Rosemary Cauli Mash with Ghee

Hi. How have you been? Me…oh I’m good. Life has just been pretty “lifey” lately, and most of the time I wonder why at the end of the day we’re still standing, but we are! I miss blogging so much and think about posts in my head daily. I am re-committing myself to regular blogging and my gorgeous-not-yet-used-enough, kitchen! Also it’s going to help keep me busy as the Minnesota winter is quickly approaching and that’s new for me since 2002 – ah!

I was devastated when Trader Joe’s announced that they couldn’t keep up with demand for the organic riced cauliflower, just after I’d discovered how awesome it was. In it’s absence I happened to be at Super Target and notice that Green Giant also has a “cauliflower crumbles” product (only ingredient, cauliflower). I bought 6 bags. Ha! I think at this point Trader Joe’s should be stocked and ready to go, but Super Target is much closer to me 🙂 Seriously versatile and have made all sorts of good stuff, including rosemary cauli mash with ghee!

Rosemary Cauli Mash with Ghee

  • 1 bag cauli crumbles/riced cauli
  • Pastured/organic ghee
  • Bruised/crushed rosemary
  • Salt/pepper

Steam the cauli until soft. I followed the directions on the back of the bag and added a little extra time so it’d be extra soft/easy to mash. Once steamed I dumped crumbles into a bowl and added ghee (however much you prefer, it’s pretty rich…), bruised/crushed rosemary and salt and pepper. Mash until the mixture has the consistency you prefer (more ghee = creamier). Takes about 5-7 minutes and reheats very well!

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Elvis Burger, Paleo Style

Since moving to Minnesota, we’ve learned about the peanut butter burgers Elvis so loved. It’s a thing around here, so much so, that when I travel back to San Diego for work, I’ve been asked, “have you had a peanut butter burger yet?!” I don’t eat peanuts, BUT I did try a bite of one (when in Minnesota) and let me tell you, amazeballs. It’s been sounding good ever since, so I recreated it to make it paleo-friendly and it did not disappoint! You could make them multiple ways, but this is how I made mine.

Elvis Burger, Paleo Style

  • 2 burger patties
  • Cashew butter
  • Grassfed extra sharp cheddar
  • Uncured, cooked bacon
  • 1/2 banana, sliced

Place one burger patty on your plate and slather with cashew butter (or, again, nut butter of your choice), stick the cooked bacon on top of the cashew butter, place the 2nd burger patty with melty grassfed extra sharp cheddar, cheese side down on the bacon, slather top patty with cashew butter as well. I had the sliced banana on the plate, and ate a slice with each bite of burger I had. The burger stayed together well. Nice for different, rich flavors than the usual burger staples!

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Cinnamon Fruit Salad

Happy first day of July (WHAT)! It’s really feeling like summer lately (although it was 55 here at my house in Minnesota this morning, brrr), so it’s salads of all kinds with grilling and more grilling.

A couple weeks ago my mom and dad were here for the night before we all headed to a weekend at the lake for Summer Solstice. Seth and I cooked up a fabulous dinner for the four of us, grilled steaks, grilled hash browns with peppers/onions and cheese, grilled eggplant and cinnamon fruit salad.

I had three very ripe mangoes that needed to be used before we left for the weekend, so I cut them up into pieces and tossed them in a bowl with fresh blueberries and cantaloupe. I then squeezed the juice of two limes over the fruit, a shake of raw coconut sugar (maybe 1/8 cup?) and a sprinkle of cinnamon (roughly 1 tsp). It really doesn’t take much cinnamon to flavor the salad – I went light because my dad isn’t a huge fan of cinnamon, and I was surprised at how cinnamon-y it still was. There was a small serving leftover, and it kept great in the fridge until it was finished with breakfast the next morning.

You could easily change up the fruits, but it was a nice flavor change from regular fruit salad!

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Surf-n-Turf and Grilled Celery

Peak grilling season is here in Minnesota! Our beloved Puerto Rico Char Broil grill would have never survived the move from San Diego to Minneapolis. We complained about that grill for years, but it was pretty reliable. You couldn’t touch it, as it’d fall over into a heap of rusty metal, but hey, it worked! We bought it in 2006, and it lasted 9 years of almost year-around grilling in Puerto Rico, Virginia and San Diego, so not bad for $300 🙂 So long Char Broil, hello Weber! Seth just purchased the corvette of grills a couple weeks ago now that we’re getting settled in MN, so we’ve been grilling every chance we get.

Last night we grilled surf-n-turf and celery (a random experiment). I had the biggest, fattest, most awesome hunk of sea bass with the skin on, Seth had an enormous T-bone, and grilled celery! We wrapped the sea bass in a foil boat with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and tons of fresh citrus slices-I used 1 grapefruit, 1 orange and 1 lemon – all fruit that needed to be used. Tip: fish with skin on is far more juicy and flavorful, and it falls right off after cooking, so don’t be scared of fish skin! Seth seasoned his steak with garlic, Lawry’s, salt and pepper. The flavor of the fish was extremely buttery.

I’ve never grilled celery, but I think you can grill just about anything, so, since it’d been in the fridge for a while we gave it go – man was it tasty and super easy! Wash the celery and trim the ends, toss in a bowl with olive oil, sea salt, pepper and garlic salt, then lay directly on the grill for approximately 12-15 minutes. When it came off the grill I sprinkled with just a little fresh sea salt before eating. It had great celery flavor, still crispy, less stringy, and a charred salty flavor. So good!

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Mango Summer Salad

It’s 93 in Minnesota right now with a lot more humidity than my San Diego bones are used to, therefore, cool light salads it is! Kind of a random concoction of things we had on hand and needed to be used (you know how all your mangoes and avocados ripen at the exact same time), crossing fingers it’d be tasty. Seth and I both LOVED it. Very easy. This version served 2, but could easily be doubled, etc.

Mango Summer Salad

  • 1 ripe mango, cut
  • 2 ripe avocados, diced
  • 1/4 cup white onion, chopped
  • 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
  • Himalayan pink salt
  • Black pepper
  • Light drizzle of olive oil
  • Decent shake of balsamic vinegar

Mix everything in a bowl, and serve!

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