Food Lush

Mac & Cheese Style Cauliflower

Editor's note: For our last week at Food Lush, I've asked the writers to share both a favorite post by another writer, from over the last three years, and a favorite post of their own. You'll see these posts linked to at the top of their new post for the week. Enjoy a stroll down Lush memory lane!

by Sarah Anne

I'm so sad to be saying good by after such a short time with Food Lush, but I am forever grateful to have been included in this amazing bunch of women who love food as much as I do. I haven't been around long, but before I was a writer, I was a reader brought over by Caitlin (Thanks Caitlin!). So I will link you to a post of hers that gave me the guts to try something I'd always wanted to - Fresh Strawberry Jam!  As far as my own post, I think my very first post on Lentils is my favourite. 

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Onward and upward as they say, folks. I don't have any huge "my last post" kind of post, but I do have a favourite recipe that I rediscovered this week. It's definitely one that I think you'll love. Mac & cheese style cauliflower.  

Now, hold on, don't go anywhere just because I said cauliflower.  I know. It's kind of a misused vegetable. Bland when steamed. Used as 'rice' for the raw food and paleo crowd. Whipped up into faux mashed potatoes. Poor thing. I'll admit this recipe is kind of similar in that it is an attempt to lighten up a homey, cheesy dish.  But do me a favour and give it a shot. I promise, it's a dish worth adding to your rotation. 

Source

I definitely always increase the garlic in this recipe (and all recipes, let's be honest here) and sometimes I'll add a little dijon to the sauce.  I'm sure this recipe would be flexible enough to add bacon for those that like that sort of thing, green onions, maybe even peas?  For some reason, I always feel like peas go with mac and cheese, and since I like to mess with recipes so this is no different. Try it out and jazz up the flavours a bit! What kind of flavour combos can you think up. I love recipes that are simple in flavour and technique that lend themselves to a bit of play.

The other bonus to this recipe? It can be made pretty inexpensively depending on the cheese you buy. It can be doubled for more leftovers too. Maybe it is a way to get kids (and adults!) to eat their veggies rather than that blue box that advertises cauliflower in its pasta? Far healthier and in my mind, way tastier!

I serve this with a green salad most often and call it dinner. Oh, and don't forget to try a little sriracha on top, because who doesn't like sriracha? 

Are you a cauliflower fan? Have you tried any other 'faux' recipes using cauliflower? Perhaps a recipe like this?  

New Spin on Broccoli and Chicken

By Ariel

Last week my routine was interrupted by a slight case of Appendicitis.  By slight case I mean my husband went into our town's Fast ER one night and lost his appendix by morning.  FUN!  In any case, he's doing well and my heart rate is back to normal.  Far from diet food, I wanted something warm, filling, and easy on the rest of his internal organs. I had ll the ingredients on hand for a casserole, so I stuck with the basic idea of chicken and broccoli and came up with something tasty.  Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a picture, but when you've seen one broccoli casserole you've seen them all, right?

Ranchy Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

1 lb ground chicken (or breast, cut into chunks)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup milk
1 cup Munster cheese
1 cup Mozerella cheese
3 cups chopped broccoli
2 cups cauliflower
1 cup mayo
1/8 cup (or more to taste) diced onion
2.5 cups brown rice, cooked
2 Tbs Ranch
Pepper to taste
10 Ritz crackers, crumbled

Cook the ground chicken in a medium skillet with the minced garlic until fully cooked.  While that's cooking, combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the cooked chicken and mix thoroughly.  Transfer to a casserole dish and top with the Ritz crackers.  Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes, or until the casserole and cheese starts to get bubbly.

This got the hubby seal of approval, he went back for seconds and took leftovers for lunch the next day. This is a great traditional comfort food with some minor adjustments. 

What are you favorite comfort foods?

I Heart Horseradish

by Tara

Do you guys like horseradish? I always forget how much I do until I cook with it again. It's awesome. I'm going to try to use it more often. The other night I made steak, potatoes, and kale, and the potatoes I made were especially delicious.

Horseradish Mashed Potatoes

(Such a colorful dinner!)

Ingredients:

-1 medium onion, chopped
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp oil
-1 lb potatoes*, cubed
-1/2 cup milk
-2 tbsp fresh parsley
-1 tsp horseradish (approximately; to taste!)
-salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Sautee onions in oil with sugar until onions are tender and browned
2. Meanwhile, add potatoes to large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook potatoes until fork tender.
3. Drain potatoes, add milk, and mash. Add onions, parsley, horseradish, and salt and pepper. 

Makes side dish for 4.

It's amazing how such a little bit of horseradish can add so much flavor!

*I used red potatoes in this instance, but I think any kind would work, even sweet. 

What's your favorite way to eat horseradish?

Sauerkraut I Actually Like

By Jessica

I have never been a fan of sauerkraut, which is odd given that I love cabbage and most other cabbage preparations but there was always just something about it. Something off and overly strong. I had thought that maybe it was the metal can in combination with the acidity, maybe that combination made it taste off to me? So I sought out a variety that came in a glass jar and alas no change in my opinion.

