Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Paleo Dirty "Rice"

Dirty Rice is one of my all time favorite foods from my winter in New Orleans.  Along with char grilled oysters, jambalaya, anything fried and daquiris... 
But I got home and started to make my own quick and dirty rice..  It's really easy, some rice, onions and green peppers and some cajun seasoning. 
Well, during this Paleo challenge, I'm skipping the rice, which proves difficult when making dirty rice... because you're left with just "dirty"...
So, I gave this cauliflower rice a try, and surprisingly, it was perfect!  It was one of the few paleo recipes that I'm completely convinced that I won't go back to the original recipe! 


Here's how it goes...

PAleo Dirty "Rice"
Servings: 2 (doubles really easily for a family of 4)
Ingredients:
1/2 head of cauliflower
1/2 onion
1/2 green pepper
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Pat of butter
1/4 lb ground beef
Cajun seasoning

First, cut your cauliflower off the stem and pop it in a food processor.  Give it a few pulses until it resembles couscous/rice.  You might have to pick out a few stems that just won't cooperate. 

Once you have it rice-ified, pour the cauli-rice in a pan with some olive oil and a little pat of butter, melted.  Stir until the cauli-rice are al dente.  (You HAVE to taste it here.  The cauli-rice don't brown up much, so you have to check the mouth-feel.) (I feel like I'm using some weird words in this post... cauli-rice, rice-ified, mouth-feel....)

Remove the cauli-rice and put it to the side.  In the empty pan, sweat some chopped onions and green peppers with a little olive oil and cajun seasoning to taste.  (remember, you can always add some at the end, I just think the onions take the flavor the best when it's introduced early)

Remove the onions and peppers, and replace them in the empty pan with some ground beef.  Brown it down. 

Once the ground beef is browned, throw everything back in with a little more cajun seasoning if you want.  Warm it all back up and let the oils and juices marry.  mmmmmm. This stuff is almost BETTER the next day. 


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