We Interrupt The Discussion on Herbs to Talk About...CAULIFLOWER

It seems everyone these days is trying to cut out the starchy carbs that can pile on weight, or at least make it hard to lose weight.  We've heard how cauliflower is the "new mashed potato" dish of the year, but I don't know many people who are actually using it as a replacement.  I was curious to see how riced cauliflower would hold up against real rice in a recipe.  I made stuffed cabbage this evening, mixing half of the ground beef with brown rice to stuff half of the cabbage leaves, and the other half with riced cauliflower.  Aside from the cauliflower pieces not looking as even as rice, the appearance wasn't very different.  But, oh joy, the taste difference was barely noticeable!  Cauliflower has a slightly peppery taste, but mixed in with the other ingredients, you couldn't tell, plus it had the texture of rice, and only 1/7 the calories!  A cup of cooked cauliflower has 34 calories, a cup of cooked white rice has 205, and a cup of cooked brown rice has 218.  So if you're watching your weight, try this great substitution.

To "rice" cauliflower, break off florets and cook in boiling salted water for about 10 minutes, until soft.  Grate the florets, discarding the stems, although if the cauliflower is soft enough, it will break into fine pieces as you press it against the grater.  Here is my version of stuffed cabbage.  A lot of recipe books will tell you to cook the cabbage rolls in layers in a Dutch oven, but I've always liked the way they turn out in a roaster in the regular oven.  That's the way Mom did it...

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 med. to lg. onion, chopped
1 tbsp. olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
1 head cauliflower
1-2 eggs, beaten slightly
2 cans cream of tomato soup
1/2 can (6 oz. can) tomato paste
1 can or small bag sauerkraut

Remove core from cabbage, drop into a large pot of boiling, salted water, allowing the leaves to soften until they can be pulled away from the head, one at a time and placed in colander.  Continue until the cabbage head is small and leaves no longer pull off easily.  Set aside the remaining small head for use in another dish.  Put olive oil in a large skillet, saute until med. soft.  Add ground beef and cook, breaking up chunks and stirring until beef is no longer pink.  Drain off the fat.  Add salt and pepper, mix in approximately 1 cup of riced cauliflower (more or less as you like) and the beaten eggs.

Taking one cabbage leaf at a time, remove the tough center seam but cutting out with sharp knife or kitchen shears (just cut out an inverted v shape about halfway up the leaf). Use the largest leaves first, as they are greener and softer, so that any left over when you run out of the meat mixture will be the smaller, whiter leaves.  Put a large spoonful of the meat-cauliflower mixture in the center, fold in the sides, and roll up, securing with a toothpick.  Place each roll side by side in a roasting pan or baking dish until you have used up all of the meat mixture.

Combine the 2 cans of soup, tomato paste and water in a bowl, using a whisk to blend.  Pour over all of the cabbage rolls in the baking dish.  Put a large spoonful of sauerkraut on top of each cabbage roll, more or less as you like.  Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for approximately 1 1/2 hours, checking to make sure sauerkraut doesn't burn.  About halfway through the cooking time, you can spoon some of the soup mixture from the bottom of the pan over the sauerkraut on the top of the rolls.  Serves 6-8.

Herbs, Wonderful Herbs

Every eating plan these days seems to point to the same thing - eat more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein, eat more fish and less beef, avoid white, refined starches and sugars, and use olive or canola oil moderately.  In order to do that and not get bored, we need flavor.  It just makes sense to experiment with fresh and dried herbs, and sometimes you can hit on combinations that make you wonder why you never tried it before.  Plus, it's great fun experimenting!

Let's take dill weed.  I once read that dill was good in a variety of things, including eggs.  Eggs?  Yuck.  Or so I thought.  But here is how I found out how good it really is.  I was making an easy fish dinner (more on that later) that contained dill.  Then, as I often do, I grabbed all of the fresh vegetables out of my refrigerator that I could find - some zucchini, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and carrots.  Usually green pepper (or red, or yellow) is good too.  I chopped up some onion, sauteed it with some fresh garlic in a little olive oil, and added the chopped vegetables for a stir-fry.  I seasoned it with Nature's Seasons (Morton's had better never stop making that), and then since I was using dill on my fish, I added some dried dill weed to the vegetables.  It was GREAT and really complemented the fish.  A couple of days later I was making eggs for breakfast, so, trying to be healthy I decided to scramble them with some of the leftover vegetables.  I heated the veggies in a tiny bit of butter, added two scrambled eggs and a diced piece of American cheese, and cooked until the eggs were set.  No kidding, the dilled vegetables in the eggs were DELICIOUS!

In my next blog I will tell you about the health benefits of dill, but here's the easy recipe for the fish with dill, given to me by Susan, whose friend, Jan, makes her cod this way.

Baked Cod with Dill (Edited version)

1 lb. fresh cod fillets
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp. dried dill weed

Preheat oven to 350⁰. Combine olive oil, mustard and lime juice into a thin paste.  Place the fish fillets on a lightly oiled baking pan, then sprinkle the dill over the fillets.  Bake in oven approximately 14 minutes, until fish is cooked through and flaky.  Serves 3.