Smokey's Cheesy Smashed Cauliflower

Pasta, potatoes, and rice are three major staples that accompany most dishes!  And of course, those staples are key to gaining a lovely amount of weight.  😆

However, we've discovered that smashed cauliflower with cheese can be used as a substitute for all of these amazing sides.  Not only do they look similar to mashed potatoes, rice of pasta, they also taste phenomenal!  

Preparation time is a mere 5 minutes, while cooking time is another 8-10 minutes.

Our delicious ingredients include:

• 2 Cups Shredded Cheese of choice
• 1 Head of Cauliflower 
• 1 Cup Chicken Broth (or 1 tsp. bouillon mixed with 1 cup of water)
• 1/2 Stick of Butter or Margarine
• 1/4 - 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
• Pepper (to taste)

We'll begin by cutting off the leaves and discarding the core of our head of cauliflower. 

 \We'll then, continue to cut the head into small sized florets and will place them in our pot.  

Cutting our pieces into smaller sized florets will allow them to steam faster.  

As we were preparing our cauliflower, we noticed that we didn't have any Chicken Broth. However, we instead, poured 1 Cup of water into our pot and then sprinkled 1 tsp. of Chicken Bouillon Powder over our cauliflower. 

We'll then, generously drizzle our Olive Oil over our cauliflower, will cover our pot, and will cook on high heat for about 8-10 minutes, or until our water has mostly evaporated.  

Now that our cauliflower has been thoroughly steamed,  we are ready to smash our cauliflower until our mixture looks similar to rice or mashed potatoes.  

Should you notice that your cauliflower has cooked sooner than planned, not to worry.  A slight browning of the underside of the cauliflower still allows for a delicious dish, and may appear as "brown" rice.  

While our mixture is still hot, we'll add our butter, Parmesan and Shredded Cheese to our cauliflower and will stir until all has melted and have been fulled blended.

There you have it!  

A side dish of Smashed Cauliflower that can be substituted for pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes.  

We enjoy pouring Chili, Curry, or Tomato Sauce over our Smashed Cauliflower mixture to make for a scrumptious meal or to use as a side dish accompaniment.  

We estimate that the carb count for our dish is approximately 25 grams and lasts us for about 2 meals.

Eat bit screams cheesy and has become one of our major staples for many a meal.

From our kitchen to yours ~

Enjoy!

Smokey's Scrumptious Low-Carb Mock Hash-Browns

Some days we miss the smell of hash-browns sizzling in the skillet, while other days we miss eating them.

There's nothing like a buttery, flakey, and crispy hash-brown to accompany your breakfast entree.

Who would imagine that a cauliflower hash-brown would taste identical to a potato hash-brown? I know we didn't.

However, our simple recipe amazed us and our taste buds. Hopefully, they will do the same for you.

We were able to prepare our recipe in about 15 minutes. Cooking time, however, was a mere 12 minutes.

Our few ingredients include:

• 1 Cauliflower Head
• 6 Eggs
• 1/2 Chopped Onion
• 1/2 Stick of Margarine
• 1/2 tsp. Ground Pepper

We'll begin by removing our cauliflower leaves, core, will finely chop our cauliflower head, and will place in our bowl.

If you're like us and do not own a food processor or blender, chopping by hand is time consuming, but definitely acceptable.

We'll then, finely chop our onion and will add to our cauliflower.

Next, we'll add 4 of our eggs, black pepper to our mixture, and will beat until fully blended.

After beating our eggs into our mixture, our "batter" seemed a little dry. We were worried that our batter wouldn't stick together in the skillet, so we added another 2 eggs.

We then beat the eggs into our mixture and momentarily placed our batter aside.

Next, we'll grease our skillet with 2 Tbsp. Of butter and will place on medium heat.

Once our skillet begins to slightly smoke, we'll gradually pour 2 mounds of our "batter" to our pan.

After about 4 minutes, we will flip our hash brown and will allow the other side to cook for another 2-3 minutes or until slightly browned.

