Musing – the running recipe

I mentioned previously that running helps clear my head and occasionally gives me ideas too, which is why the following is referred to as the running recipe.

Picture the scene … in silent exercise it occurs to me, I love cauliflower cheese but it can be a tad boring, so I've decided to modify what some may say doesn't need modification.

The running recipe – Cauliflower Bake

additions

225g of onion, finely diced

(1 medium onion)

Melt the butter from the recipe given for the Mornay Sauce and sweat the onions gently for about 10 minutes until they are soft, season with celery salt and black pepper. Continue with the recipe, adding the flour, cook gently, don't brown the mixture.

I have leftover cooked potatoes and so am adding 500g of cooked Charlotte potatoes, finely diced to add to the steamed cauliflower.

As a guide, I weighed the cauliflower after having removed the outer leaves – 730g approximately. You could add broccoli – steamed - or any cooked veggies you've got leftover.

If you don't have Charlotte potatoes but have baked jacket potatoes you could use steamed cauliflower and broccoli (plus any other leftover cooked veggies) together with the Mornay Sauce as a base and then add sliced cooked, baked potatoes as a topping, garnishing with grated Parmesan – a Cauliflower Cheese Pie!

If you'd like to introduce a meat element then you could add crispy chorizo and its delicious oil to the topping or, if you have a stash of boxed bacon bits they would be perfect too.

here's the result – for the record adding the onion

to the mornay was the best idea – double yum!

May be it's not a case of “if it ain't broke don't fix it” after all … here's the original recipe.