Couscous! The food so nice, they named it twice. Except this isn’t couscous. It’s cauliflower in a funny little disguise. From first glances this looks like a lovely grain salad with some chopped herbs, a bit of seasonal fruit and a sunny yellow curry dressing. But up close it’s a jumble of the teeniest cauliflower florets you could ever imagine mixed up with all of those great things. Neat, huh? I actually love eating cauliflower this way, it’s nice and crisp and kind of tricks me into eating more crucifers, the health all star of the veg world. Typically I roast it, but this dish is just too much fun

September is always a patchwork of undeniably summery days and cool, crisp fall previews around here. My schedule has been kind of wonky and irregular and we’ve been trying to soak up every last bit of enjoyable outdoor time. All of it has been having some unfortunate effects on my food habits. Skipping meals, nibbling on white bread here and there, indulging in sweet things, more coffee than I can usually handle, wine! and on and on. I’m not beating myself up for it at all. I’ve definitely been enjoying it but! I feel like some predictability is in order for my day to day lately.

So! Getting back down to it. I’ve adequately prepared myself in the food department. Lots of veggies, big bowls of grains, batches of soup and even bigger helpings of this non-grain-but-sort-of-grain-like salad in the fridge. Oh, and some Udo’s oil, a fresh jar of chocolate Vega and plenty of herbal tea. Seriously, it’s like a health food store in here!

CAULIFLOWER “COUSCOUS” SALAD
Print the recipe here!
SERVES: 6-8
NOTES: I just break the florets up by hand and rough chop them, but if you trim most of the stem off, you could probably just blitz them in the food processor and get the same effect. Garam masala is in the salad ingredients because it is traditionally used as a finishing spice.

VINAIGRETTE:
1.5 tbsp curry powder
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1.5 tbsp agave nectar
salt and pepper
scant 1/2 cup grape seed oil

SALAD:
1 small head cauliflower, leaves trimmed off
2 green onions, white and green parts sliced thin
3 sprigs of parsley, leaves chopped fine
1 sprig of mint, leaves chopped fine
1 apple, small dice
1 cup grapes, halved (I used a concord-style grape)
1.5 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tsp garam masala
salt and pepper

Make the vinaigrette: place the curry powder, white wine vinegar, agave nectar salt and pepper in a blender. Blend that up for two seconds just to dissolve the salt. Add the oil all at once. Turn the blender on again to combine everything into one homogenous mixture. Set aside.

Make the cauliflower couscous: break the cauliflower into florets. Trim off as much of the stem as you can. Break up the florets as small as you can and chop roughly to make pieces as uniformly sized as possible. Place into a large bowl. Alternatively, you could use the food processor method described above.

Add the vinaigrette, green onions, parsley, mint, apple, grapes, poppy seeds and garam masala to the cauliflower. Toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve.