Cauliflower Base Pizza

I had heard of this several times and wanted to try it but never got round to it (or had any cauliflowers!). I also was a bit skeptical as to whether Little Miss' dad would even give it a go but when meal planning this week I decided to bite the bullet and go for it! 

I used this recipe from detoxinista for the base: http://detoxinista.com/2014/02/vegan-cauliflower-pizza-crust/ 

I forgot to order ground almonds so put some nutritional yeast in instead. I'm not sure that they had the same effect but the cheesy taste was yummy! 

We topped our pizza with tomato purée, roasted courgette and aubergine, kale, silken tofu, cherry tomatoes and finally some grated vegan cheese. 

I must admit that I didn't leave myself enough time to make the base to the letter. The cauliflower was still warm when I pressed it into the baking tray and I'm pretty sure I did not get enough water out of it be ause it didn't stay together as well as I would have liked. However, it was very delicious! Little Miss is still being ridiculously fussy with food due to teething (bread and fruit is almost all she'll eat at the moment) however she was spooning this up so quickly! Despite being very healthy it did not taste too different from regular pizza. The consistency of ours was definitely different but as I said before I didn't do it completely right.

This is such a great way to get lots of veg into your little ones and not at all difficult to make (and not too time consuming if you plan it well unlike me). I was amazed by how much I liked it so even if you are having reservations I definitely think you should try it; I'm sure you'll be surprised!

This is our very unprofessional looking pizza!:

Enjoy!

JULES XOXO

Some recommended recipe books and websites

With our new meal planning resolution, it has encouraged me to look through my recipe books a lot more. There are a few places I have found quite a few recipes that we have tried and really enjoyed.

The first one is the Happy Herbivore Cookbook:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Happy-Herbivore-Cookbook-Lindsay-Nixon/dp/1935618121

We have tried several of these recipes including the Broccoli Pesto Pasta which went down really well. As the recipes are low-fat/fat free I often add a little walnut oil, flaxseeds or tahini etc to add some healthy fat to Little Miss' portion.

Another is Vegan with a Vengeance:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Vengeance-Delicious-Animal-free-Recipes/dp/1904943667/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392050578&sr=1-1&keywords=vegan+with+a+vengeance

We really like the spanish omelette and sweet potato crepes.

Another resource we have been pulling from a lot is the post punk kitchen website:

http://www.theppk.com/

Recipes we have tried recently include roasted red pepper mac and cheese, the beetroot burgers and the Ethiopian spicy tomato lentil stew which were all successes.

I hope you find these as useful and yummy as we do!

JULES XOXO

Our take on Moroccan pilaff

As you may have been able to see I am struggling to find the time to blog much at the moment. Little Miss is lots of fun at the moment so we are constantly on the go. We have got to the stage where she eats pretty much everything so dinners are just what us adults fancy. One of my New Years resolutions is to meal plan and to try at least one new recipe a week. So far we have had 2 weeks of meal planning. Not only has it really saved us money on our shopping (this weeks was half our average shop!!) but it also meant that we didn't have to rush out to buy some ingredients for a new recipe (or any recipe for that matter).

For today we had planned in a Moroccan pilaff. I never follow recipes to the letter and often like to add more veg or more variety of veg to dishes which is what I did to this one as it only had carrots. It also wanted almonds in but because Little Miss isn't at the whole nut stage I skipped that part.

Here is the recipe I used. It made enough for two large adult potions, a child portion and 2.5 lunch portions for tomorrow too.

Ingredients:

2 medium onions, chopped

4 medium carrots, chopped (circles/semi-circles)

1 medium courgette, chopped to same size as the carrots

1/3 butternut squash, peeled and chopped to the same size again

1.5 tsp cinnamon

Some olive oil for frying

300g long grain rice, rinsed

A couple of handfuls of raisins/sultanas

A couple of handfuls of dried apricots, cut in half

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

2. Fry the onions in the oil and cinnamon for a few minutes

3. Add the other vegetables and cook for a further 5 or so minutes

4. Add the rice, raisins and apricots and stir to coat in oil

5. Put everything into a casserole dish but only coming up halfway. I had to use two! It helps if the dish(es) have lids.

6. Pour on 1 litre 125 ml of boiling water (from the kettle) over the mixture.

7. Cover with the lid or some foil and cook in the oven for around 45 minutes when the water should be absorbed and the rice should be cooked.

And voila! There you go. For the adults we did find we wanted to add some salt at the table.

My boyfriend always thinks he doesn't like fruit in savoury dishes but he did really enjoy this and so did Little Miss. The rice was nice and sticky for her to pick up some with her fingers or to feed herself with a spoon.

JULES XOXO