I had a head of cauliflower in the fridge. My original plan was to make cauliflower mash with it. But that bored me. Instead, I broke out the food processor attachment for my stick blender and made a new (to me) thing.

Pan Fried Cauliflower

• Cauliflower – 1/2 head
• Olive Oil – 2 tbls
• Butter – 2 tbls
• Salt and pepper to taste

The trick here is to start raw cauliflower. Clean off the leaves and break it down into pieces that will fit in the bowl of your food processor. Break down the whole thing because for this, you can use all of the cauliflower, not just the fancy looking parts.

Grind it up until it looks like it has been riced. Depending on your machine, maybe about 30 seconds worth of grinding. Remove any pieces that didn’t hit the blades and put them in with the next batch. My food processor is pretty small, so this took me 3 batches for 1/2 cauliflower.

In your favorite pan, get some olive oil shimmering over medium high heat. Add the cauliflower to the pan with a solid pinch of salt and a few grinds from your pepper mill. Cook this, moving constantly, for about 5 minutes or until it is the consistency your like. Mine was done about like like aldente pasta. Add about 2 tbls of butter to the pan and once melted, let this sit on 1 side for a little extra time to get a bit of color. Careful, this will burn!

This was my first time making this and I can already tell it’s going to be pretty flexible. I added garlic powder and parmesan cheese to finish. Fresh garlic and lemon would be amazing I’m sure. Go crazy and do what you like. I still have 1/2 of a head left and think I’m going to try making that one risotto style. I expect it to be pretty challenging and will report back with the results!

Did you try this? Let me know how it turned out. Comments are open!

Been a while since I’ve posted here. Figure I should get back to it with a brand new recipe. This was exactly what I wanted and I think you’ll dig it.

Oven Roasted Chicken Salad with Yogurt Lemon Dressing

I’m writing this how I will make it next time, not how I made it this time. I was in a rush and skipped some steps.

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken Breast, cooked and diced
• 1 cucumber, peeled and diced
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• Avocado (optional)

Dressing

• 1 cup plain yogurt. Greek works too
• 2 cloves of garlic, but go nuts here if you want
• Juice from 1/2 a Lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste, figure about 2tsp of each
• 1tbls Olive Oil

For the dressing, assemble everything and mix well. If you can give this an hour in the fridge, that would be ideal. Seriously, I really like garlic, so I used 4 cloves because I’m crazy like that. You can adjust this to your liking.

For the chicken breast, cook this using your preferred method. I oven roasted tonight and for this application it works perfectly. But grilled would be equally amazing!

Another trick that I have recently learned is to pre-salt the tomatoes and drain them after about 15 minutes. Takes away some of the bitter and leaves less liquid in the salad.

Putting it all together
Mix up your veggies and your chicken. Toss that with about 2tbls of the dressing and top with sliced avodado to make it look fancy. A few grinds from the pepper mill wouldn’t hurt either.

Simple and quick and oh man this was good! If you make this, be sure to come back and let us know how it turned out!

Came up with this wanting to have a cold pasta salad. This was simple, quick and perfect for the warmer days of summer and spring in Arizona. I will be making this again. For this, I used chicken tenders instead of breasts for a quicker cook time, and the texture was what I wanted. If you want larger chunks of chicken, use breast.

Lemon Chicken Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 1lb chicken tenders, grilled and chopped
• 1/2lb pasta. Shells or penne would work best.
• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced. Medium size
• 1/4 red onion sliced thin
• 2c cherry tomatoes, halved

Dressing

• 4tbls lemon juice
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1tsp dry mustard
• 1tbls kosher salt
• 1tbls dill. Fresh or dry
• 2tsp sugar
• 1tbls red wine vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

If possible, assemble your dressing in advance to really let the garlic and dill come out. My method is to put everything into a mason jar, give it a good shake for about 2 minutes and park it into the fridge until needed.

For the pasta, cook al dente and rinse with cold water. Yes, it's ok to rinse your pasta in this case since it's getting used in a salad and you don't need the extra starch for anything. No, really, rinse your pasta. If it is going to have to sit for a few minutes while you prep everything else, toss it with a bit of olive oil to keep from sticking.

Assembly

Add everything to a good sized bowl. Add the dressing about 1/4 cup at a time, toss to coat. Keep adding dressing until you think there is enough. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for at least 2 weeks.

Additions

Of course ideas come after completion that could have been added. A rib of celery, finely chopped, would have been nice. Peas, blanched and chilled, would have been fantastic as well. I would also recommend using fresh dill if you can, even chopping some into the salad before toss to really punch up the flavor. Skip the cheese on this, you'll find it's not needed.

To be honest, the pasta could even be skipped. It was just what I wanted tonight. It really hit the spot!