We'll then, remove our hash brown from our skillet and will place on a paper towel lined plate to sop any remaining oil.

We'll then, repeat the frying process until the remaining batter has been used.

And there you have it!

Scrumptious and buttery mock hash-brown patties to accompany your breakfast or any entrees. They make a great accompaniment to any breakfast, lunch, or din din.

From our kitchen to yours ~ another yummy recipe!

Enjoy!

Smokey's Faux Rice Stuffed Bell Peppers

We been craving stuffed bell peppers for some time. However, we haven't prepared them because of their high carb count, which is mainly in the rice.  I, then, had an AHA moment!  Why not substitute our Cheesy Smashed Cauliflower for the rice. I wondered how they would taste. 

Well.....they tasted incredible!! We couldn't even tell that the rice was absent.  In fact, the cauliflower tasted exactly like rice. What a wonderful substitution!

Preparation time for this recipe was approximately 30 minutes and actual cooking time, an additional 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Since this recipe required more time than others, we decided to prepare this meal when we had plenty of cooking time.  However, the end results were well worth the time.

When you head to the grocery store, these are the ingredients you'll need to purchase:

• 4 Large Green Bell Peppers
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Splenda
• 1/4 tsp. Minced Garlic
• 1 lb. Ground Beef
• 1 Tbsp. Minced Onion
• 2 8oz. Cans of Tomato Sauce
• 2 4 oz. Cans of Mushrooms
• 1 1/2 Cups of Shredded Cheese
• 1 Cup of Cheesy Smashed Cauliflower (Click for recipe)

We'll begin this week's recipe by cutting the tops off our Green Peppers, as if we were going to make lids for them.

Next, we will clean out the seeds, membranes, and will discard.

We'll then rinse our peppers to make certain, the inside is clean of any remaining residue.

Now's time to slightly soften our peppers, so that they will be tender at the end of our cooking process.  We'll do that by placing our peppers into a deep pot, filling with water until the peppers are completely submerged.

Next, we'll cover and boil our peppers for about 8 minutes.

When finished boiling, we'll drain our peppers and will stand them up in a baking dish, sprayed with cooking spray. 

And then, we'll place our peppers aside for later, while preheating our oven to 350F degrees.

The ideal situation would have our peppers standing up in a small pan, so that they would not fall, during the baking process.  However, we seemed to have misplaced our smaller baking pan.  If that happens, not to worry. Any pan will do.

Next, we'll cook our Ground Beef and onions on medium heat, until our meat has fully browned.

 After draining the grease from our ground beef, we'll add 1/3 cup of our shredded cheese, our Cheesy Smashed Cauliflower, garlic, 1 cup of our tomato sauce, Baking Splenda, and mushrooms. 

We'll then, stir, cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until pipping hot.

We are now ready to stuff our peppers with our hamburger mixture.

We'll, then spoon our mixture into our bell peppers until we have completely filled each one.

After all peppers have been fully stuffed, we'll pour the remainder of our sauce over the peppers.

Next, we'll cover our dish with foil and will bake for 45 minutes on 350F degrees.

After our baking has been completed, we'll remove our peppers from the oven and will remove the foil.

As you can see, our peppers have slightly fallen. Had we used a smaller baking dish, they most likely would have been standing upright.  However, no need to fret. 

We'll sprinkle the remainder of our shredded cheese over our peppers and will, once again, place in the oven for about 5 minutes or until our cheese has melted.

Now, it's time to remove our peppers from the oven and serve our deliciousness.  I wish we had smell-vision, because our peppers smell absolutely fantastic!!!

Our peppers are tender, as are its cheesy contents.  

This is definitely a hearty meal, with very low carbs, yet not lacking flavor.  

Since we had Cheesy Smashed Cauliflower remaining, we enjoyed our pepper with our faux rice. 

Our meal lasted us for 2 meals.  We hope you've our ingenious dinner as much as we have.  Hope to see you again next week!