Pan-grilled Califlower

Ingredients:
1. A handful of cauliflower florets
2. 2 cloves garlic chopped
3. 1 TBS cooking oil
4. Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Heat skillet with cooking oil.
2. Add cauliflower florets.
3. After 1 min until it is a little charred, turn over and fry the other side until a little charred.
4. Season with salt & pepper and serve :-)

Additional Information:
I made this for dinner this evening together with the beef steaks. After frying the cauliflowers, I pushed it to the side, add oil, fry some garlic and add the beef steaks. When the beef steaks are done, I moved the steaks to the side of the skillet, and moved the cauliflowers to the middle to absorb the sauce from the beef steaks. I served this with sweet potato sauce, a raw cauliflower salad on the side and cauliflower cream soup. It's surely a cauliflower theme dinner!!! So that was my experiment with the different way of eating cauliflowers all in a day. Mr. FECS enjoyed the dinner, and didn't complained that it was too much cauliflowers :-)

That's our dinner tonight: Pan-grilled cauliflower served with beef steaks and sweet potato sauce, raw cauliflower salad on the side and cauliflower cream soup.

Cauliflower Snack

Ingredients & Directions:

1. A few raw cauliflower florets sliced thin using mandolin

2. A drizzle of olive oil

3. Salt & pepper to taste

4. A few drops of sweet potato sauce
5. A bit of thyme as garnish

Additional Information:

I am always in search of healthy pre-dinner snack for our Little FECS when he comes home from school hungry, but it is not dinner time yet. This is a simple snack I got inspired and adapted from our experience at Laboca.

I am not sure if our Little FECS would like it, but at least I like it a lot, so I can serve as a role model for him. After all, aren't eating habits acquired from homes?

If he doesn't eat it, I will just keep it for our dinner to serve as a side dish. I am sure Daddy FECS would gladly finish it :-)

This is another way of eating the cauliflower and including it in our diet.

Easy Cauliflower Cream Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1. 1 whole head of cauliflower without the leaves (500g)

2. 1 large onion quartered

3. 2 cloves garlic peeled

4. 2 TBS olive oil

5. 1 TBS butter (optional)

6. 2 tsp salt to taste

7. 600-700 ml water (the minimum or maximum marking in the soupmaker)

8. 250 ml fresh milk or 100ml cream (piskefløde) (optional)

9. A bit of thyme for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Wash and cut cauliflowers into florets.

2. Add all the ingredients (except milk or cream) into the Philips soupmaker.
3. Close the lid and choose the cream soup setting.
4. The soupmaker will beep in 23 minutes and the soup is done :-)

5. If you like it even more creamy, transfer to a pot, add fresh milk or cream, stir to mix well and heat up until it slightly bubbles (optional)

6. Garnish with thyme, serve with bread as a starter or a light dinner and enjoy :-)

Additional Information:

I fell in love with cauliflower white sauce that we tried at the Laboca restaurant. A check at recipes online shows all shows a generous use of butter required, some uses the whole tub of butter!!! Alas, I decided to skip making cauliflower sauce, as it would be too tempting for me or my family to finish all the sauce, thus consuming one whole tub of butter, not the kind of food taste buds I would like to develop in our kids. Since I love soup, I decided to settle for this healthier cauliflower cream soup instead, that uses only 1 tablespoon of butter, and it is even optional.

I use water instead of chicken stock for this batch, and it tasted super for me. The whole head of cauliflower provided sufficient vegetable stock for this soup.

It is 100 ml extra to the maximum marking of the soupmaker.

References:

http://madiharmoni.dk/hvordan-et-blomkal-bliver-til-fire-klassiske-saucer/

http://minpaleoverden.blogspot.dk/2015/01/hvid-grundsovs-lavet-pa-blomkal.html

  
Add all the ingredients (except milk or cream) into the Philips soupmaker.

  Blend all ingredients in the Phillips Soup maker

Now is done :-)

Baby Food of the Day: Cauliflower for the First Time (7M9D)

24 December 2016 (7M9D): Baby FECS tried cauliflower for the first time. I steamed it until cooked for 15 minutes. Then I mashed half with fork, to feed Baby FECS.

