A healthy take on Tabouli

I recently came across a recipe for “detox taboulleh” from Oh She Glows which uses cauliflower rice instead of regular grains. I wanted to try something with cauliflower rice again and I decided to try this recipe. It was well worth it. We paired the salad with flatbread and hummus and it was delicious. Because the recipe was so healthy I made very few changes. I used a bit more tomatoes and onion, a bit less cilantro, and sesame seeds instead of hemp seeds. I also used the shredding blade on my food processor to grate the cauliflower and celery. I used:

Salad ingredients

  • 1 large cauliflower, leaves removed
  • 1.5 pints grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced
  • 1 cups fresh parsley, minced
  • 1 & 1/4 cups finely chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, minced
  • 2 bunches green onions, thinly sliced
  • Optional sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Dressing:

  • 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons  extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Steps:

  1. Use the grater blade attachment on a food processor and drop cauliflower florets into the machine to grate. Empty out the bowl and use the same blade to grate the celery.
  2. Stir the rest of the vegetables (tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, and green onion) into the bowl.
  3. Whisk together the dressing in a small glass or jar. Pour onto salad and toss to combine, adjusting salt to taste if desired. The flavors are best after the salad has been refrigerated for a while. Sprinkle sesame seeds on of the salad when you’re ready to eat.

The grated cauliflower:

CauliflowerTabouli-1

 

Adding celery and tomatoes:

CauliflowerTabouli-2

 

Dressing and salad prior to mixing:

 

CauliflowerTabouli-4

 

Mixed salad:

 

CauliflowerTabouli-5

 

Delicious salad with olive hummus topped crisp flatbread:

CauliflowerTabouli-6

 

All recipes I’ve made from Oh She Glows have been great, I recommend you check her site out!

Making refrigerator pickles

Do you know what can be wonderfully tasty? Pickles! Not just any pickles, but ones that you make yourself from in-season local veggies.

After hitting up our local farmer’s market, we came home with gorgeous cauliflower and carrots with the intent to turn them into pickles.

Beautiful multi-colored carrots. They tasted like candy.

First carrots I ever purchased with the tops still attached!

Delicious white, purple, and green cauliflower.

While you can make refrigerator pickles from scratch, I chose to use mixes that I picked up during a trip to Cook Forest, Pennsylvania previously.

Ready to go pickle mixes

We also have a collection of flip top glass jars that are perfect for refrigerator pickles. I filled them up with a combination of carrots and cauliflower and then modified the recipe to make a partial batch. The mix called for a gallon of vegetables, which is way more than I had.

Veggies chopped and ready to pickle.

 

The dill pickle mix has a few more days to marinate, but the bread and butter type mix has already been taste tested and given a seal of approval. I’m sure they won’t last long.

Ready to marinate!

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It’s hatch green chile time!

Here in Austin, the grocery stores get excited each year at this time for hatch green chiles to arrive from Hatch, New Mexico. I have no idea if this is a thing in other parts of the country or not.  The grocery stores offer both fresh and roasted hatch chiles and a variety of other hatch flavored foods.  Chuy’s even makes a special menu that we always go check out.

For dinner this week, I decided I wanted to make something with hatch chiles for the first time in my 9 years in Austin. I decided on a play off of chicken salad that uses tofu instead. I combined extra firm tofu, patted dry, with diced red onion, roasted hatch chiles, sunflower seeds, and mayo.  We ate the tofu salad as an open faced sandwich on a slice of sourdough bread topped with a slice of heirloom tomato.  Man, did they turn out spicy! I used 6 roasted chiles, 3 of them mild and 3 hot.  On the side, I made roasted cauliflower tossed with olive oil and rosemary from our garden. It’s really the only thing left alive.

I decided that while the 110 degree air outside probably could roast the cauliflower and chiles, it most likely would take too long.  Instead, I fired up the grill and roasted them myself.

Cauliflower and chiles, ready to roast:

After roasting:

I then had to remove the skins from the chiles because they are quite crisp. Luckily my husband mentioned that because I was ready to leave them on.

Tofu, onion (at the bottom) and the chiles ready to go:

Mixed with mayo and sunflower seeds:

Served open-faced with a slice of heirloom tomato:

All in all, a quite tasty sandwich. Sometimes I feel that food made with hatch green chiles isn’t all that exciting. However, I definitely enjoyed this sandwich, especially after my mouth stopped burning.