Shepard's Pie with a Cauliflower Substitute

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Nia B., at least that is what some of my friends call me. I am a senior in college and after my first year of eating on campus, I started cooking my own meals. Many of my friends have suggested that I start my own cooking show or transfer to a culinary arts school and become a chief.

I have lived in the south all my life on the east coast. That being said, I was raised in a house that used butter, vegetable oil, ham hocks, and lots of cheese. I was also raised in a poorer family so things like hamburger helper, BK whopper and fries, and Banquet TV dinners were an easy Monday-Thursday meal option with Friday been the night we usually ordered pizza or chinese.

Those habits followed me straight to college. Because I stayed in the kitchen with my mom, I knew how to make a full course meal with little cash or ingredients to start with, but as I admit now, they aren't the healthiest options. Well... neither are most of the meal options on my campus.

Also, lately I have realized that being a 300 pound female has many disadvantages in life. Why not take my senior year to change my life around.. And thus, this blog was created. I am going to mark my steps to transforming my diet by going recipe by recipe. But don't forget, I was raised in the south. It will be healthy and taste good! while being affordable for college students! Here we go!



Shepard's Pie with a Cauliflower Substitute


Ingredients:
1 medium cauliflower
1/4 cup 2% milk
1 small potato
5 tablespoons of butter/margarine
1/2 pound lean ground chuck
1 can of mixed vegetables
salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons Mrs. Dash: Original Blend (optional)
2 table spoons spaghetti sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
2-3 slices of turkey bacon.


Preheat the oven to 350
Take your cauliflower and peel off all the green parts. Break apart the cauliflower into small florets and place them in a large pot filled with water. Heat to boiling. When you can stick a fork without much added pressure into the cauliflower, then it is ready. Strain the cauliflower and sit it aside. It will loose some more water while it sits.

Peel your potato and dice it into small cubes. Placed the diced potatoes in a small sauce pan filled with water and boil. When the potatoes become almost completely translucent remove from heat and strain.

In a medium frying pan, take the ground chuck and crumble it around the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste. I add in a about 2 teaspoons of Mrs. Dash for added flavor, but this is optional. Cook the hamburger until it is all brown. Do not make the meat crispy. Drain the excess grease from the meat. Save this pan for later.

Mix the meat and the speghetti sauce.

In a blender, add your butter, milk, cauliflower, garlic powder, and diced potatoes. Blend until smooth.

When I did this, I used 4 small porcelain tart dishes, but if you do not have those a small baking dish will be fine (size of a meatloaf/bread pan). If you do not have one... many Dollar Tree's offer cheap baking pans for $1, and yes, I do have a few in my kitchen! I am a college student.

I took the four dishes, evenly dispersed the meat. Open my can of mixed vegetables. Spread a tablespoon of vegetables in each dish. Then I took my cauliflower mashed potato mixture and tasted it. Mine needed some salt and pepper so I stirred in some more. You many need to do the same. Then I divided the mixture in to 5 parts. 4 parts went on top of the vegetables and meat, and the other part went in a small freezer bag so I could have mashed cauliflower potatos later and I all would need to do would be pull them out the freezer and reheat them. If you are using the meat loaf pan that you might just want to pour all of the mixture into the pan.

Place the dish(es) in the oven for 20-25 minutes. During this time, in the same pan that you browned the hamburger, fry the turkey bacon really crispy! Dry excess grease off with a paper towel and in a small bowl, tear the bacon into small pieces.

When the shepard's pie is done, pull it out the oven and top with bacon pieces!

Depending on how many pieces of bacon you use and making sure you divide this up into 4 equal portions this meal totals up to: roughly 270-300 calories.

All of the ingredients above where strategically purchased on my campus using declining balance or at the local Walmart.

Cauliflower --> 1.79
1/2 gallon of milk --> 1.75
4 lbs ground chuck -->6.99
1 small potato --> .50 cents
1 pack of butter --> 1.00
1 can mixed vegetables --> .60
1 can Ragu --> 2.50
1 pk turkey bacon --> 1.75

Calculating the percentage used in this meal... this meal (4 really) comes out to: roughly $4.80 for 4 meals!!!!!
And the good thing, you will have extra from the shopping list above for other recipes!