December madness, mince pies and cauliflower cake

It's been a busy December. I haven't been as busy updating this blog as I ought, but there have been plenty of other activities - Christmas parties, attempts to make Christmas cards, attempts to make thoughtful presents, shopping, wrapping, planning. My diet has definitely gone downhill in terms of healthiness. There's just so many boxes of chocolates, mince pies, panettone, gingerbread men, crisps, nuts and cheese straws to be eaten. I haven't even bought most of these things myself, but they have a way of materialising in the office or at Christmas gatherings.

Pre-Christmas socialising tends to mean you eat out more, which generally involves eating food that is less healthy, in greater quantities. Nibbles at drinks parties are invariably the kind that would score red if they had those traffic light health warnings on the front of them. My own lack of self control doesn't help - we went for an Italian meal before the office Christmas party, but that didn't stop me tucking into some of the larger-than-expected buffet when we got there. And it's not even Christmas Eve yet.

I had a lovely festive evening last night making mince pies and listening to festive tunes (Bob Dylan's Must be Santa and Boney M's Mary's Boy Child, to give you an idea). My mince pies make a small gesture towards healthiness - the pastry is with real butter, but the home-made mincemeat has no added fat and not much in the way of added sugar, unlike shop-bought mincemeat. If you'd like the recipe, I got it from Rose Prince in the Guardian.

To compensate I also bought and cooked an enormous cauliflower, which I used for Yottam Ottolenghi's unusual cauliflower cake. It's more like a thick tortilla than a cake, but pretty good. I think even cauliflower-doubters might be won over by it. We had some of it hot from the oven, and the rest at room temperature the next day, with some boiled potatoes and green beans.

My version was pretty similar, although I left out nearly all the oil, and just fried the onion in about half a teaspoonful. It didn't seem to miss it. I used nigella seeds, which I think are the same as black onion seeds, although to be honest most of them stuck to the sides of the dish anyway. Perhaps I should have used baking parchment as he said!

Here's the end result:

I reckon it would work with all kinds of other vegetables instead of cauliflower, and since you need the veg to be already cooked it could be a great way of using up Christmas leftovers. The jury's out on whether I'll be trying a Brussels sprout variety...