Cauliflower Rice

 I am in love with my new Vitamix blender. 2 horsepower of serious business.
While out to dinner with friends last week, we had Cauliflower Rice. So, so, easy to make.
Especially with the Vitamix. Bob - our cook - no - our chef,  served it as a side dish with fresh pineapple.

I'll write my 'recipe' at the bottom of this post if you are interested.

 I had this last week off and my little sis came out from Minnesota to sort out some family interventions. I'd love to write well about depression and aging parents but cannot come up with words that would describe the problems without getting too much into family politics.

My older sister has sunk into a deep depression and our daily visits seemed to help but she would not leave her house. Her son who lives with her is very worried. An unintended success was finding out the nephew needed a business casual suit for interviews he is involved in. So the aunties took him suit shopping.

This sister gets to her doctors appointments and grocery shopping but does nothing non-essential.

My mom and dad are in their 80's and downsized 2 1/2 years ago to a single story home in the same town. With my older sister and brother not available (they live local), I feel this burden on my shoulders. They are about 35 minutes away from me with good traffic. With my long work hours, we feel they are increasingly isolated.

Our third and recent snowstorm brought this home when my little sister and I arrived to find no one had come over to shovel off their driveway or check that they were okay (seven days). They had plenty of food (old school preparedness) but still... one of their new neighbors has boys in their 20's... This wouldn't happen in my neighborhood.

The plow blade came down their street and left ice boulders blocking their driveway. If they had needed to get out, they couldn't.

I cleared their drive and  created a walkway that melted off in the sun. It was a pretty thick layer of ice covered by snow.

My sis and I came up with some suggestions to finalize the week and thoroughly piss off those family members.
At least we can rely on our Oregon weather to be finished with snow for the winter. (knock on wood)

We spent eight days working these family problems.
That's when I discovered the amazing fluffy ice the vitamix makes. OMG - best Margarita's ever.
The vitamix didn't even change sounds fluffing up that ice.

If you look again at the photo of my sis above, she fell while out running in the snow & ice in Minnesota three days before she came. It's a broken ankle. She came out with a knee scooter, an immobilizing boot and we also had crutches.

In our Oregon snow & ice.

You really can't kick her to the curb for trying to get stubborn family members to improve their lot. We played the sympathy card for all  it was worth.

 I did manage one fun morning that week meeting up with Pencil Girl at Fabric Depot. We had tried to meet up a few days previously but Portland was pretty bad with ice compared to where we live. On one day, meeting a nephew for lunch, we turned off the bare interstate onto five lanes of rutted ice. Pencil Girl and I met up later once the ice had melted.

She was looking to improve her niece's prom dress which was already awesome, so we solved the world's problems in the lace and bridal section.

Cuddle airplanes and look at the red chevron cuddle. Very soft.

After dropping my sister off at the airport, I decided to drive to a couple of estate sales south of my town and found some treasures. Garage sale therapy.

My Creative Friend went to one of them before me. It was the estate of one of the Keil's. Their ancestors founded the Aurora Colony.

She bought a large box of old photographs and found some that she will need to donate to the Aurora Museum. Including a child's handwritten history in a composition book from the 20's.

This magazine page fell out and she almost gave it to me - look at the silly airplane. This is just the right-hand corner of the illustration. "Drawn, ever so Roughly by Michelson Hollywood" is inscribed at the bottom corner. Looks like vintage satire magazine advertising from the 40's.  It gave me a huge smile to read all the little captions.


Cauliflower Rice

1 head of Cauliflower
Small can of Coconut Milk (1/2 cup)
Seasoning
Walnut Oil or Olive oil
Fresh Pineapple, diced fine.
Sausages

Chop cauliflower up roughly, discarding the leaves and stem areas. 

Toss into vitamix and Pulse until like grains of rice.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in skillet. Transfer 'rice' to pan and cook on Medium high for 5 - 8 minutes with lid over rice to help steam it.

Add seasonings (I used a cajun seasoning and a seasoned salt shaker)

Add Coconut milk and heat through.

I added chopped sausages and topped it with the pineapple for a main dish.

I will have leftovers for a few days too. Yum.

A Pint Of Green Juice

I was a good girl this morning. I made a huge batch of green juice for a healthier May. 

