When Shape Matters

No, this is not a blog about Donald Trump and his sexist and sizest comments about beauty queens. Instead it is about my love of “riced” cauliflower. If you have never heard of “riced” anything you have probably never been to a weight watchers meeting or read a diet blog.  
Ricing is the act of cutting something, usually an innocent vegetable, into the size and shape of grains of rice. Here is the miracle of ricing cauliflower, it makes it taste like rice? Whaaat??? How can that be?  
Riced cauliflower is not processed in any other way than the shape. The ingredients in riced cauliflower are one, cauliflower. So making it taste like rice is no magic of adding hydrogenated poly something, or saturated anything. It is just a trick to your brain because it is white and looks like rice. Aha! Then it must taste like rice. And it does, more than it tastes like cauliflower.
No way, you say. Cauliflower has a fairly distinctive taste. But cutting it up into tiny little pieces somehow changes the taste. Other good news is it does not change the calories. Or in the case of weight watchers, the points. Cauliflower has 0 points and one cup of rice has six. And two cups of cauliflower has 0 points and two cups of rice as 12 points. And… you get the picture.
So I’m now running for Miss Riced Cauliflower Queen. Maybe I have to be Mrs. But I am certainly promoting riced cauliflower. Trader Joe’s has it in the freezer section and the fresh veggie coolers too.  
It couldn’t be easier to make. Pour it into a non-stick pan sprayed with vegetable oil spray and sauté it for a few minutes. You can add any spice you like because it is like a blank canvas, just like rice. I made a yummy shrimp and tomatoes dish that traditionally would be served over rice and the cauliflower was an even better bed. How do it do it? One will never know.