When I looked into having bariatric surgery, I was intrigued to see what foods those that had received the operation were eating as an alternative to higher carb foods such as rice and pasta as since I’ve been diabetic the one thing I avoid is rice. I only have to look at the stuff and my blood sugar screams through the roof making me pretty ill.
First thing I tried was Bare Naked Noodles, and although they were ok, the texture for me isn’t right. It always had a strange taste to it and never soaked anything up. Andy would cut it up for me as small as he could, would use one spray of Fry Light and fry it with one onion, a tablespoon of tomato puree and one of garlic puree but it never really cooked into anything.
It’s ok if you really can’t do without something similar to rice or spaghetti but I began to hate it, preferring to go without encouraging Andy just to throw the packs away rather than cook them for me. That’s no way to carry on as I’m too cost aware to throw food away that’s within it’s date. I think I can stomach one more onion, tomato and garlic noodle rice so at least it won’t go to waste. However, I got a bit fed up that I couldn’t eat it as a rice substitute anymore as it just wasn’t working when we’d try it with a low fat Korma and such like.
Looking through ideas in a bariatric weight loss site I noticed that they spoke a lot about Cauliflower “Rice” but I had no idea what it was, so I looked it up.
I came across a recipe where the poster explains how to make it but doesn’t mention how long to cook it for so after making it, I checked on Jamie Olivers site and found a Veggie Korma that uses Cauliflower Rice and took the times from there. I have subsequently found a recipe for it on the Daily Mail site, so it’s worth bookmarking.
If you don’t know how to make it, here’s what you do:
You need:
- 1 head of Cauliflower (leaves off and heart removed)
Blitz in a Food Processor until it resembles rice. Pour into a microwave proof dish and cover. Microwave for between 3-7 minutes depending on how firm you like it. Fluff up with a fork. You then just treat it like rice. Egg fry it, fry it with onions. Whatever you do with rice you can do with cauliflower rice apparently. We’ll just keep experimenting with things. Simple.
Calories are only 25 calories per 100g compared to 355 calories of the same in rice. You can see it’s a no brainer.
I can honestly say that if I didn’t know it was cauliflower I would have thought it was some kind of couscous or quinoa but certainly not cauliflower. We had ours with Andy’s low fat Chicken Tikka Masala and it was amazing! I had a massive portion (mainly because I hadn’t eaten much during the day_ and that was just 602 calories.
