burns the top, have a look at the pictures).
If using herbs or spices, mix them into the oil.
Place the head on a roasting tray and brush some of the oil onto all of the outside of the cauliflower.
Place it in the oven for 15 - 25 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, take it out to baste it with some more of the oil.
Serve hot and with a large knife, and cut it like a cake.

Roasted Broccoli Soup

I've always wondered what the difference between a vegetable soup and a vegetable purée was.

Well. Wonder no more. Just get your oven, stove and blender of choice ready and prepare yourself for the simplest way to pack as much liquid flavour into broccoli as possible.

This is actually super easy, and doesn't take very long hands on time to do. Especially for the warm hug of flavour you get from it.

Roasted Broccoli Soup

2 heads broccoli
olive oil, for roasting, for frying and adding at the end
4 cloves garlic
500ml broth, plus water

Chop the broccoli into pretty large florets, cover with oil (especially the brushy bits) and pop into a prelined dish. Roast in a preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until tender.

Fry garlic cloves in a large saucepan with some oil in the bottom on low, until slightly brown. Add the broccoli (with the roasting olive oil too, if you like) and fry it a little if you want.
Pour in the broth, and if the water level doesn't reach to nearly the top of the broccoli, add some water until nearly covered.
Heat the water until hot (not boiling - it ruins the gelatine in the broth) and let it go for 10 - 15 minutes.
Purée the contents of the pot. I used a stick blender, which is a lot easier, but feel free to pour it into a normal blender and do it like that. Blend to your consistency liking (I like mine chunky).
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top.

Better than Baba Ghanoush

The Middle Easterns have their dips down pat. Just look at tahini. Isn't that a fantastic little spread that's a great creamy addition to a lot of stuff? If I don't put olive oil on something, I'll probably drizzle and dollop some tahini on it. But then there's baba ghanoush, which is fantastic made right (or bought) or bad. Real bad.

Ages ago, I came across another dollopy spready purée thing that hails (or seemed like it would hail) from the Middle Eastern area. It was called avjar (pronounced av-yar), but because the blender and I don't have the best relationship, and I'd just eat it all out of the blender as soon as it was made anyway, I gave it a miss.

Today, I was desperate for food so I strolled into some place called 'deli' and picked up some sliced salami and marinated olives, and as she was slicing up my future taco shells (deli meat is THE best for holding food), I turned around to find red jars of, you guessed it, delectable avjar. Take note that I've never tasted it before today, I already knew it would be a spoon of divine Middle Easternness.

And then I looked around a bit more. And I found another jar called malizzano. There was no way I could leave this shop without both jars. Even with the evil oil (sunflower). Sometimes I think it's better to taste things to know what they taste like, even if it means going against ideals you'd normally not stray from. And the jars are from Macedonia, and it looks like they've been made with love.

I should probably mention what these jars are made of before I tuck in with a spoon. They're very similar; they're both a simple blend of roasted capsicum and roasted eggplant, but obviously the avjar is red capsicum and the malizzano is green. It's quite strange, though, how they taste a lot different to what they're made of. I reckon they'd both taste good mixed with either roasted tomatoes, tahini or maybe paprika or cinnamon or some other spices, or maybe all three. Oh and garlic. It almost tastes like it already has garlic in it. Or some soft white cheese if dairy's your style.

I'm not quite sure what to eat it with, but my options so far are from a spoon, simmer and cook eggs in it like shakshuka, or obviously as a dip with some veggie sticks. I had a google search around and found that it's good for salad dressings, meat marinades and as a lasagna sauce. Can't wait to try it all!

Roasted Spatchcock

I've done it.

I've finally gotten myself a whole organism from the anamalia family, drizzled some fat on it, and whacked it in the oven all by myself.

A whole spatchcock is a whole animal, no matter how small it is, thank you very much.

(I must admit, it wasn't a whole whole bird - he didn't have any organs or a face, but he was nearly there.)

We'd kept him frozen until I was ready to tackle him, so after roasting a duck with my grandmother, I got the gist of how to prepare a bird for eating.

Roasted Grapes

Quick one today!

Ever since I saw this recipe, I've wanted to have a go at roasting grapes. But I never got around to it because I kept forgetting to get grapes so it's just never happened.

And then mum bought a big bunch of grapes.

They weren't red grapes like I'd been picturing to roast with, but since I'd been picking one at a time every time I opened the fridge, I thought I should do something more productive with them than make them waste away like that.

So with my salmony, pumpkiny, radiescheny mess of food I plonked into a roasting dish tonight, I added a bunch of grapes, which I made sure didn't touch my salmon. I don't care what my food looks like, just as long as it doesn't taste so bad.

My oily dish didn't take too long to cook, and I made sure my grapes didn't get too oily (coconut oil, by the way). When it was done, the first thing I tried were these bad boys on top there.

Ignore that orange stuff it's sitting on.

Mistakes I've Made - Activated Almonds

Yesterday I mentioned that I made my own almond meal using my 'failed' almonds. How do you just fail a nut?

As I've mentioned in a previous post, you have to soak nuts for them to not stuff up your insides, so when I came back from Costco with a big bag of almonds the other day, I decided to try to soak them all at once and dehydrate them so that I can just eat them without worrying about soaking overnight.

The bag was emptied into a big bowl, the almonds were blanketed with water, and a splash of apple cider vinegar was stirred in. Ok, maybe a big splash of vinegar. I didn't really know how much to add so I just kinda poured it in.

And they sat in the cupboard with a tea towel lid overnight.

In the morning I rinsed them and preheated the oven to I think it was 150 degrees to start with. Once the almonds were patted dry with paper towels, I lined a few cookie trays with baking paper and spread out my now-expanded almonds between them because there were that many of them. I popped the trays in the oven like so and checked them every half hour. I advise you not to check this often; it makes you feel like your nuts have taken a lifetime and nothing has happened since you last visited.

Thai Chilli Coconut Roast

What do you do when you want beachy, summery flavours and a comforting wintery meal? You combine them of course! Last night it was a little colder than usual but I felt like a bit of chilli and coconut so I came up with a bit of a concoction:

Coconut oil
Chilli flakes
Cayenne pepper
Desiccated coconut
Thai seasoning



And mixed my chicken breast into it. If I wasn't being so lazy, I would've made more and mixed the veggies in it, but the coconut oil was in the fridge so I had to scrape it out instead of scooping it out. I need a small jar of it to keep in the cupboard for easier use. If you don't have coconut oil, feel free to use a light oil or some olive oil (my veggies got a dash of EVOO - extra virgin olive oil). It shouldn't make too much of a difference.