Cauliflower cheese

I had pneumonia last winter and cauliflower cheese was my staple diet. It got me through and is my No1 favourite dinner!

 

Cauli cheese for me is a no, no!! I an eat it at 4pm and levels will just rise and rise during night...

Real shame as I absolutely love it.

 

Is that the version with flour based white sauce?

 

No, totally with cheese / cream cheese / cream. Even a thin slice of cheese shoves me up skyward and makes my 3am wake up for injections horrendous.
Cheese is juat something else that acts badly with me...
such a shame as I do love it.

Today though may lovely cauli rice wlith a strange curry of mixed coloured carrots, broccoli, asparagus, bnut squash and tried some peas too... cauli this way is the only way I can eat it!! (I know it not low carb but it is for me as I only eat one meal on a teaplate!!)

Loved photo... I used to add in sprinkling of turmeric and ground black pepper too, to my cauli cheese.

Ooh, envy!!

 

The Hairy Bikers say to wrap the cooked cauliflower in a clean tea towel and squeeze. I have done all the time, leaving for a few minutes to be 'blotted', works every time.

 

I did this last Sunday with a roast, everyone loved it including my five year old grandson. I used Philli, Alpro cream and topped with cheddar. When I used to make it with flour based sauce, I always added mustard powder, can't think how I can incorporate it as everything is a wet ingredient. Doing it today with roasted chicken thighs, sprouts in balsamic dressing.

 

Either use ready made mustard or just make a paste with the mustard powder using a little bit of hot not boiling water then add it to the rest of your ingredients

 

I usually use a mixture of cheeses, depending what I want to achieve.

Cream cheese is a staple,
So is mature cheddar
Then i add Parmesan on top (gives a crispy/crunchy topping
Or blue cheese (lovely flavour)
Other variations would be Edam or Gouda or smoked cheese.

Lovely.

Then adding in bacon or Mattersons or even corned beef adds extra oomph.

 

I adore cauli cheese, and didn’t have it for ages because the low fat version (because I was a good NHS patient and followed the low fat advice) was just so wet, thin and generally miserable. So when I switch to LCHF food, I gave it another go. I cook in batches, one cauli does four meals:

1 cauliflower, ripped into florets, roasted at 180C with a tbsp goat butter and 1tbsp olive oil (plus S&P) for around 40 minutes, tossed every 10 minutes until golden brown.

Sauce: I can’t eat cow dairy, so feel free to sub whatever you like!
1 tub herby soft goat’s cheese from Lidl
1 125g pot double goats cream
120g hard sheep’s cheese (keep 1/3 back for sprinkling on top)
1/4 pot Alpro soya yogurt
Plenty of salt and pepper

Stir all the sauce ingredients together and season to taste. Layer the roasted cauli in oven dishes, (for freezing I use foil takeaway containers, as they go straight in the oven from frozen) and split the sauce between them. Sprinkle the reserved grated cheese on top, and bake until golden brown on top

Roasting it first gives it a wonderful nutty flavour, and all the cheese and cream makes it so rich. It’s just wonderful, I have it at least twice a week. I use a similar recipe to make fish pie - I just add fish pie mix and dill to the sauce, with a celeriac mash on top.

 

Oooh, yum!!

 

Thank you all for the recipe suggestions - I am going to try it over the coming week - need to purchase ingredients. I love cauliflower cheese and have avoided it because I did not know you could do a cheese sauce without the flour.............. also love the suggestions of adding bacon, ham etc.
I am now going to go back and see what other lovely ideas you have that I can try and hope to get myself back on track as really struggling to keep carbs low enough for me.

 

I made a vegan cauliflower cheese for a friend yesterday when I was roasting a batch of cauliflower to make some goat cheese based ones for myself. I used a mix of vegan garlic & herb “Sheese” soft cheese, Tesco Free From gated mozzarella, Alpro Simply Plain yogurt and plenty of seasoning, with a sprinkle of grated mozzarella on the top. Tasted ok to me, so I hope she likes it!