A's Easy Mashed Cauliflower

Potatoes are deceiving. You buy them in the produce section, so you feel like you're eating something healthy. I have news for you though... potatoes are a starch bomb making a beeline straight to your bloodstream in the form of simple sugar. Bad, bad news.
"But I looooove potato dishes like mashed potatoes," you say.

Who doesn't? They're delicious. I believe that mashed potatoes are too iconic of a food to mess up with a so-so substitution. That's why I like making cauliflower mashed potatoes. They are so much healthier (low fat, low carb, high fiber) and you can barely tell the difference! This recipe is husband approved too, because Adam really likes these.

Total time: 25 minutes with 5 minutes of active cooking time. Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower
• Several tablespoons of olive oil
• Mashed potato ingredients of your choosing. I like any combination of the following:
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3/4 cup of skim milk (you'll need to add some kind of liquid)
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Grated parmesan, to taste (I use about 1/4 cup total)
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees on the broiler setting.

Break up the cauliflower into florets. Spread them on a baking sheet and drizzle some olive oil over the top.

Broil for 10 minutes, shake the baking sheet to move the cauliflower around, and then broil for another 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on it, because you don't want the cauliflower to burn.

The goal is tender cauliflower with a little color, like this:

Mashed potatoes require laborious mashing, because putting them in a blender tears up the starch molecules and turns your fluffy potatoes into an ewwwy sticky blob.

What's that you say? Cauliflower isn't starchy? GLORIOUS!

Yet another great benefit of using cauliflower is that you can just use a blender to do your mashing. I use my hand blender, blending the other ingredients into the mashed cauliflower a little at a time until I get the flavor and consistency perfect.

 

That's it! Serve them up warm and fresh.

 

Adam's taste rating: 4 ladles

Alina's taste rating: 4 ladles

Healthy rating: 4 ladles

Ease of prep rating: 5 ladles

Overall average: 4.25 ladles