Loaded Cauliflower Modifié

Doesn't stuff sound fancy when you say it in French? I took Spanish in school and I'm a big fan of that language but French sure does make a recipe sound fancy.

So a friend posted this recipe on Facebook and I just started drooling all over the place because dang, it was just all bubbly and cheesy and bacon-y so most anyone would do the same thing. And it had cauliflower which is one of my most favorite vegetables because it's so versatile, so when I see a recipe that excites me and it has to do with cauliflower the odds of actually eating some vegetables skyrocket. Which is a good thing.

I mean seriously, just look at this:

photo credit: parkersgeneral.blogspot.com

So, even though I'm plush size (a recently coined term to describe the fact that I'm cuddly, you can use that) and I eat horribly and have no sense of portion control at times (at many, many times), I still love the challenge of trying to modify a recipe and cut the fat and calories, especially when it seems like a no-brainer, as in the case of this recipe.

We'll talk numbers. Here's how the original version breaks down. Thanks to myfitnesspal.com (the place where I'm supposed to be logging my food but ummm of late, not so much), I can plug in the ingredients and get some nutrition info. When this recipe was posted on Facebook it used Colby Jack cheese, so that's what I used. I also sauteed my mushrooms first with some butter and garlic powder, just to bring a little extra flavor. The serving size refers to 1/8 of a 13 x 9 pan.

Ingredients	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Cauliflower - Raw, 1 head, large (6-7" dia)	210	45	1	17	252	20
Sour cream, 0.5 cup	246	5	24	4	61	0
Mushrooms - Raw, 1 cup, pieces or slices	15	2	0	2	3	1
Land O Lakes - Butter With Olive Oil, 0.5 tbsp	45	0	5	0	45	0
Market Pantry - Colby Jack Shredded Cheese, 2 Cup	800	16	72	48	1,600	0
Oscar Mayer - Bacon, 6 slices (14g)	210	0	18	12	780	0
Best Foods - Mayonnaise - Real, 4 tbsp	360	0	40	0	360	0
Green Onion - Green Onion Raw (Whole), 3 medium (15 g)	15	3	0	1	6	1
Add Ingredient

Total:	1,901	71	160	84	3,107	22
Per Serving:	238	9	20	11	388	3

I wound up using 5 pieces of bacon on my modified version, simply because that's what fit on the small baking sheet I pulled out. For me, I found this to be plenty. And another note about my bacon: my favorite turkey bacon is the Oscar Mayer turkey bacon that looks like this:

 

photo credit: www.simplygroceries.com

But Target was out of that one so I used the Oscar Mayer Selects that's listed in my recipe. When I cook this bacon, I'm usually at work and I heat up a couple of pieces on a paper towel in the microwave for one minute and 30 seconds and it comes out pretty crispy. This time I cooked it in the oven (and I've had turkey bacon cooked in the oven before that was THE BOMB) but this came out a little limp, which made me sad, but it was still good. Next time around I would work on that and also use my old standby bacon even though it's loaded with nitrates. My other modification was with cheese. In addition to using the reduced fat version, I also used half as much. And I'm a cheese NUT, and I found this to be perfectly acceptable. I also used an orange cauliflower like this

photo credit: squashblossombabies.com

which I think adds to illusion of cheesiness. Anyway, here's how the modified version breaks down.

Ingredients	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Cauliflower - Raw, 1 head, large (6-7" dia)	210	45	1	17	252	20
Market Pantry - Colby Jack Reduced Fat Shredded Cheese, 1 Cup	360	4	24	32	640	0
Oscar Mayer Selects-no Nitrates - Turkey Bacon, 5 slice	150	0	13	10	700	0
Land O Lakes - Butter With Olive Oil, 0.5 tbsp	45	0	5	0	45	0
Green Onion - Green Onion Raw (Whole), 3 medium (15 g)	15	3	0	1	6	1
Trader Joe's - Light Sour Cream, 4 tbsp (30 g)	80	4	5	4	60	4
Best Foods - Light Mayonaise, 4 Tbsp (14g)	140	4	14	0	500	0
Add Ingredient

Total:	1,000	60	62	64	2,203	25
Per Serving:	125	8	8	8	275	3

Pretty cool, right? And it was DELICIOUS. Another note about this stuff. The whole tablespoons and cups and stuff confuses me. Because I'm just not that bright. And I'm not a measurer. Which is not a real word. But if you scoop out 4 tablespoons of sour cream, for example, it makes almost half a cup. Even though when you Google how many tablespoons are in a cup, the answer is 16. So I don't know and maybe someone can help me with this because my brain hurts. I'm not a scientist or a recipe master or anything, I'm just telling you what I did and maybe you'll try it, too! 

