Cauliflower Shepherd’s Pie

A cauliflower shepherd’s pie, coming almost totally out of the freezer, here!!

A 12 oz bag frozen peas and carrots, a 12 oz bag frozen corn, a pound of ground beef (I use frozen because Aldi labels theirs gluten free), and two boxes of the relatively new Green Giant mashed cauliflower! 

That Green Giant mashed cauliflower even has an “Easy Shepherd’s Pie Mash” on the box, but it’s got you serving your veggies-and-beef OVER your mashed cauliflower, so I’m not really doing that. -Of course I’m not really following my original recipe either, of course, of COURSE— Hence the blog of my own! 

I am cooking mine in my super-large cast iron skillet, so it can go straight in the oven. I recommend using an oven-safe skillet, here, one less pan to wash!! *All my skillets are cast iron, so they all have to be washed by hand.* Otherwise, get a large enough skillet for your beef filling, and you can put it in the oven in a casserole dish.

I’m optional-ing onions, here, again for my parents and my aunt, lol, who have the ODDEST food tastes. If you are onion-ing, dice your onion and sauté in olive oil PAN SPRAY (save the calories on the olive oil!) until translucent. 

If you’re like me and dislike the onion bit, I’m starting right with the beef and garlic.

Start the Green Giant mashed cauliflower in the microwave, according to the package directions, and preheat your oven to 350.

Keep cooking the beef until no pink remains. Drain grease if needed.  Add 3/4 C beef broth (or make your own broth with water and gluten free broth base, which is what I did)), your frozen corn, and your frozen peas and carrots.  Bring to a simmer and simmer 5 minutes.

 

While this was simmering, I added a box of Neufchâtel cheese to the mashed cauliflower in a large bowl, and stirred until smooth.

Top your beef filling with the cauliflower mixture and bake with another generous shake of parsley on top for 20 minutes at 350.

CAULIFLOWER SHEPHERD’S PIE

2 20oz boxes Green Giant mashed cauliflower 

12 oz bag frozen peas and carrots

12 oz bag frozen corn

Onion, diced

1 lb lean ground beef

3 cloves minced garlic

3/4 C beef broth 

8 oz Neufchâtel cheese (low fat cream cheese), softened

Dried parsley

Fresh ground salt and pepper

Olive oil pan spray 

1. Preheat oven to 350. Start microwaving your mashed cauliflower according to package directions.

2. Sauté onion and garlic in large oven-safe skillet. Add ground beef, and cook until no longer pink. Add 3/4 C beef broth, peas and carrots, and corn. Add several generous shakes of parsley, and a good grinding of salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer; simmer five minutes.

3. While beef filling is simmering, add 8 oz cream cheese to your mashed cauliflower. Stir until smooth.

4. Top beef filling with mashed cauliflower and several more shakes of parsley. Bake for 20 minutes at 350, or until cauliflower is starting to brown.

Gluten Free Macaroni and Cheese

As promised, a whole-grain gluten-free macaroni and cheese that legit tastes the same as the macaroni and cheese my parents made when I was growing up!

And <I> do not say that lightly. *nods head emphatically* There are a whole HOST of foods (bread and baked goods top the list) that I simply do not eat anymore, because I so dislike the differences in the gluten free versions I’d rather just do without them. 

But I am a devotee of macaroni and cheese - pasta and cheese in any variety, really - so I WAS going to get <this one> mastered!

Tinkanyada pasta is my secret. Made in a dedicated facility, it’s gluten free, whole grain, and certified kosher for my Jewish friends. It boils up still a little different than wheat pasta, but I really can hardly tell the difference at ALL once it is baked. Truth. 

Tinkanyada comes in elbows, which I am using here as more traditional “macaroni,” but it also comes in shells, which work well for mac-and-cheese too.


I use the Basic White Sauce for macaroni and cheese, layering elbows, white sauce, and shredded sharp cheddar. Some people prefer using a cheese sauce. How to turn your white sauce into a cheese sauce is included at the bottom of the Basic White Sauce link 😊 Even if you use a cheese sauce, I still like it layered with a shredded cheese!