It happens to be something that my husband loves, however, so I have always hoped to find one that I could be happy eating too and then most of my twitter stream started Whole30 and I started seeing raw sauerkraut in my feeds.

Farmhouse Culture has several different varieties of kraut to choose from and I was able to find a couple of them at my local Whole Foods markets. For my husband, I selected the smoked jalapeño and for myself the horseradish leek. On its own, it's still a bit sharp for my tastes but all manner of weird and off that I taste in regular kraut is gone. It's flavorful and even though I was expecting the horseradish to take over everything, it's so well balanced, that doesn't happen. 

We had brats and kraut for dinner tonight (I had Apple Sage Field Roast sausage) and I was really happy with it as a condiment. While I'm not a total convert, I will be finishing the jar I have and I also am now intrigued to try other varieties/brands. I have my eye on the Lemon Garlic Dill by Straight From The Vine next. 

Have you tried raw sauerkraut?

(Photo via Farmhouse Culture)

Quick and Easy Carrot Soup

Editor's note: A quick but very warm welcome to Hillary, a Style Lush writer who will be sharing her delicious recipes and food finds with Food Lush every other week. She's one of the best, as you'll soon see!

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By Hillary

January means trying to undo weeks of indulgent eating (at least in our house it does). It's a struggle to get back to our healthy routine, so I try to make it as easy as possible.

This soup is easy to prepare, is full of flavour, and (when portioned out and stored in glass jars in the fridge) is so easy to grab and go (removing the temptation to hit up a drive through).

Wash, and/or peel, and rough chop the following:

2lbs carrots
2 medium yams
4 - 6 stalks of celery
1 large onion
4 - 6 cloves of garlic
Knob of fresh ginger (I go for a 1-inch to 2-inch knob for a strong ginger flavour)

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil (I use olive) in a large soup pot. Add your veg and cook on high heat for 7 - 10 minutes. You want to keep things moving so they don't burn.

Add 6 cups of stock (chicken or vegetable) or water and bring to a boil.

Spice it up! Cumin, dried ground ginger, rosemary, black pepper, orange zest - whatever you fancy.

Cover and simmer until veg is tender (15 - 30 minutes, depending on how large  your pieces are.)

Blend with an immersion blender until smooth. Season with salt (I always leave this until the end because I never know how salty my stock is.)

That's it! I love this recipe because it's so fast. The most time-consuming part of the recipe is the vegetable prep and because it's a blended soup the vegetables don't have to be chopped prettily. I store individual portions in mason jars in the fridge so lunch is just a few minutes in the microwave away.

A New View of Brussels Sprouts

By Julie

Last week, my husband and I took a very long-awaited (years and years of waiting and saving) vacation in Maui. And while I have lots to say about the food in this island paradise, I’m going to tell you about a revelation I had while there. And that revelation came in the form of Brussels sprouts.

Brussels sprouts are one of the quintessential targets of child food hatred. Back in my day, it was simply understood that no self-respecting kid would touch them with a 10 foot fork, and I was no exception. I still remember my utter shock when my mom made them for dinner one day, and just as my brother, sister, and I were ramping up to give her an earful, my dad simply stated that he didn’t like them either and wouldn’t be eating them. Well, since Dad wasn’t eating the little demon vegetables, then we certainly weren’t either. It was a get out of dinner-jail free card!

But one evening, we were at a restaurant where I really wanted to order this incredibly delicious sounding macadamia nut crusted fish dish, except that it came with Brussels sprouts. I hesitated for a moment, but then decided to take the plunge. I’d taste the sprouts like the good sport I am, but if I didn’t like them, they’d get pushed over to the side and dismissed from my diner.

Well, color me surprised. These were not the mushy sprouts of my (admittedly spotty and revisionist) memory. They had been quartered and roasted (or perhaps grilled), with just a hint of char on the sides. They were tender and slightly sweet and just… wonderful. I saved them until the end of my meal so I could savor them.

I can’t wait to try to recreate this at home. Perhaps this version , by Amanda, will be close? I don’t exactly expect my kids to dive wholeheartedly into them, and that’s fine. More for me. Do you like brussels sprouts? What is your favorite preparation for them?

{Photo Credit: thedailygreen.com}

Chicken Wing Style Cauliflower

By Jessica

I haven't had a chicken wing in over two years and even before then I really only liked the boneless chicken "wings" with a thick crunchy coating and slick-yet-sticky sauce. To further "dumb down" my chicken wing card, that sauce I refer to, my favorite wing sauce? Honey BBQ. I simply am too much of a spice weenie to handle the traditional buffalo wing sauce (though I am far and away better than I was when I first moved to Texas) and don't even get me started on whatever Wicked Flaming Firey Death Sauce my husband gets on his wings. They should just call that stuff "Nose-hair curling, make it burn when you pee sauce." No ma'am. 

I do very much miss "chicken wings" though so when I found this picture on Pinterest?

I HAD to follow that pin, even though it was obviously traditional buffalo wing flavored. Doesn't that look fabulous? FABULOUS. 