Hamster

That's me, right now. I'm a hamster in a wheel. I'm not even running, because I'm more like a fat and lazy hamster who's just walking on a wheel and not getting anywhere. I feel like THAT.

I get up, I go to work, or I get up and I take the kid to school. And a couple of days a week I'm lucky enough to have found (thanks to my sister-in-law) a Zumba class I love, so I go there. And then I sort of look around my house and get completely overwhelmed by the clutter. All the stuff I need to put somewhere else or toss or dust or reorganize. Mostly probably toss. Haven't I blogged about this before? Pretty sure I have. I think since that blog I even got some books or samples of books on my Kindle about how to de-clutter and whatnot but yeah. I haven't actually started reading those books. 

I'm supposed to go to Mom's house and start collecting things there. Things that I would like to keep, so I can bring them to my already cluttered house and find spaces for them. That don't currently exist. But meanwhile my brother and I are paying to maintain the house, which at least has long been paid off, but we won't shut off the cable all the way because neither one of us wants to be there when it's quiet (well, especially me, he's much more together than I am in general), and then there are the utilities and insurance and stuff like that. So you know, there's a financial incentive to not drag my feet and she passed away at the end of January and the end of May is fast approaching and I haven't done anything there yet.

Nothing at all.

me, pretty much

photo credit: renegadehealth.com

I have been to the house since she passed away and the emptiness is completely and utterly and overwhelmingly stifling. And it's where we cared for her, at first after a surgery in October and then the last two weeks of her life, and it's where she died, so there are these memories... most of which are sad, hard, unpleasant, unfair, and awful. I mean, she was literally the most ridiculously positive and brave person I have ever seen in my life. I would not have handled my impending death with the grace or bravery or attitude that she did. But even those memories of bravery make me sad as fuck.

And I'm crying because I've also been accidentally off my meds for two days so that was dumb of me, right? Right.

So I fill my time with laundry. Because laundry is easy. I do just basic things like sweeping the floor or the dishes or sort of making the bed before we get into it. And Words With Friends. Thank goodness for word games. Target trips. Today I'm going to Whole Foods just because I've never shopped there and I want something different. Naps. I try to get those in on my weekend. Just stupid busy stuff that keeps my house sort of going but not going anywhere. Just motoring. Isn't that a line from that Sister Christian song? I need to go look that up... "You're motoring/ what's your price for flight/ In finding mister right/ You'll be alright tonight." What the hell does that even mean? I have no clue whatsoever.

Completely or not so completely off topic, I log into Blogger to write because I just feel like I need to write something, with zero clue what that something will be and I see a blurb about a blog I follow, Closet Cooking, and it's a recipe for Eggs Benedict with Bacon, Avodaise (Avocado Hollandaise), and Harissa and I'm like, that looks so disgusting...

photo credit: www.closetcooking.com

... but it also totally looks like something I'd eat since eggs and avocado are two of my favorite things and it's so creative. Like, I want to be creative. I want to cook creatively and write and have my house look different than it is, like make it look like there's more personality and less of just having it be this box where we throw all our stuff because I'm a slow walking hamster just putting on this show of functionality.

I mean truly, I don't feel so badly. I mean, I'm sad as all get out. Like, there's a corner of sadness in me that's just going to stay. That doesn't change, that's the hole where my mom used to be, no doubt. But I have that great kid and great friends and I go out and I do stuff and I have a great time and I laugh at stuff and I say funny things and I love my job, etc. So it's not all fake functionality. Like, I'm functional. But I need to be more so. I need to do what I need to do instead of just carrying it around like a dark cloud about to burst into a thunderstorm over my head at any minute. So I guess this post is a letter to me to fucking get it done so I can move on and if you have read this whole thing I just took you along on the ride with me, you poor sucker you. But I appreciate you being here because YOU'RE part of my process. You really are, so thanks for that.

So this hamster has written and has almost finished her coffee so I think I'll go get some endorphins exercise-ararily and see how the rest of the day goes. Maybe I'll get some harissa at Whole Foods, who knows.