I use shredded sharp cheddar here. You get more taste with fewer calories with the sharp! I really don’t recommend using part-skim or reduced-fat cheese or whatever your brand of cheese calls that. It doesn’t melt well, and everybody wants a macaroni and cheese that’s melt-y and gooey, no?



Ready to go in the oven!!


I also cut the calories by serving it topped with fresh steamed broccoli. I love broccoli on my macaroni on cheese, I’ll admit! Broccoli is best with cheese sauce, in my world; my favorite pastas are topped with cheese sauces too: not a huge leap to put the two together, you see?

Item: this also freezes well (minus the fresh broccoli, of course). Since we celiacs can’t buy frozen dinners for the most part (plus I’ve always thought most frozen dinners were kind of icky), I portion out and freeze my own. Always nice to have some ‘comfort’ food ready to pull out for dinner on a moment’s notice, hmmm?


MACARONI AND CHEESE 

1 lb Tinkanyada elbows or shells
1 recipe Basic White Sauce or Cheese Sauce
3 cups shredded sharp cheddar
Fresh steamed broccoli (optional)


1. Cook pasta a minute or two LESS than package directions. You want it still pretty al dente, since it’s going to bake. 


2. Preheat oven to 350 while pasta is boiling.


3. Make white sauce from above link. Drain pasta.


4. Pan spray a large baking pan (mine is a 10x14). Layer pasta, white sauce, and shredded cheese twice, finishing with a top layer of cheese.

5. Bake at 350 for thirty minutes, checking periodically to make sure it doesn’t need covered. (I covered mine at twenty minutes, when it was bubbly and browning around the edges but not melted in the middle yet.)

Servings: 9
Calories per serving: 400

Ashley’s Favorite Sauces: Basic White Sauce/ Basic Cheese Sauce

I would give credit to whatever recipe book this came out of, but I swear I think it was the -original- microwave cookbook that came with our -original-microwave, that I think my parents got when I was under five. Thirty-five years now: there is no TELLING where that cookbook is, nor what the name of it was, lol!

I find a four-cup measure works best for me, making - well, it’s two cups of milk, but often I wind up adding more milk to thin it down after it stands for a few minutes. So a four-cup measure for this recipe. Expect to make a bit more than two cups of sauce.

BASIC WHITE SAUCE 

2 cups milk 

4 T butter or margarine

4 T flour (for gluten free, I use white rice flour)

In a microwaveable bowl, heat milk 2 minutes on power level 7. 

In four-cup measure, melt the butter or margins for 45 seconds, covered with wax paper. (This splatters.) Stir in flour. Microwave 30 seconds.

Briskly stir in warmed milk with a whisk. Whisk until no lumps remain. Microwave two minutes, keeping a close eye on it. (This boils over QUICK.) Stir/whisk, again until no lumps remain. Microwave another two minutes or until boiling.

Let stand five minutes before serving.

*Often this will thicken upon standing. If that happens, whisk in enough milk to thin to desired consistency. 

For a BASIC CHEESE SAUCE,

Make the BASIC WHITE SAUCE recipe. After it boils, stir in your desired shredded or cubed cheese before letting it stand. After standing five minutes, it probably will need thinned down. Whisk in milk until it is desired consistency.

Grilled Cod with Lemon Butter over Vegetables

I originally wasn't going to blog this, because I had thought I was following an already published recipe - and then I realized just how silly that was, because that recipe called for grilled mahi-mahi over asparagus, and this is grilled cod over broccoli - my typical manner of 'following' a recipe, lol!

Plus now I can't find the recipe anyhow. It was online somewhere, and apparently I didn't save it when I closed it.

So --- you are getting my version of it!

Since I hadn't intended to blog it, though, you're getting just a straight recipe. 😀

GRILLED COD WITH LEMON BUTTER OVER VEGETABLES

1 lb cod fillets, or any other firm white fish
1 lb broccoli, steamed
1 lb asparagus, optional
Garlic powder
Salt and pepper
4 T butter
4 T lemon juice, bottled or fresh
Fresh herbs (I used oregano)

1. Snap woody ends of asparagus. Prepare fish fillets by grinding salt and pepper over them and sprinkling with garlic powder.

