Talking about Cauliflower

Hi everyone,  hope the sun's not to hot for you here in Australia (it's been delightful down here in the SE corner)... and that you're all keeping warm and cosy for those over the pond.

Thought I'd have a little bit to say about ... cauliflowers!  Borrrring ?  probably, so I'll start off with a ...  cabbage !!! 

Our baby cabbage that is. MD (My Darling is my name for hubby... for newcomers to my blog) grew this sweet little one last Winter.  We I picked it while it was still tiny.  It was so cute and with a little curl on top that I brought it in and proudly showed off our new addition:

Ok, back to cauliflowers.
We've been on a kind of low carb-ish diet since November last year.  I say "kind of" and "carb-ish" because we stick to that regime, except when we don't.. I mean, what would Christmas have been without all that yummy food!! ... and Birthdays... you get the drift.

Anyway, we've actually lost approx 10kgs between us as at today and, best of all, we don't feel hungry or look for sweet things too much anymore.

That aside, my point of this post is to tell you that, in finding a substitute for potatoes and rice, I decided to experiment with cauliflower.  There's such a thing as "cauliflower rice" referred to in low carb recipes.  Admittedly, it took me a while to even try it but it's actually very nice.  It seems to change the taste somehow and, yes, it works for us as both a rice and potato substitute.
Its texture when cooked is very stable... it keeps warm for ages if  someone is getting a bit uncordinated in their cooking (me) - doesn't go all gluggy like rice.
It also "fills" us as our beloved spuds did.

Enough banging on, if you're willing to read further, I've put some photos in with captions:

There's a lot of grating involved!  I added zucchini, peas and a bit of cabbage in this particular meal.

A bit of butter, olive oil, a sprinkle of curry powder (NO Water), lid on and let it all gently saute.  It's very tasty even without the curry powder, I just love to fiddle with things and am still experimenting.

Keep the heat low and stir occasionally.  Fortunately, I have a willing first-rate Stirrer (to the right of this pic) who's only too willing to look after that little job for me.
(Froggie was getting so tetchy at not being in posts very much anymore - had to let him in at least one.  Little does he know, but I'm preparing a Froggie's Photo Album of his earlier days in this blog,  which I'll put up in my top bar just under the header.  That'll please the little fellow... hopefully!!)

Time to Plate Up (ha ha... who's been watching far too many cooking shows!!)
Believe it or not, it's as filling as if we'd had potatoes on our plate.
The gravy shows we're not pedantic low-carbers... as I say, we're more on the  "ish" side - but there's some things we just won't give up!

Thought I'd add this in too.  It's my version of beef chow mein ... with grated cauliflower instead of rice.  

UPDATING to say that grated cauliflower, microwaved in a dish with a lid, no water, tiny splash of olive oil, sprinkle of pepper and dots of butter... stirred now and then.... is delicious too.  In fact it seems to enhance the flavour even more than my methods above.  Easy as well!  

Last but not least.  This post needs Colour!!
Some feral plums which we share with pick before the birds get to them.  Not so good in the taste department but jolly nice in a fruit smoothie.

Well, that's it.  Thanks if you made it this far, and if you didn't well thanks for the thought anyway.
Cheerio for now, it's birdie week - so will be popping over to Stewarts for Wild Bird Wednesday later.

All the best!