The last time I drank my green juice was early in April. I had not been feeling well with my auto-immune and I have a horrible habit of thinking, if I feel so crummy, then I can eat whatever, as I can't possibly feel any worse.

Logically - that doesn't work. I do feel worse -- not being vigilant eating well for my auto-immune. It's funny where internal beliefs drive us.

Then I saw a beautiful bouquet of Mock-Orange in my Instagram feed and when I was all finished cleaning up the juicing operation, I went out and cut myself a bouquet. Right next to these fragrant Mock Orange blooms were these luscious Iris's. Love the deep purple against the white.

 Cleaning out the fridge for juicing, I came across this Cauliflower moldering in the vegetable drawer. I turned it into a quick soup.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup
Non-dairy, non-soy.

Head of cauliflower cut up into chunks, trim off the icky bits.
Steamed in beef stock (or whatever liquid you have lurking in your fridge).
If you use water, you'll need to adjust herbs.
2 tsp. dried Thyme
dash salt

When tender - about 20 minutes, turn off heat and let sit while you finish your juicing clean-up.

Use your stick blender to blend and mush the cauliflower, slowly adding coconut milk until you feel it is the right amount. Between 2 -3 cups. Blend until smooth.


easy peasy dinner for tonight.

 My green juice always seems to taste better in cool glasses.
Thank you dear daughter.

Today's Green Juice.
In your juicer:
3 granny smith apples
1 1/2 bunches of celery

In your blender:
Use juice from apples and celery to blend:
1 giant bag of fresh spring greens - spinach, kale, arugula, etc.
5 baby bok choy's ('cuz baby veggies taste better?)
4 zucchini

and today I added:
Stalk rhubarb
2 tbsps sea kelp
1 cup Hemp hearts

I have heard Rhubarb is  anti-parasitic. My doc thinks my fatigue and depression this spring might spring from a parasite I picked up during my January trip to Hawaii when I was so tired after the Christmas work (63 hrs/wk!).

I grew up with rhubarb and seriously dislike the texture - stewed rhubarb anyone? But I'm willing to try anything and oftentimes, veggies taste better as juice.
The hemp hearts were something new at my store and I thought I'd try them. The sea kelp was bought a while ago and forgotten about.

The only other weird thing about juicing is I prefer the green. If you add blueberries - it's brown. as in - eeuuwhw. If you add beets for the sweetener instead of apples, it's red, which is slightly better than brown.

I prefer green. I can't tolerate too much fruit, so my juice is mostly veggies.

And hubby has asked, "what's that taste like?"  me: "like drinking your veggies". I wouldn't do it if I weren't so sick. I try to use organic as much as possible. It's like 30 minutes to clean up, so I make enough for the week.

My sweet SIL gave me this little garden ornament for my birthday.

Happy Mail and Curried Cauliflower Rice

I received Happy Mail today from Crafty Tokyo Mama.


I was sewing from our mutual japanese sewing book and sent her the jap. style pocket tissue case  I made. Usable, but I changed things up because I got lost in the directions. She made me one that is correct. There is a pocket on the outside of the pouch for your tissues with a zippered pocket behind that.

 Look at the fabric on the back - so cute with it's Oregon reference.  I've only seen this fabric in black & white so this red is a treat.

 Her card is origami that folds up into a cute puppy dog.

 It's a square of paper with colored sections that you fold just right.
Why don't we have access to cute stuff like this in the USA?

I know you can order online but this was in a little japanese store. Maybe even the Daiso 100 yen store!

 I was reading Angry Chicken last night and she featured a Cauliflower recipe that I thought I could eat. I came home from the store with a giant head of cauliflower.

Recipe is from Martha Stewart and basically is curried rice with cauliflower. I did make some changes. My garbanzo bean can from the pantry was from 2009 (oops!). I don't tolerate legumes well so you can see it's been a while since I tried. Never fear, they were tossed into the garbage - another job on my list! Clean out the pantry.

I had some beef stock in the fridge and I used about a cup  more than the recipe called for. The liquid should be double the amount of rice and the recipe was asking me to trust it on less liquid....

I added some mushrooms and some chicken leftovers from two nights ago.

I roasted my florets of cauliflower in oil (  I used my walnut oil) and I felt it needed more than the 2 teaspoons called for in the recipe.

I added coconut milk instead of cream and this recipe liked that as well. I struggle with getting enough fat in my diet so this recipe was  a hit.
Add all four teaspoons of curry powder - I almost didn't.

