Yesterday, I had a craving for mashed potatoes but thought we needed to get more vegetables into our diet. I keep the normal vegetables on hand – celery, onions, carrots, peppers, lettuce so that I can make most meals and a salad but as we all know, variety is the spice of life! I can’t say the cauliflower smash went over that great but they ate it. What I hoped would be a nice dinner turned into a mad dash for me to get it finished and the boys to do their homework before we had to go to baseball practice.

I made this in 45 minutes, the boys ate and we were out the door on time… it felt like a miracle! I came back (after 45 minutes in traffic) and had a nice glass of wine with my reheated dinner – ahhhh… 

Ingredients (in order of use):

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Pork Tenderloins (I loved this pre-marinated version from Trader Joe’s. I wanted to make steak but it is too expensive so I bought this thinking it would taste like pepper steak and it did!)

1 head cauliflower, chopped

¼ cup parmasean

3 Tbsp. butter

Salad and a baguette

Preheat your oven to 350° and put a pot of water on to boil. Heat a large sauce pan with olive oil. Sear your tenderloins on med-high for about 4 minutes a side, without moving or playing with them! Put them in a dish and cover, cook for about 20-30 minutes. Let rest for 5-10 minutes and cut in slices.

Chop up your cauliflower and throw it in the boiling water until softish… maybe 6-8 minutes depending upon how big the pieces are. Drain and dry on paper towels (make sure the cauliflower is very dry otherwise it will be too watery). Put in a blender with ¼ cup parmesan, salt and pepper and 3 Tbsp. of butter. Blend until smooth.

Make a nice salad, cut up some bread. I packed a to-go dinner for Greg, who was coaching the baseball practice and we were off!

Note: the boys liked it much better as a sandwich, than a meal. They put a layer of cauliflower on their bread, topped it with meat and more bread and ate it like that, messy but they were happy.