Courtesy of the Slow-Carb Diet where we basically eat no carbs, most of my favorite foods and more importantly, meals (sandwiches, pasta, risotto, stir fry with rice, french fries. . . .) are virtually impossible to eat. Since starting the Slow-Carb Diet last week, dining out (except for “cheat day”) has taken a back seat to our new favorite hobby: Creative Cooking.
Yesterday we spent a few hours re-organizing the kitchen and getting rid of some appliances we barely use anymore now that we have our Sous Vide Supreme Water Oven. We have become obsessed with “sousviding” which has been working out really well for us. Meat, chicken, fish, vegetables, eggs. . . even fruit.
After sealing up the last of the broccoli for the water oven, I took a step back and started staring at the cauliflower. I love roasted cauliflower. But now that carbs are out of the question, my cauliflower needs to take on a new role . . more of a main dish.
Poking around on Pinterest I have found a lot of recipes calling for “cauliflower rice” or “cauliflower risotto”, most of which included cheese. I needed to find a way to “creatively cook” this risotto. But this time without our water oven. We were going old school!
This is what I came up with.
Slow-Carb Cauliflower Risotto
By Sharyn Evron
Since starting the slow-carb diet, we have been trying to come up with new and unique ways to adopt our favorite dishes. As big fans of risotto, not only was the rice off limits, most all recipes include some sort of cheese. . .another no-no. This Slow-Carb Cauliflower Risotto is the delicious result of our creative cooking . . . so good we ate the leftovers for breakfast*!
Slow-Carb Cauliflower Risotto
- Prep Time:
- 30 Minutes
- Cook Time:
- 40 Minutes
- Total Time:
- 1 Hours 10 Minutes
- Yield:
- 4 servings
- Category (e.g. appetizer, entree):
- Main Dish or Side Dish
- Cuisine:
- Vegetarian
Ingredients:
- 1 large head of cauliflower
- 1 large onion, chopped/minced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 10 oz. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
- 2 cups chickpeas
- 3/4 cup vegetable broth
- Ghee
- 1 tsp thyme
- Additional Spices (See Note below)
Instructions:
- Break up the head of cauliflower and either chop with a knife, use a hand grater or a food processor to form small pieces of cauliflower which look similar to rice.
- In medium saucepan, saute the onions, garlic and thyme with ghee (we used homemade garlic ghee) until fragrant and transparent.
- Add a cup of chick peas and the vegetable broth to the pan and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
- With an immersion blender, gently blend until creamy and smooth.
- Add cauliflower, remaining chickpeas and thawed spinach, mix and cover to heat through for 10 minutes.
- Remove lid so any remaining liquid gets reduced.
- Spice it up!!
Note:
You can make many flavor variations based on spices; last night we tried two versions:
- Truffle, Parmesan and Black Garlic Seasoning; Garlic Powder, Salt
- Kashmiri Saffron Curry Seasoning, Regular Curry, Cumin, Salt
Best suggestion we can give. . . BE CREATIVE.
* For breakfast we tossed in some crispy turkey bacon. Not vegetarian, but definitely tasty.
