Low Carb Choices: Cauliflower Rice

On Saturday night, Aaron and I decided to try a new recipe: cauliflower rice!  It's a low carb alternative to traditional rice.  I got the idea from a coworker of mine who has recently made a lot of healthy food choices and altered his diet quite a bit.  The instructions he gave me seemed simple enough, so Aaron & I decided to give it a whirl.  We added it to our supper in an effort to be "cup bearers" before we try it out on Michael's palate.  I am supposed to be introducing a new veggie to Michael each week, and this would be a great one for him to like. 

Aaron makes a fabulous hibachi stir-fry and, when we pair it with Yum-Yum Sauce, it is over the top delicious.  Basically, Aaron swirls some vegetable oil in a skillet and throws in some frozen mixed stir fry veggies (usually we try to buy an Asian blend).  He heats those through, adds rice (that we've boiled) or cauliflower "rice" (wink) (that we've roasted) and mixes it all together.  Then he pan fries some diced-up chicken thighs in a separate skillet and when the chicken is cooked through (in a matter of minutes), he adds it to the veggies and stirs everything together.  We then divvy it up into bowls and top it off with a little yum-yum sauce and it's good to go!  Delicious!  It's so easy and tasty and we could seriously eat it 4 times a week for dinner.  We always have leftovers, which makes a great lunch to pack for work!

This time, in lieu of "boil-in-a-bag rice" (which is how we typically cook our rice), we decided to go the cauliflower rice route.  I researched the easiest ways to make cauliflower look like rice and how to cook it.  We purchased a Box-Grater from Target (I chose the orange color) and we were set!  I took a whole head of cauliflower and chopped it up into roughly eight wedges.  Then I rubbed about 3 wedges against the large-hole side of the box grater.  Three of the eight wedges seemed like a good amount to split between two adults. 

I heated some olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  After the skillet was hot, I poured the "rice" in.  I constantly stirred it around with a spatula for about 5 minutes until it was softened.

Aaron then poured the rice into the skillet with the cooked veggies.

He put the diced up chicken thighs in the skillet that the rice had cooked it.  Within a few minutes, the chicken was done and he added that to the veggie/rice mixture.  Here is a picture of our pan when I came back for my second helping.  So, as you can see, we had quite a bit left! 

I plan to make cauliflower rice again this week and serve it to Michael as part of a dinner.  Unrelated to the rice cooking is the picture of this little boy who snacked on cheese in between his dinner and bedtime snack. 
Such a cutie. 

 

 

I will definitely be making cauliflower rice when we do stir-fry dinners in the future.  Although cauliflower didn't take the place of rice flavor, it matched it well in consistency and added the "body" to the dish the way that rice does.  It is hereby an excellent low carb choice in my book. 

 

 

Much love, Reba