All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Baked Cauliflower Curry

By 18 Comments

Baked Cauliflower Curry

I really like this curry sauce. A lot. I’ve been working on my baked cauliflower curry for a while now and I’m so pleased with it! Baking the cauliflower gives the curry a delicious nutty taste. The flavour and texture of the sauce when it’s blended is really similar to a sweet korma sauce, but all the sweetness here comes from vegetables. It’s a really flexible recipe too; there are some suggestions for changing it up at the end.

Ingredients

You will need (for four):

  • 1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
  • 1-2 tbsp olive oil, for cooking
  • Salt and pepper

For the curry sauce: read more

Three Cheese and Cauliflower Macaroni

By 9 Comments

three cheese and cauliflower macaroni

I often make macaroni cheese, or some variation of it. I like to play around with adding vegetables, different cheeses or flavours in the sauce. This three cheese and cauliflower macaroni cheese is one of the most delicious I’ve made. The combination of Emmental (for sweetness and stringiness), Cheddar (for bite and cheesiness) and Parmesan (for savouriness) means you get the best of all the cheeses! And don’t worry, there’s a cauliflower in there too; to add a little vegetable healthiness amongst all that indulgence.

ingredients

You will need (for two generous portions):

  • 150g macaroni
  • 1 small cauliflower, chopped into small florets
  • 25g unsalted butter
  • 25g plain flour
  • 300ml milk
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 75g strong Cheddar cheese, grated
  • 75g Emmental cheese, grated
  • 30g Parmesan, grated
  • Salt and pepper
  • Handful breadcrumbs
  • Sprig fresh rosemary

method

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the macaroni and cook according to packet instructions. Add the cauliflower to a steamer over the macaroni for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking. Drain them both well and put to one side.

To make the cheese sauce melt the butter in a small saucepan on a medium heat and then add the flour. Cook for a minute or two then gradually whisk in the milk. Keep whisking to ensure there are no lumps.

Continue whisking the sauce until it bubbles and becomes thick. Remove from the heat, stir through most of the cheese, the mustard and a little salt and pepper.

Mix the macaroni, cauliflower and cheese sauce together then tip into a baking dish. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and then sprinkle over the breadcrumbs. Pop the rosemary sprig on top.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 25-30 minutes, or until golden on top.

You might be thinking that the rosemary is a bit pointless just stuck on top of the macaroni cheese like that. Well, it’s actually deliberate. When the dish comes out of the oven you want to remove all the leaves from the rosemary and leave them on top. Then, when you serve it up everyone gets a bit of roasted rosemary which has such a great flavour. This three cheese and cauliflower macaroni is such a comfort food dish for me; cheese, pasta, cauliflower and woody rosemary are all so good together.

Cauliflower and Sundried Tomato Pasta

By 15 Comments

ingredients for cauliflower pasta

I always think cauliflower is at its very best when served with cheese. As much as I think this is still true I have been really enjoying roasting and frying it lately and this cauliflower and sundried tomato pasta is my current favourite way to eat cauliflower. Cheap to make, vegan, delicious and so fast to cook; we’re talking 15 minutes from fridge to table. If only all weeknight cooking could be like this!

Ingredients

You will need (for four servings):

  • 300g pasta £0.30
  • 1 small romanesco (or other) cauliflower, chopped into small florets £1.50
  • 6 sundried tomatoes, finely chopped £0.30
  • 2 small garlic cloves, crushed £0.10
  • 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil £0.15
  • Pinch saffron £0.50
  • Salt and pepper £0.02

Total £2.87

Method

You’ll need a pan full of boiling water with a steamer to go on top. It’s no problem if you don’t have a steamer; you’ll just need an extra pan of boiling water for the cauliflower.

Bring the water to a boil, add a little salt then stir in the pasta. Put the steamer over the water then add the cauliflower to the steamer and put the lid on. Leave the cauliflower to steam for 4 minutes.

Meanwhile get a small frying pan on a medium heat and the olive oil and garlic. Leave the garlic to warm up and infuse the oil for a minute or two before adding the sundried tomatoes and saffron.

Remove the cauliflower from the steamer and add this to the pan with the tomatoes. Fry everything together for a few minutes then add a ladleful of the boiling pasta water. Break the cauliflower up with a wooden spoon as it cooks.

By now the pasta should be cooked, test it to make sure, then drain it.

Stir around two thirds of the cauliflower mix through the pasta and serve up; use the remaining third to sprinkle over the pasta at the end.

Adding the saffron really does add a fantastic flavour and colour to the dish but you could leave it out if you wanted to. Any cauliflower would work for this but I think the green romanesco is so lovely to cook with. If you fancied grating over a little Parmesan I think that would be a delicious addition. I might try adding some toasted pine nuts or finely chopped chilli next time. When I was in Italy last year we made a dish similar to this which used courgettes rather than cauliflower so I’ll definitely be trying that in future too!

Purple Cauliflower Cheese

By 12 Comments

When you have a cauliflower and you add a little cheese you can’t fail to make something unfathomably gorgeous. There is no other place I know of that you can get a purple cauliflower apart from my local farmers’ market. If you saw it at a glance you may have to do a double take to reassure yourself that it is real. 

I think the cauliflower is a very lucky vegetable. It’s no looker but I’m yet to meet someone who doesn’t think the union of cauliflower and cheese is glorious. Being purple as opposed to its equally delicious, much paler, white cousin adds something extra to what might otherwise have been a beige overload on the side of the plate.  read more

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