2. Prepare grill. I used my George Foreman, because I don't have a place for an outside grill. If you are using an outside grill, you might want to use a grill pan or copper sheet. Grill asparagus until tender-crisp, if using. Grill fish until it flakes easily with a fork, turning once if fillets are thick.

3. Prepare lemon butter sauce. Add lemon juice to the butter in a microwavable bowl or 4-cup measure. Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until butter is melted. Add salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste.

4. Serve fish over vegetables, topping the vegetables with fresh herbs, and pouring lemon butter sauce over all.

Serving portion: 4 oz fillet over a quarter of the vegetables
Calories: 225 calories per serving*

*You could cut those calories by using margarine instead of real butter. I decided real butter was worth it here.

Goat Cheese Pasta with Shrimp and Roasted Asparagus

I am roasting my asparagus for this recipe as the Roasted Asparagus blog post shows.

I really didn’t want to peel shrimp, so my choice for frozen shrimp was already-peeled-and-cooked. If you can find this, it’s certainly easiest! Otherwise just sauté your shrimp in some olive oil pan spray until done, and toss in the pasta at the appropriate time.

I am tailing my shrimp - just personal preference there, I prefer to have shrimp ready to eat in pastas, rather than picking them out to eat all sauce-y.

Shrimp and roasted asparagus ready to toss with the pasta and goat cheese sauce—

The sauce is super-easy. Cut your log of goat cheese into a four cup measure; add four tablespoons butter. Add in a cup of the pasta water, when you drain your pasta. Whisk until smooth!

Splurge on a fancy goat cheese if you can. This I'm using is a 'Smackin' Garlic' goat cheese from a farm up near Asheville, NC. The little logs of goat cheese work great, and there are lots of fancy flavors in those in just my regular grocery stores around here. The herbed ones also are marvelous in this sauce!

Then you just toss it all together! Shrimp, pasta, asparagus, and sauce: portion it out, and you’ve got dinner!

GOAT CHEESE PASTA WITH SHRIMP AND ROASTED ASPARAGUS

1 lb Tinkanyada brown rice spiral pasta
1 lb Roasted Asparagus, in bite sized pieces
12 oz large shrimp, peeled and cooked
4 oz goat cheese
4 T butter

Roast asparagus and prepare shrimp while pasta water is heating. Cut goat cheese and butter into a four-cup measure or small bowl.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, RESERVING ONE CUP OF PASTA WATER.

Add reserved pasta water to goat cheese and butter. Whisk until smooth.

Toss asparagus, shrimp, pasta, and goat cheese sauce well.

Servings: 8
Calories per serving: 350

Roasted Asparagus

Roasted asparagus is super easy, and tastes gourmet for very little effort!

Asparagus is one of the easiest vegetables to trim up too. You don’t need a knife. Just rinse it, grasp the middle of your asparagus spear by one hand and the thick bottom part by the other, and bend it with your thumbs till it snaps! Discard the bottom end - that’s the ‘woody’ part.

If you want whole spears, you can wrap them in foil right now.

 

I want mine bite-sized, because they’re going in a pasta. Just keep bending and snapping!

Then wrap them, either the spears or the bites, into foil on a baking sheet or a sheet pan. Make sure you seal up the edges of your foil well!

Bake in a preheated oven at 400 for 13-14 minutes, for a pound. 

Open carefully! The foil packet will contain steam, and it will burn you if you’re not careful!

*This kind of asparagus is good by itself; or with olive oil and fresh grated Parmesan; or with a dash of lemon juice and a grating or lemon zest. Or you can use it in other recipes, as I am using it in ROASTED ASPARAGUS AND GOAT CHEESE PASTA, today!

ROASTED ASPARAGUS 

1 pound of asparagus

Preheat oven to 400.

Snap your asparagus, either into spears or bite sized pieces. Wrap tightly in foil. Roast at 400 for 13-14 minutes, or until the asparagus is tender-crisp.