I haven’t been very good with my blog throughout 2017 but this year I plan to change that! So to get started I did some meal prepping and wanted to tell you a bit about why I meal prep and what I made.
Due to my long hours I never like to have anything heavy when I get home as I don’t like to eat and then go straight to bed so a low carb meal is what I’ve opted for here. Swapping pasta for cauliflower. I love this recipe as it’s a nice twist on the standard cauliflower cheese but it also brings this versatile vegetable back into my diet. So for this recipe I have made cauliflower, kale and sausage bake which I found on BBC Good Food!
Towards the end of the year, I started to get really tired very quickly and I also had to take some days off from work due to the tiredness making me feel ill. I found out that I was anemic meaning my iron levels were low. So for this year I’m making a conscious effort to take care of internal health as that will also benefit my outward appearance. I’m trying to do this by bulking up on my vegetable especially those that are iron rich. I’m not cutting meat out altogether but the meat I do eat I’d like it if it comes from British sustainable sources and having a small amount and bulking my meals out with vegetables.
This meal is perfect for cutting down on meat but bulking up! The sausage is almost like a crumb or another texture which you use for the topping and the main element of this dish is the cauliflower. Even though this dish is wrapped in the cheese sauce its actually quite a light dish.
I have slightly changed the way it is listed on the website purely because of the way I make my cheese sauce and I’ve also added in mushrooms to add to the meaty texture without the meat.
So here is how I did it!
First of all I prepped the cauliflower! I got one that was bigger than my head to make sure I had plenty and it ended up filling my biggest pot when it came to cooking it! I took off all the stalks/leaves but these can be used for other recipes! (One I have tried and loved is a Jamie Oliver Super Food Recipe Pg 156). Cover the cauliflower in a pan with water and bring to the boil then drain.
Meanwhile, I made the cheese sauce. Now this is the only way that I have been able to make a cheese sauce and I stand by it as it works every time. In a jug I put 2 heaped tea spoons and 1 teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and mix together to make a crumb. Slowly add the milk by first making a paste then loosen with more milk. I always guess when it comes to how much milk I need but when it comes to cooking the sauce more milk can be added if its too thick. At this stage I add in some cheese and almost let it infuse whilst I’m making the rest of the dish.
I then took the sausage meat out of the the skin and fried it off in a small frying pan and cooked it all the way through as well as added some colour to it. You could fry it off even more than this and then it’ll be extra crispy on top of the bake.
I added mushrooms so I sliced them and the fried them in a pan with a small amount of oil, When they had shrunk a bit and had taken on a slight bit of colour I added in the kale (mine is a bit yellow as it was on the turn). When I cook anything like Kale in a frying pan I add the smallest amount of water just to help steam it a little and it helps speed up the cooking without taking away any of the nutrients. When the kale had wilted I cranked up the heat and added in the cheese sauce. Continuously stirring to make sure the flour doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pan and adding more milk in if its too thick. For this I wanted mine t be a bit runny as it thickens up more in the oven and I wanted it to coat all the cauliflower.
Transfer the cauliflower into an over proof dish and cover with the sauce and mix up to make sure it is evenly coated and evenly distributed. Sprinkle over the sausage and the rest of the cheese and put in the oven at about 180degrees on a fan oven. Cook until golden and bubbling!
I do love this dish, its like a home favourite that has been pimped up and by having it as the main rather than a side is a win for me!
So go on give it a go! If you are cutting down on your carbs, upping your vegetables, reducing your meat consumption or just fancy trying something new then give this a go!
Links: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cali-kale-sausage-bake
Sainsbury’s recipe section offers a wide range of products and obviously if you like the recipe you can just add those items into a basket on the groceries page and get them delivered to your house! Supermarkets have really upped their game in terms of providing more than just being a supermarket, I have 100s of Sainsbury’s recipe cards that were free to pick up when I was younger. Now I can save trees by finding those recipes online!
This Girl Eats A Lot 