#Paleo Cauliflower Rice

Lately I have been hearing a lot about cauliflower rice and became curious about giving it a try. My husband and I have been eating more paleo recipes and are considering giving it a shot as a lifestyle. Neither of us are going to eat bland things that we don't like for the sake of any type of diet, so we are trying to find the things that will become easy staples. We are switching one of our sons to a gluten free diet (a whole other post altogether) so there are a lot of changes going on in our kitchen these days!

As I mention often, I love recipes with minimal ingredients, and this surely met that requirement. Here are the basics:

- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 yellow onion (I used 1/2 shallot because I had one I wanted to use)
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 head cauliflower
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper

Start with a whole head of cauliflower

What to do:

Rinse cauliflower under cool water and pat dry.

1. Pulse the cauliflower to a coarse texture (approximately the size of rice grains) in a food processor. You may also use a cheese grater to get the desired texture. 
2. Heat the coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat.
3. Sauté the onion (or shallot) and garlic for 3–4 minutes, or until the onion is relatively translucent.
4. Add in the cauliflower rice and continue to sauté for 4–5 minutes.
5. Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Cut of the stem and leaves and make florets

Pulse or grate until it looks sort of like this

The garlic and shallot "clove" provided a nice subtle flavor

Cooking notes: This turned out fabulous, my husband loved it too. My kids didn't get into it, but I didn't expect them to on the first try. I felt this was a very healthy alternative to a side of grains. I think getting out the food processor on a week night is a little much for me, but I like super easy recipes with minimal mess. I will definitely make this again, but most likely on the weekend when I am not as pressed for time to get the dishes and kitchen cleaned up.

Eat healthy, friends!

Paleo Baked Fish

Large enough fish filet to share with my son

 I've been having more Paleo fun in the kitchen again. My hubby has been home at dinner time more frequently, which has been nice so I've been trying out some new dishes on him. This time, we decided to try some seafood, which we both enjoy and offers a nice balance to whatever we usually have at lunch time which is typically poultry (turkey or chicken sandwiches/salads). 

This is adapted from The Food Lover's Pantry recipe for "Halibut en Papillote." The recipe can really be adapted for any fish actually, and we went with red snapper this time around because it was the best fish available at our grocery store's fish counter. It was a great price also...nice bonus!

Shallots have a much milder flavor than onion

In addition to utilizing red snapper instead of halibut, we also used thinly sliced garlic instead of garlic scapes, which are the greens that grow atop the garlic clove on the plant. I'll admit I am a lazy cook, and a lazy shopper so since our store didn't carry them when I went shopping I did not spend a lot of time driving around searching. I absolutely love shallots, I feel as though they are so underrated and under utilized in recipes so I was excited to use them. The cooking process for this fish was tremendously simple, and I am sure I will try it again and again with other types of fish, and perhaps including other vegetables in the parchment packet. To make this, I used:

1 tbsp thinly sliced shallot
2 cloves thinly sliced,
1 lemon, thinly sliced
2 red snapper filets or fish of your choice approx 1 inch thick
1 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to bake at 400°F. Rinse your fish and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Roll out 2 large pieces of parchment paper, approximately 15" squares. Hold them down in an open fashion using a salt shaker or other item.

Sprinkle the fish with pepper, and place sliced shallot on top of your fish filets and arrange garlic slices evenly (1 clove for each filet). Evenly distribute your lemon slices on the filets as well.

My son helped me top the fish with shallot, garlic and lemon

Fold 2 opposite corners of the parchment toward each other, and fold over one side of the parchment and roll the filet up in the paper. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, or longer for a thicker cut of fish.

Make sure all sides are closed up

 When you remove from the oven take precautions when opening the parchment. It will likely be hot and steamy, but also there will be a lot of lemon juice in the packet as well.

We served this fish alongside cauliflower rice, which I will also share the recipe for next time. We felt it turned out very tasty, and although we salted the cauliflower rice felt that we should have salted the fish when we peppered it as well. Looking forward to trying this again, perhaps with a different fish and maybe putting some veggies in the parchment to steam as well. Yellow squash sounds like a great choice.