When I grew up our family never had rice. But my husband’s step-father was from Hawaii, and white short grain rice was something they had at almost every meal. Fried rice for breakfast, stew served over rice, rice instead of potato—rice, rice rice. So for my husband and I, rice became a regular staple in our family’s diet.

We started slowing down on the rice a number of years ago, and turned exclusively to brown rice (the rare times we have it) after my husband was diagnosed with diabetes. Rice is rich in sugar and carbs.

Our son is into the paleo diet lifestyle and told me how he makes fried rice using cauliflower. During the last few years I’ve made pizza dough and tortillas with cauliflower—both of which I enjoyed. Yet, it is a heck of a lot of work.

Last night I was making tacos and wanted a side dish. I had a head of cauliflower in the frig, so I wondered—could I turn it into mock Spanish rice??

As it turns out, making rice from cauliflower is a heck of a lot easier than making pizza dough or tortillas. For all three recipes you have to toss the cleaned and trimmed cauliflower into the food processor to “rice” the cauliflower—turning it into tiny rice-size pieces.

But with pizza dough and tortillas you have to microwave the riced cauliflower and then squeeze out the water. The squeezing part is a pain. But making rice was easy and it was delicious! I will definitely make it again.

Directions
1. Clean the cauliflower, removing stems and leaves. Cut in pieces and toss in a food processor to chop it into rice-size pieces.
2. Dice half an onion.
3. Dice a fresh serrano hot pepper. More if you like it spicy, or use a can of diced green chilies.
4. Toss four or five fresh tomatoes in the food processor. Pulverize then add the chilies.
5. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan.
6. Sauté the onions in the hot oil until translucent.
7. Add riced-cauliflower. Stir and allow it to brown slightly.
8. Season liberally with whole cumin.
9. Stir in the tomato mixture and lightly salt.
10. Brown a bit and then add grated cheddar cheese and take off the burner. Allow the cheese to melt.

I understand the amounts for the ingredients aren’t exact—I made the recipe on the fly. But it will give you a general idea of how to make it, if you want to give it a try.

Yummy and healthy!

EDIT: I forgot to include the garlic. I gave the dish a few shakes of powdered garlic with the cumin. This is what happens when I start making recipes up and don’t write everything down!!