I also needed to bake this about 26 minutes for the rice to get tender instead of the 15 minutes called for in the recipe.

I am definitely putting this on rotation. I can tolerate rice in small amounts but could have easily eaten double what I ate. It was that good.

Cream of Roasted Cauliflower Soup - non dairy, wheat, soy

 I've taken photos of my cream of broccoli soup and it looks green. Suffice it to say, cream of cauliflower looks --well --it's not photogenic. Really.

If you have been dreaming of Cream of Cauliflower soup, here's a version I did on instinct.

CREAM of ROASTED CAULIFLOWER SOUP

1 head CAULIFLOWER
1 quart Stock - I used homemade beef stock
THYME - 1 tsp.+
TURMERIC - 1/4 tsp
SALT
OIL - I used Hazelnut Oil
ARTICHOKE HEARTs in water. I used western family - 1/2 can ~7 oz.
Can of COCONUT MILK - I used Thai Kitchen 13.66oz

Cut your Cauliflower into chunks and place on baking sheet. Drizzle a bit of oil over Cauliflower. Place under broiler ~ rack at about  5" down. Broil/roast for about 10 minutes(?), turning a couple of times. Goal is to get some flavor into the cauliflower - not to make blackened cauli soup.

Meanwhile, heat stock in 3qt saucepan, add teaspoon+ of Thyme and 1/4 tsp of turmeric. Maybe some salt. As soon as cauliflower is roasted enough, add to pot and place lid on to steam cauliflower until tad past tender. -- 20 minutes? During the last five minutes or where cauliflower is about to go tender, add the artichoke hearts. We want them to go past tender too.

Turn off heat and mush with your blender stick and blend. If you need to throw it into a blender - go for it. I am loving my blender stick for these kind of soups.

At this point, you can add any kind of milk you can tolerate. Dairy and Soy are my nemesis's. Coconut milk is tolerable. Blend more until it is as thick & creamy as you desire.

Garnish with a bit of Romano cheese grated on top.

No idea why adding the artichoke hearts popped into my head -I guess I was thinking they would neutralize the strong cauli taste but I worried they would leave long stringy things. Steaming them until past tender took care of that worry. By the time you add the milk, it all works together.

RE: Oil. Use any oil that you have. Olive oil would work here as well as Walnut oil.  Grapeseed Oil too. This is what I had open.

Re: Milk. The 'fresh' coconut milk in the fridge had gone bad - they sell it in such big containers. I actually like the cans better - about two cups. I think if I made this again, I might use just a cup and see how it tastes.

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I've got lots to say in the blog but all my thoughts are really random, seldom finished. They are in progress.

The following could have gone into another post, but there are no photos, it's really random, needs to be written down to get it out of my head.

I have a serious addiction to Grimm going on. Thank God for Hulu TV. The little tv I do watch tends towards BBC productions and locally made shows. Movies put me to sleep which I reserve for those days when I am not feeling functional.

I am on Episode 5. During the first episode, I was thinking it was a little crazy scary in a Steven King way but I distracted myself by looking for Portland landmarks. However, when the mail carrier showed up - I got hooked. This fifth episode had  great shots of the St. John's Bridge - which my grandfather helped build. Grandpa was a steel worker.

I will probably have to watch this series again as it was filmed here in Portland and it's full of trivial pursuit-type film locations.

I had the last couple of Mondays off for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. I had time to relax and I prepped for it by checking out a few books from the library. Now it seems that I need someone to come tell me to move my butt as I am having a great time reading and watching shows on the internet. It appears I am doing nothing at all.

On New Year's day, I watched all four of the Downton Abbey episodes. The first three were on PBS.org  and the fourth was on real TV - as in - I stayed up to watch the fourth episode at 9pm.

I have made one item since New Years as a thank you to someone who sent me fun presents from Japan. She is a new friend for me and lives on Awagi Island. Waiting to post on that one.

I know I have been busy but it has been at a slower pace. I managed to take down the Christmas ornaments and sort through to make a box each for my daughter and son. I plan on mailing it to them when they turn 30. Hopefully they will be situated by then and get all teary-eyed at unwrapping christmas ornaments they made in second grade  (macaroni pasta christmas tree anyone?).

I hope anyone who reads this had a chance to slow down too. It feels good once in a while.