I blended the other half and freezed them up. 

I scooped some of those I mashed with fork into a saucer to feed Baby FECS.

24 December 2016 (7M9D): Baby FECS tried cauliflower for the first time today. As with broccoli, it was a success. She seems to like cauliflower too :-)

I also gave her a floret of cauliflower as finger food. She enjoyed feeling its texture and putting it into her mouth, although it is much less efficient eating, compared to me feeding her. But it is a sensory experience and she really enjoys trying to feed herself.

She finished the whole saucer :-) That's the best Christmas gift a mommy can gets :-)

https://youtu.be/w_5nC86P0Uo

24 December 2016 (7M9): Besides eating cauliflower (for vitamins), she also ate pumpkin for vitamin A, kidney beans for protein and iron, oats for complex carbohydrates and 1 tsp of olive oil for good fats for lunch today. It's Christmas eve today, and it is the best Christmas gift a mommy can ask for, when her child is eating healthy and well :-)

Baked Cauliflower "Souffle"/Blomkålssouffle

Serves 4

Preparation and Cooking Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients:
1. 1 large cauliflower
2. 3 TBS butter or margarine
3. 4 ½ TBS plain flour
4. 400ml fresh skimmed milk
5. ¼ tsp thyme
6. Salt and white pepper
7. 3 TBS mayonnaise
8. 4 eggs
9. 2 egg whites (from previous day)
10. 3 TBS grated cheese
11. Sprinkle of ground nutmeg
11. Serve with sprinkle of cut spring onions or parsley (optional)

Directions:
1. Wash cauliflower, cut a bit of stalk off, place it in water - till the next day if possible
2. Cut cauliflowers into florets and cook until very tender in lightly salted water for approx. ½ hour.
3. Mash it lightly with a fork.
4. Heat butter on a saucepan and stir in wheat flour and gradually add in the milk.
5. Let the sauce boil gently for 10 minutes, stir occasionally and season with thyme, ground nutmeg, white pepper and a little salt.
6. Remove sauce from heat and stir in egg yolks one at a time.
7. Add the mashed cabbage and mayonnaise.
8. Beat all 6 egg whites very stiff and fold them into batter.
9. Fill it immediately in a very spacious, well-oiled gratinform with vertical sides. Fill the mold about. ⅔.
10. Sprinkle with cheese and put it immediately into the oven and bake at 200 ° C for approx. 30 - 45 minutes. Avoid opening the oven door during the first 20 minutes.
11. Serve soufflés immediately with spicy, touched butter.

Additional Information:
This dish expands in size in the oven. It is quite a time-consuming dish, but Florian told me that this is one of his favourite food as a child, so I would like to try to make it. This is the first time I am making it. I forgot to add ground nutmeg. I baked it in the oven for 35 minutes.

References:
http://www.madabc.dk/frontpage.aspx?id=0&plan=1&week=25&dbid=da8a4c82-17ba-4b94-8cf6-1bef24279c7c

http://www.opskriftdagbog.webbyen.dk/vishjemmeside_privat.asp?mode=top_frame&id=807030&side=&webside=4975628

Baked Cauliflower Nuggets/Bagt Blomkål Nuggets/烤菜花块 [kǎo cài huā kuài]

Ingredients:

- 2 cups of cauliflower florets
- 1 egg, lightly beaten (substitute 2 egg yolks if you haven’t introduced egg whites yet)
- 1/4 tsp salt or 1 tsp soy sauce (omit for babies under 1 year old)

Dry Ingredients to coat the nuggets:

- 2 TBS flaxseed, ground
- 2 TBS wheat germ
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Directions:

1. Steam cauliflower florets for 10 minutes or until tender. You can also choose to cook it.

2. Puree the cooked cauliflower with a stick blender (you can also just chop it by hand).

3. In a medium bowl, mix the cauliflower, egg, soy sauce and salt (the mixture will seem wet).

4. In a separate bowl, mix the ground flaxseed, wheat germ and garlic powder.

5. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F)

6. Pick up a small amount of the cauliflower mixture in your hand and form a small ball.

7. Roll the ball into the dry flaxseed mixture until it is completely covered.

8. Place it on the baking tray with a baking sheet and press it down to a nugget shape. Continue with the rest of the mixture.

9. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Nutritional Value:

Cauliflower is an excellent source of vitamin C, vitamin K, folate and fiber. It is a very good source of vitamin B5, vitamin B6, omega-3 fatty acids, and manganese. Additionally, it is a good source of potassium, protein, phosphorus, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, and magnesium.

Cauliflower contains naturally occurring substances called purines. Since purines can be broken down to form uric acid, excess accumulation of purines in the body can lead to excess accumulation of uric acid. The health condition called "gout" and the formation of kidney stones from uric acid are two examples of uric acid-related problems that can be related to excessive intake of purine-containing foods. For this reason, individuals with kidney problems or gout may want to limit or avoid intake of purine-containing foods such as cauliflower.

Cauliflower provide detox support. As an excellent source of vitamin C, and a very good source of manganese, cauliflower provides us with two core conventional antioxidants.

As an excellent source of vitamin K and a very good source of omega-3 fatty acids (in the form of alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA), cauliflower provides us with two hallmark anti-inflammatory nutrients. Vitamin K acts as a direct regulator of our inflammatory response, and ALA is the building block for several of the body's most widely-used families of anti-inflammatory messaging molecules.

Cauliflower-containing diets help prevent cancer, particularly with respect to the following types of cancer: bladder cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and ovarian cancer.

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Additional information:

This is a very healthy recipe, but the original recipe (see references below) calls for parmesan cheese. Parmesan cheese contains 32% fat, which is almost as high as the content of heavy cream! I tried making this with and without the parmesan cheese and it was actually tastier without the cheese. It tasted lighter and more savory without the cheese. The cheese actually made it very heavy. J didn't like the cheese version nuggets too.

The colour of the nuggets on the picture looks very brown, because I used red quinoa.

References:

http://www.babywisemom.com/2011/01/building-foundation-for-lifetime-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChroniclesOfABabywiseMom+%28Chronicles+of+a+Babywise+Mom%29

Cauliflower/blomkål/菜花[cài huā]

For babies from 9 months.

Preparation & Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Directions:
1. Wash and cut 500g of cauliflower (1 whole cauliflower) into florets

2. Steam for 10 minutes or until tender

3. Add 5 teaspoons of powder milk and 5 teaspoons of olive oil (optional but recommended)

4. Puree with blender

Storage:
1. Cool down, pour into ice cube tray and freeze.

2. Once frozen, knock the cubes out and store them in freezer bags (makes 2-3 ice cube trays, can store up to 8 weeks).

Nutritional Value:
Cauliflower is an excellent source of vitamin C, vitamin K, folate and fiber. It is a very good source of vitamin B5, vitamin B6, omega-3 fatty acids, and manganese. Additionally, it is a good source of potassium, protein, phosphorus, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, and magnesium.

Cauliflower contains naturally occurring substances called purines. Since purines can be broken down to form uric acid, excess accumulation of purines in the body can lead to excess accumulation of uric acid. The health condition called "gout" and the formation of kidney stones from uric acid are two examples of uric acid-related problems that can be related to excessive intake of purine-containing foods. For this reason, individuals with kidney problems or gout may want to limit or avoid intake of purine-containing foods such as cauliflower.

Cauliflower provide detox support. As an excellent source of vitamin C, and a very good source of manganese, cauliflower provides us with two core conventional antioxidants.

As an excellent source of vitamin K and a very good source of omega-3 fatty acids (in the form of alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA), cauliflower provides us with two hallmark anti-inflammatory nutrients. Vitamin K acts as a direct regulator of our inflammatory response, and ALA is the building block for several of the body's most widely-used families of anti-inflammatory messaging molecules.

Cauliflower-containing diets help prevent cancer, particularly with respect to the following types of cancer: bladder cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and ovarian cancer.

References:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=13