Cauliflower garlic sticks

This recipe came about by complete accident because I didn't have the right ingredients to make the garlic cauliflower bread sticks that I wanted to make, so I just bunged stuff in a bowl in the hope it would work. It turned out so well I thought I would put it on the blog, even with the terrible picture of only the finished product.

Feel free to play around with the quantities, I literally just used what I had in the fridge and eye balled it until it looked right. I imagine it's quite a versatile recipe as long as you don't end up with something too sloppy.

Ingredients- makes about 8 portions big enough for a side dish

280g Cauliflower (This was about 3/4 of my large cauliflower or a small cauliflower)

150g Full Fat Cream Cheese

Herb Mix- I put 1tsp garlic powder, 1tsp onion granules, 1tsp basil, 1tsp mixed herbs and 1tsp parsley.

40g Sainsbury's Basic's Hard Cheese ( or grate some parmesan)

70g Mature Cheddar (grated)

40g Butter melted with some garlic powder/onion powder in it.

You will also need- something to rice cauliflower so a grater or a food processor, a baking tray with baking parchment on it, a mixing bowl.

1. Preheat your oven to 220 C/ Gas mark 7.
2. Take your cauliflower, rice it with your preferred ricing method! Put it in a bowl, cover in cling film and microwave it for 10 minutes. Check on it a few times in that 10 minutes to check it isn't burning.
3. Pull your cauliflower out of the microwave and uncover it. WARNING! It will be hot, don't burn yourself on the steam like this idiot blogger did. 
4. In your mixing bowl, mix the herb mix, cauliflower, cream cheese, hard cheese and 50g of the cheddar.
5. Mix it until it's a soppy mixture but not wet, it should stick together loosely.
6. Pour the mixture onto your baking tray and flatten it into a rectangular shape. I used my hands as shaping it with a spoon was tricky, it stuck to the spoon more than it wanted to stay on the parchment.
7. Cook it in the oven for 15-20 minutes until it's golden brown.
8. Once it's lovely and golden brown. Melt your butter and mix in some more of the garlic and onion powder. Pour this over the top of the golden brown goodness and scatter the last 20g of cheddar on the top. If it doesn't look cheesy enough for you add some more!
9. Pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
10. Take it out of the oven and slice it into strips, leave it for a few minutes to firm up and then enjoy!

Nutritional Information (per serving)

Calories 146 kcal

Fat 13g

Protein 6g

Carbohydrate 2g

Fibre 1g