Roasted Garlic Mashed Cauliflower & Turkey Pepper "Pasta"

HO. LY. Moly. Where do I start? Well today I decided to get a headstart on my cooking for the week and I tried out a TON of new recipes and ideas that I was super stoked to share with y'all! It took me probably twice as long to get everything finished because I was taking so many damn pictures. I am going to split this up into a few different posts so that this isn't a short novel and you guys can look at which recipes you're interested in. But you should be interested in them all because they were all BOMB!

Okay so I'm going to start off with my dinner for tonight. Now I'm not going to act like I came up with these ideas on my own. Because lets be real, I'm not that clever. I first heard about mashed cauliflower on Pinterest, and then one of my friends on posted a recipe for it that she put up on her blog, so I knew I needed to try it out. (Thanks Makyia for the inspiration!) I got the idea for my main entree from a blog that I follow called Simply Taralynn. The girl that runs this blog is the cutest thing ever. I kind of just really want to be her friend. She lost a ton of weight though just by eating healthier and exercising more, so I love to come check out her blog and see what new things she has up. The one I tried tonight was her pepper pasta. I really loved both of these dishes and they were perfect for me because they were Challenge friendly!

ROASTED GARLIC MASHED CAULIFLOWER

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower

• 3 cups of low sodium chicken broth

• 2 heads of roasted garlic (Roasting garlic is pretty easy! You can google it and find a way that works for you. I don't use any oil or anything with mine to keep the cals/fat down)

• Ground pepper

• Onion powder

• Garlic powder

• Rosemary

• Thyme

So start off by cutting up your cauliflower into pieces. Once you start cutting it, it kind of starts to fall apart into pieces, so just break it apart. Don't worry too much if the stems are in there too. It will all taste good!

Throw the cauliflower in a pot with the chicken broth and spices, cover it and let it cook on medium-high heat for about 25 minutes. What I did was put the garlic in the oven, cut up the cauliflower and then cooked the cauliflower for the remainder of the time that the garlic was roasting. After the cauliflower is done cooking, strain out the chicken brother. Once the garlic is done, be sure to either squeeze it out of the cloves, or use a fork to add it to the cauliflower. Use a fork or a masher to mash up the cauliflower until it is about the consistency of mashed potatoes (duh).

Bam! There you go. Mashed cauliflower! It's got the look and similar texture of mashed potatoes, but its all veggies! I am not gonna lie and say this tastes just like its doppelganger, but its still a REALLY delicious way of incorporating vegetables into your meals, especially if you're getting tired of salads and roasted broccoli. NOM!

GRILLED PEPPER PASTA:

Ingredients:

• Bell peppers! - Get as much as you think you will eat, and whichever ones you prefer. I wanted a colorful "pasta" so I got 4 peppers - 1 red, 1 green, 1 orange, 1 yellow

• 28 oz of crushed tomatoes with oregano and basil - you don't have to get the kind that has the spices in it because you can always just get a regular can and add them to it yourself

• 1 tbsp crushed garlic

• 1.5 lbs of extra lean ground turkey

• Cooking spray

Start off by slicing your peppers really thin. How much you want to cut up is up to you...since I was having the cauliflower with this, I didn't do too many peppers, but I wish I had done more because they do cook down a bit. So cut up a little more than you think you might eat. Spray a pan with cooking spray and add in the peppers. You'll cook these on medium heat while you prepare the sauce and turkey. Brown the package of ground turkey in a separate pan. In a saucepan, pour in the crushed tomatoes and crushed garlic and cook on medium heat.

There really isn't much to this recipe. There aren't really time limits for how long you cook everything. I just browned the turkey until it was done, measured out 5 oz as that is my portion size for the challenge, grilled the peppers until they were tender and cooked the sauce until it bubbling slowly. Then add it all together and you are good to go!

This was a really easy recipe and it makes tons of leftovers, so hopefully you like it or you have a boyfriend that eats anything that is edible. Otherwise don't blame me, I warned y'all. I really dug this though because I love bell peppers. The sauce is super easy to make and is a lot better than buying the canned spaghetti sauce because those usually have added sugars, oil, and who knows what else!

So I would say overall this was a good dinner! I would maybe not have these two dishes together next time just because I think the flavors went a little weird with each other. BUT separately they would be really good. I liked the mashed cauliflower a lot and will maybe have that as a side with a dish that doesn't already have veggies, like salmon or a yummy grilled chicken. Try this out though, it was really good and not too much work as long as you aren't also making 12 other things like I did tonight. Another great Challenge friendly recipe to add to the books, SCORE!

#maindish #snacks