Sometimes January brings a spell of saving money after the big end of the year festive splash out. Some would say with a sarcastic giggle that it makes new years resolutions of dieting ten times easier to follow: Let's eat the leftovers, let's eat the peanuts...
One of my new year resolutions, (yes, even one that love life as I do, do have them, once in a while for three weeks) was to try a diet that boost my intake of vitamin A, C and E in order to improve my asthma. The daily cod liver oil spoon made me poke my tongue out every single morning. Getting vitamins from food, fruit and veg sounded more palatable, and soon more appealing by the day rather than the spoonful of the 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' fish oil. In came the heavy cavalry of winter veg and fruits: kale, broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, carrots, beetroot, cranberries and oranges. But also they came with the big massive question of what to do with them to jazz them up?
I would not deny that I am hit by hard times and on a budget, which made me revisit classics to feed you for a while yet with a smile on your face each time you do so.
Tonight special was:
Broccoli and Cauliflower and cheese with a Twist.
The balance between the two veg was 70% cauliflower/ 30% Broccoli.
I ran out of cheddar, but I had plenty of leftover Stilton to use up, so the cheese sauce was flavoursome to the taking your socks off point.
I always have pancetta cubes in my fridge or bacon cubes, for they can jazz up quickly any supper: Say an omelette, a ragu, a risotto, a salad and 'et voilà', it's fantastic. ;)
So the pancetta cubes gave the meat part to that dish which swing with the broccoli, cauliflower and Stilton and made them sing the jazz altogether which I was after.
Then came the last twist in the pan. A good Cauliflower Cheese comes with a crust of some sort, make it cheesy or 'breadcrumby', it has to have that extra layer of delightful crunchiness. For mine I used the leftover of potatoes boulangére from a Tom Kerridge recipe that was too good to discard two days later. It was a cut everything with scissors love affair from onions to potatoes, to butter fry them with the pancetta to a golden crisp fifteen minutes of TLC. This crusty layer worked wonders, lifted the cauli-dish to heaven or 'I am going to sleep like a baby tonight'.
I will strongly recommend the blue cheese twist for it gave awesome flavour. However be creative use the cheese you prefer, adapt that classic to your taste bud. My use of broccoli was part of my diet, yet I think it just worked: overall a nice cheap and cheerful Winter Warmer.
As it provided me with a couple of lunch boxes, for anyone on a budget, I would advise to look at that classic recipe and funk it up to their own palate.
Fight the bleak, warm your heart.
Cheers,
Cordelia
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