Thursday, June 19, 2014

Fried Rice without the Rice?!





















One of my favorite dishes that I am sad to not eat for a while is Fried Rice - I love Thai Fried Rice especially, but most versions are good to me :)  When I was looking for recipes to make without grains, I came across this one which uses grated cauliflower instead of rice.  I was a little worried it wouldn't be the comfort food that I love, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was really good!!  It wasn't exactly the same as the regular version, but not in a bad way.  Grating the cauliflower was messy (but that might have just been me), and it is not a cheap option since organic cauliflower is not cheap at all - but overall I was really happy with it.  One head of cauliflower made just enough for us - and we would have definitely eaten more if we had it.

Cauliflower Fried Rice

Ingredients:
3 cups shredded cauliflower
1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup carrots, thinly sliced (I used baby carrots I got at the Farmer's market - so good!)
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup onion, diced (I used green onions from my garden, but I will add regular onions as well next time)
1/2 tbsp oil (whichever kind you like, I use Sunflower Oil)
2 eggs, scrambled
3 tbsp soy sauce

Saute the onion and garlic in oil on medium/high heat until softened.  Add the carrots and peas, and saute until cooked through.  Add the eggs, soy sauce and grated cauliflower - stir frequently and cook for 5-7 min until cauliflower is softened and cooked (but not mushy).

It goes together really quickly so make sure everything is chopped, grated, scrambled before you start.  I only used the green onions I brought in from my garden - it was tasty but I think having regular onions as well will add more flavor.  The fried 'rice' was really good, but not as flavorful as it could be - so add anything you like and find the flavors you like best.  I think adding chicken (or any protein) will help it be a little more filling as well.

Did you catch that I used green onions from my garden?  I started regular onions at the end of March, and about 3 weeks ago I noticed that a few of them started getting flower stalks.  I looked it up and found out that the crazy weather had made them bolt - once they start flowering they wont grow any longer and the flower will actually make the onion bulb split.  Apparently they also wont store as well as full grown onions - so I decided to pull them and use them as green onions.  I took out all of the onions that had sent up a flower stalk and chopped them and put them in the freezer (green onions work great straight from the freezer).  Once I pulled them I realized how tall they actually were - since they tend to flop around when they are in the ground they didn't look that tall but some where almost 24" tall!  Not all of the onions were good enough to eat - most of the plants had 4/5 green (stalks, leaves??) and at least 2 on each were too damaged to eat - but I pulled around 8 onions and ended up with almost 2 cups of chopped green onions.  They are really flavorful!!  I am looking forward to using more things from my garden - maybe I should grow cauliflower next year :)



   


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