Ben and I have been on a hiatus from taking any diet days off for over forty days now.  You may have noticed my shift in the last month from super naughty sugary sweets to ultra healthy low calorie fare.  At this point I rarely miss sugar but I still crave bread and pasta every day. I still eat plenty of carbs, I just eat them in whole food form.  Lately I’ve been looking at unhealthy recipes and trying to figure out how I can make them over to be low calorie as well as comforting. Fried rice will always have a special, comfort food, place in my heart.

Cauliflower rice has been making the food blog rounds and I’ve been dying to try it! I realize real rice is relatively healthy but when your limiting your calorie intake you want to try to get the most nutrition out of the calories you take in. It seemed only natural to try it in a special fried rice recipe.

I didn’t expect cauliflower rice to have the same flavor and texture as real rice, and it didn’t.  But it has its own wonderful flavor and texture.  And its flavor and texture could easily replace the rice in any real rice dish to give you excellent results.  I found cauliflower rice to be equally as revolutionary as creamy cauliflower sauce!

I really wanted to list the nutritional facts for this dish but I just haven’t had the time to get to it.  I will tell you though that I did figure out the calories for the exact weights of the ingredients I used. I’m a die hard calorie counter!  Your results should be super similar. For the entire recipe my calorie total came in at 831 calories!  That would put your 4 main dish servings at just over 200 calories each! Or just over 100 calories each for 8 side dishes! That’s pretty fantastic!!!

So, a huge, THANK YOU to whoever came up with the idea for ricing cauliflower!  You’ll definitely see it here at Julie’s Jazz again in the future! 

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Ham Fried Cauliflower Rice

Ingredients

• 1 large head of cauliflower stem removed, broken into florets, rinsed, and dried completely
• 1 large sweet onion diced
• 1 cup carrots diced
• 2 cups celery chopped
• 1 and ½ cups broccoli florets
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 1 cup green onion sliced green and white parts
• cooking spray
• juice of 1 lime
• 4 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 2 tsp. hot chili garlic sauce
• 3 tsp. minced fresh garlic
• 1 Tbsp. hoisin
• 1 egg + 1 egg white
• 2 to 3 oz. diced precooked ham

Instructions

1. In a large sauté pan, coated with a little cooking spray, sauté the onion, carrots, celery, and broccoli, over medium high heat, until they all begin to soften. Sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper.
2. Do not overcook the vegetables. You want them to retain a little crunch. Transfer the cooked vegetables to a large bowl and set aside.
3. In a small bowl beat the egg and white together.
4. Spray your same vegetable cooking pan with another layer of cooking spray.
5. Over medium high heat scramble the egg. Remove the cooked egg from the pan. Place in a small bowl and set aside.
6. Add the ham to the hot pan, brown a little, and set aside with the eggs.
7. While the vegetables are cooking process the cauliflower. Working in batches, in a food processor, chop the cauliflower into pieces a little larger than actual rice. (note: if you make the pieces too small they will get mushy in the cooking process)
8. I used the pulse button on my food processor. I performed roughly ten one second pulses for each batch of cauliflower. For one head of cauliflower head I processed about four batches. (note: I only filled my 10 cup processor bowl ~3/4 of the way.)
9. In a small mixing bowl combine the lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce, hot chili garlic sauce, fresh garlic, and hoisin. Mix well and set aside.
10. After the vegetables are out of the pan coat the pan once more with a little cooking spray.
11. Add the riced cauliflower to the pan and sauté, over medium high heat, until the cauliflower begins to soften (2 to 3 minutes).
12. While the cauliflower is cooking drizzle it with half of the liquid mixture.
13. Add the other vegetables, drizzle with the rest of the sauce mixture, and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes.
14. Stir in the cooked eggs, ham, and green onions. Spoon into serving dishes and EAT!!!
15. Makes 4 entrée sized servings or 8 side servings.