Cauliflower Tagine

Grit is having a 'sick of eating pasta from a packet' day and goes in search of a lovely vegan recipe to cook for the lovely Tiger, the adorable Shark and the sweet Squirrel.

I admit this mood is rather odd. I am either still basking in the glow of Tiger's good behaviour yesterday (or at least the absence of smashing up the National Gallery), or I am come over all hormonal. Either way, Today I am motherhood. I have a deep need to feed my growing children the nutritious food I know is out there, wanting just a flowery pinny and a trip to Tesco to bring about.

In my search for perfect food I find the most excellent blog. It is veganmenu.blogspot.com and I promise to go back to it everyday. Alright then, once a week, or when I have slipped back into bad, bad ways of opening a packet of dried pasta.

Anyway, once inspired, I am dragging Tiger down to Tesco with a shopping list, then putting on my flowery pinny and cooking Cauliflower Tagine, and Spinach and Fennel Salad with Pomegranate Seeds.

Admittedly the cooking doesn't start too well because Tiger doesn't want to go to Tesco, and says she hates cauliflower. I say you didn't hate it last week when I cooked NanJo's cauliflower and broccoli thingy with the pasta tubes. Anyway, I ignore all that 'I hate celery / lentils / peas' malarky. We'd never eat anything but dried pasta and tomato sauce if I took any notice, so cauliflower it is, and if you really don't like it, then don't eat it, but I bet you will, because veganmenu.blogspot.com has wonderful pictures of cauliflowers. I might try eating those now I've dribbled over them long enough.

So off I go to Tesco with Shark, and we set about making Cauliflower Tagine when we get back.

We don't add the turnip, because I forget it on the shopping list. We don't add the dinosaur kale either, because we don't know what it is. And I don't like kale. Two apricots doesn't sound very much, so we add a lot more, and a lot more dates too. Then Shark persuades me to throw in some peaches. I think that shows promise for a budding chef, so in goes the entire tin. We miss out the tamarind, not because we can't get any, but because at that stage I become fatigued over the thought of fine mesh and think there's only so much of my life I want to give over to Cauliflower Tagine. Finally, we interpret some of the spices a bit freely and use some substitution where forced to by the contents of the spice rack, some of which says Best Before July 2002. That prompts Squirrel on a clear out, thereby giving excellent educational practice in months of the year and, in fact, years.

An hour later and voila! Cauliflower Tagine! I think it looks very good and colourful and am very impressed with myself in a motherly sort of way.

Well, I can see that time's getting on a bit now and soon it will be suppertime, so next up is Spinach and Fennel Salad with Pomegranate Seeds. This sounds wonderful and I have even bought the pomegranate.

Unfortunately, Grit's motherly hormones are wearing off a bit now, what with the time and a fight breaking out over Blutina and Furryhorn, so I knock out a quick tomato sauce as back up and call everyone to the table to eat.

Now I suppose if you've read this far I have to give the verdict. Shark liked it and said it was very good, especially with peaches. Squirrel said she was not too sure about it, but liked it with some tomato sauce. Tiger said she did not like cauliflower, has never liked cauliflower, will never like cauliflower again, in fact hates cauliflower and why am I forcing her to eat cauliflower when I know she doesn't like cauliflower and never has.

And I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thanks and apologies to veganmenu.blogspot.com.