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My target for this month’s The Secret Recipe Club, where members get secretly assigned a cooking blog to recipe test was, Ma, What’s for dinner?
Mother to 3 boys, Alex, has transformed her unruly and oft hair pulling, meal times by cooking WITH her children. Her reason? Get your children interested in food and they will build up a healthy, long-standing relationship with food. The result? She’s bonded with her kids in the kitchen, and is inspiring others to do the same. Isn’t that fantastic?! Cooking is a priceless life skill, eating well is best imported into the minds of little people from day dot. It is clear, Alex’s family obviously treasure time spent together in the kitchen.
When Angie, one of the ladies that make the magic happen at SRC, and also queen of her own blog Big Bears Wife, sent me this month’s secret assignment, I admit to being momentarily stumped. Alex and I are chalk and cheese when it comes to food choices. Alex’s recipes tend to be heavily meat based. I am a vegan. I had to pick a recipe to trial and blog about, but I’m all about health and taste without animal products…What to do when faced with a challenge?…..become SOULUTION targeted. I clicked in and out of several recipes and landed upon Popcorn Balls. The ingredients list nearly had me running for the hills - butter, sugar, corn syrup!!! I hatched a plan to discover a way to make these grab and run, treats tasty, quick and GOOD for you.
I adore researching recipes online. Food bloggers are so creative! This can be especially true for vegan bloggers who think outside of the box. My poking and clicking unearthed a recipe I thought could use whilst (loosely) keeping to the theme. No, it is has no sugar, it is not even made out of corn BUT it is good. Very good. SO GOOD these badboys are now nipping at the heals of my TOP vegan snack of choice - the KALE chip!
I give you - Cheezy Cauliflower Popcorn! Yes…believe it.
Raw Food guru Philip McCluskey was the man who created this recipe and set of bloggers in their thousands to get them some movie snacks.
I kept them raw, but you can do raw-raw and baked too. They are such fun to make and are VERY moreish! Allow 1/2 head of cauliflower per person.
I borrowed my friend’s 8 year old to make these with me and their verdict was….’they’re epic!’ (seems to be the new buzz word…better than ‘sick’ I guess)
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Serves 2
Ingredients
1 head of cauliflower
4 tbs nutritional yeast
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
Method
1. chop the cauliflower into small bitesize pieces (please do as I say and not as I did and made them too big….I thought I knew better. Lesson learnt!) and place into a zip lock bag or a plastic tub with a lid or deep sides.
2. add the oil and water to the bag and give it a good shake
3. next put in the seasoning and shake, shake, shake until the florets are covered and golden.
next - there are 3 ways to do this….
raw-raw - that’s it, you are finished and can snack at will
raw-put onto a paraflex sheet and dehydrate for 5-7 hours
baked - add an additional tbs of oil and pop into the oven for 20 mins.
Ingredient swaps - swap the nutritional yeast for ground nuts. swap the nutritional yeast for date syrup or maple syrup and ground nuts (grind your own in coffee grinder or high speed blender) so a sweet snack. Don’t swap, but add - flax meal when dehydrating - so nice, as the flax meal goes all crisp and nutty!
Oh this is looks like it is right-up my alley! LOVE cauliflower and nutritional yeast.
I’m always looking for fun ways to dress up cauliflower! What a great idea.
omg! these looks amazing, I am so impressed! I love cooking but have never tried this.
Just came over from SRC. My first time here. Wow these look incredible. While not a vegan, my husband and I have been vegetarians for 31 years. I discovered nutritional yeast the first year. We love it. That’s what we usually put on top OF popcorn. I’m getting a head of cauliflower when I go to the farmer’s market this week.
Neat! I’ll have to get out my dehydrator.
yum! I wish I had a dehydrator. it’s on my list of wants.
I was a little skeptical when I first saw this, but it looks great and the recipe does sound “epic”!! Cant’ wait to try this one out. Great choice for SRC. 😀
@Gretchen (Veggie Grettie)
Hey Grettie, I acutally think they love EACH OTHER too!
@Tammy Quackenbush
Hey Tammy, yes this cauli was dressing up for movie night!
Wow, have been wanting to make this since your post. Just popped the cauliflower in the oven. Almost didn’t make it in there because I was enjoying the raw-raw version so much. Thanks for this recipe!
Hi……I am new to a new way of eating HEALTHY at 54!! Very new. What is *Nutritional Yeast?*
And, HOW do y’all know you’re NOT eating any GMO foods, unless grown by you or local market? Thank you! By the way, these look like they’ve been deep fried. Yum. I know they weren’t.
@Delynn Dell
Hi Delynn,
Congratulations on your switch! Thanks for reading my blog. I hope it is of use to you.
Nutritional yeast is a pure strain of yeast called saccharomyces cerevisiae, grown on molasses with heaps of B Vitamins that feed the yeast. it ends up as yellow flakes, tasting quite cheese like that can be added to sauces, soups, stews, vegan cheeses, for added flavour.
I guess the subject of GMO is a loaded one. We can only go buy trust and what manufacturers report to be true. In the past you could pretty much trust your source but as you say, the only way in the end, to truly know your food is non-GMO is to grow your own or get to know local producers that openly oppose it. It is a sorry story that the citizens of the world are unable to control what goes into our food chains! I came across a story about Todmendon, a town in Yorkshire England where it is growing vegetables all around the town..outside banks and schools etc. A great way to grow a community and know where your food is coming from.
Good luck with your transition. I hope you soon reap the benefits. x