My version via late night iPhone photography doesn't look nearly as pretty

but it was oh so very tasty. I made a few alterations to her recipe to make it dairy free. DAIRY FREE (I still weep, a little). 

• For the buttermilk I subbed 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk mixed with apple cider vinegar
• For the flour I mixed 1/2 cup AP flour and 1/2 cup chickpea flour
• Added 2 tsp garlic powder to the flour mixture
• Earth balance and olive oil for the butter
• Stubb's Hickory Bourbon and Bull's Eye Kansas City BBQ Sauces for the buffalo sauce
• Dairy free ranch for the blue cheese

After making these I can say that it's very important to use a shallow baking dish or even a cookie sheet covered in parchment. The first batch, the coating came up a little on the soft side and I think that is because I made them in a regular 13X9 pan. When I reheated them the next day on a cookie sheet? They came out much better.

(Photos from: The Curvy Carrot and me)

Sautéed Spinach

by Jess M

Like most of us, I try and get as many healthy things into our regular meal rotation as possible. And few things are as (smugly) satisfying as buying giant bags of spinach each week.

When I’m not succumbing to entire weekly menus of comforting, carb-ful and cheesy meals, I try and work spinach in as often as I can. Usually I serve sauteed spinach along with a piece of fish and maybe some rice or grain on the side.

Here is my basic sauteed spinach recipe:

• Rinse the spinach, I use my salad spinner; even though the bags say that the spinach is “triple washed” it can still be a bit sandy
• Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan, you can also add some garlic and onion or shallots
• Add the damp spinach leaves over med-high heat and saute them until they start to wilt. I use large tongs to turn the leaves over since the pan is overflowing with spinach.
• After a few minutes, add a couple of tablespoons of water and cover the pan with a lid to steam
• Remove the lid after a few minutes and continue to cook, stirring, until the liquid has cooked off.
• Add salt and pepper and serve.

This is my favorite go-to spinach recipe:

From Cook’s Illustrated’s Perfect Vegetables:

 

Sauteed Tender Greens with Mustard and Pecans

For best results use grainy mustard. If it is unavailable, regular Dijon mustard can be substituted.

 

 

¼ c chopped pecans

1 tablespoon grainy mustard

1 teaspoon light or dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium shallot, minced

2 pounds damp tender greens. such as spinach, beet greens or Swiss chard; stemmed, washed in several changes of cold water, shaken to remove excess water, and coarsely chopped

Salt and ground black pepper

1. Toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Set aside.

2. Mix the mustard, brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons water together in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Heat the oil and shallot in a Dutch oven or other deep pot over medium-high heat until the shallot sizzles and turns golden, about 2 minutes. Add the wet greens and mustard mixture, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the greens completely wilt, 2 to 3 minutes. Garnish with the toasted pecans and serve immediately.

And this one goes well when you want to serve spinach alongside a Mexican dish: Espinacas Guisadas (Mexican Sauteed Spinach) - I use this as a guide, and substitute canned, diced tomatoes.

Other Food Lush writers have written about spinach here.

(Photos from: me, Amazon)

Stuffed Eggplant

By Jessica

I love eggplant, you can do so many things with it and if I feel like trying something new with an eggplant I might have on hand? I can just do a search for something that I think might sound good, like Sausage Stuffed Eggplant and chances are, I'll find something that is either easy for me to tweak to my own preferences or sounds good as is. 

I'm sure the recipe I started with (linked above) is great as it's written but I didn't happen to have any homemade (or even jarred) tomato sauce made, so I decided to go with pesto instead*, I used Italian seasoned Panko Bread Crumbs and of course I don't eat meat so I used Field Roast sausage. I also didn't add the Italian seasoning (since it's in the bread crumbs already) or the garlic powder (since the pesto has more than enough garlic).

My husband and I loved it and my teenager grudgingly admitted it was "pretty good," so I'll take it.

*if you use pesto you are going to need WAY less. I used several healthy tablespoons but that's it. Nothing on the side was necessary. 

(iPhone photo)

Twitter Question: Vegetarian Main Dishes

By Jessica

Recently, fellow Lush writer Elsha asked for assistance replacing meat-heavy main dishes with more vegetarian offerings, on twitter:

"I would love a @foodlush post about what vegetarian/vegan main dishes you guys make! I rely a lot on meat."

The first thing I did in response to that request is send her a link to this post I did for Kristie (former Lush writer) as a round-up of easy to prepare main dishes during a busy time, for her, at work.

Some other vegetarian main dishes I love:

Jonna's grilled eggplant

Grilled stuffed avocado

Vegetarian chili dogs

Rachel Ray's eggplant stacks

Vegan enchiladas from Oh She Glows

Massaman Curry

Veggie naan pizza

Vegetable pot pie

Tortilla and black bean pie from Pink Parsley

And something else I've been eating lately as a quick main dish, I fry up an over easy egg and put it over the top of some veggies I've pan roasted in a cast iron skillet mixed with my favorite brown rice and quinoa blend. It sounds weird, but it's really so good.