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.

Gnocchi with Fried Cauli-Broccoli Rice

Hey guys! More of a ranty post than a recipe post, but I wanted to put tonight's dinner up :)

So today I finally decided to change my subjects for year 11 and 12, so I strolled into the guy-who's-responsible-for-that-sort-of-stuff's office and asked for the form. But when he asked me what subject I wanted to change to, I told him I wanted to go from chemistry to pdhpe but he was like 'oh you can't do that they're not in the same line so you have to pick from this this or this' so I was like KJRBEIUH BUT I DON'T WANT TO DO MODERN HISTORY OR LEGAL OR THINKING SUBJECTS!! So I calmly accepted the fact that I wasn't going to get my perfect subjects as he wrote down my suggestions. And so I left the room and rushed to my exam I didn't know about... for pdhpe...

I was soo scared that I was going to get a 0 for missing the class I was hoping to swap into (how bad would that look??) but thankfully my pe teacher is a gem and let me do the exam. I wasn't even that late... like 2 minutes...

Anyway, all day I've been looking at my suggestions and asking all my friends what I should do. But there is no way I'm dropping either biology or food tech for pe so my final choice was...

DRAMA!

And yet I'm one of the shyest people on the planet. You know what? Who cares! I'm just going to stroll in there and pretend that I'm slightly more confident than I actually am and if people ask me what the hell my body is doing flinging itself across the front of the room, I'm gonna say that SCHOOL IS FOR LEARNING and I need to learn how to fling my body around the room so I don't look like the epitome of tragedy.

Plus I want to be a part time commercial model (yes, models don't all have to be tall and skinny! They can be short and... not skinny like me ;) ) so doing drama would help I guess.

Now time for the recipe, what you've been waiting for!