Steamed Cauliflower Rice!

Guys, I'm addicted to hot steaming rice. So when the love of my life brought home an Indian feast for the first time, I quickly looked for the box that had steamed basmati rice in it and looked at him as if he'd just handmade and gave me the best Christmas gift in the world. The bad part about this - is that any type of rice is actually pretty high calorie- and when its used as a base to put other curries, sauces, and meats on top of- it can really add up. Luckily, I found a way I can lower the calorie of steamed rice by having it with a little more vegetables too- Behold! -Cauliflower rice!  Here's the recipe below!




Habits of Mind and Veggies: Usually I use 1 cup of cooked basmati rice which is around 203 Calories, with some Curry it can be nearly doubled. but after making this recipe- I can have 1/2 cup basmati rice at around 106 with some cauliflower rice at around 123 Calories Total. This lowers the caloric intensity by around 80 calories that I could enjoy by adding some more protein on my plate instead of overdoing it on the carbs.

Don't Grate, it takes Hours! When I heard about cauliflower rice I thought "Yes! There is a miracle!", but then the recipe said to grate the cauliflower with a cheese grater. Then hours later that dream of mine, became a little more deflated.

Just Mash it! Instead - Last Thanksgiving, a friend of my brothers came over to help cook. And since I needed to be able to change a dinner I had originally made for 13 to feed over 20 people- I became the queen of adapting and gave him a suggestion that I never even though of before. I had to use the potato masher to mash the potatoes and I realized that if I used it lightly to grind up the cauliflower it might make it look a little more like rice consistency

Ingredients

• 1 large raw Cauliflower piece - 210 Calories in one complete stalk
• Broccoli Stalks (Optional) 

Note: Whenever I want to buy cauliflower sometimes the broccoli is one sale too, but who wants to eat the hard course stalk that comes on the bottom of it! - This recipe is a way to use the last bit of broccoli you don't want to eat raw, but you also don't want to throw away.

Total Calories: 210     Total # of Servings:12 (1/2 Cup Servings)      Calories per Serving:17.5

Steps
1. Wash the pieces of broccoli and cauliflower and trim any of the tops if there are brown spots on the top 
2. Take off the leaves and discard or keep to make vegetable broth out of
3. Chop up the pieces of broccoli and  cauliflower so they are small almost equivalent sizes
4. Put these pieces in a large boiling pot and fill the pot with water so the  pieces of broccoli and  cauliflower are submerged
4. Boil until they are tender enough to be mashed into smaller pieces
5. Drain all of the water using a strainer into another bowl to set aside and use for later as vegetable broth
6. Take a potato masher and gently mash the pieces of broccoli and cauliflower, until they're almost rice like consistency
7.   If its getting too tough to mash some of it- use some of the water you drained and pour some of that into there to help soften it
8. Place into a serving bowl- and enjoy! 

Make Sure to Refrigerate whats left for later!

Cost Note: Make sure you buy fresh- if you get frozen it would most likely cost 4 times as much as you could make it with one head of cauliflower. You can make at least 12 servings of cauliflower rice out of 1 stalk that costs 1.94 or less, which is probably more servings than you would get with a small pack of frozen cauliflower.