Twice Cooked Cauliflower and Leeks

Next time you’re contemplating making the low-carber’s classic dish, Loaded Baked “Potatoes”, try using leeks sometime instead of the green onion. WONDERFUL change!

Man, did my husband ever rant about this cauliflower dish tonight. I have my Twice Baked “Potatoes” that uses green onion, but leeks are much milder! I used half a large leek and it sliced up to made 2 c. sliced up! I used more cream cheese than I usually do in my similar dish and decided to use American Deluxe cheese tonight instead of cheddar cheese. WOW! What a difference in flavor those changes made. Who’da thunk? 🙂 Hope you give this one a try! This recipes is suitable for all phases of Atkins and Keto programs. Primal followers can enjoy this as written. Paleo people will need to leave out the cream cheese. It’ll taste OK, but not quite as rich. 🙂

INGREDIENTS:

½ large head cauliflower (6-7″) cut into flowerets

3 oz. cream cheese, cut into small bits

6 T. total butter, unsalted

Dash salt (omit if using salted butter)

½ leek, sliced thinly

6 slices American Deluxe or Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS: Under running cold water, wash all dirt from between the leaves of the half leek. Do this carefully, as the dirt hides on both sides of the leaves. Nothing worse than biting into grit at the table. Slice the leak thinly. Melt 2 T. of the butter in a skillet over medium heat and saute leeks just until tender. Turn off heat and set aside.

Cut up the cauliflower into flowerets, place it into a 4-qt. saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and medium boil until soft, or about 15-18 minutes. Remove from heat, pour all into a colander to drain and with a rubber spatula, mash out any water you can. Preheat oven to 350º. Pour cauliflower back into the saucepan and drop in the cut up cream cheese. Stir with you a rubber spatula to allow the cream cheese to melt a bit. Add 4 of the 6 tablespoons of butter and the salt. With a hand-held mixer or stick blender (I used the stick for mine), puree all until smooth. Add the sauteed leek, scraping all the butter you can get into the pot. Stir well to mix evenly. With your rubber spatula, scrape the cauli-leek mixture into a lightly buttered baking dish (mine is about 7″x11″). Top with 6 slices of cheese (you can shred the cheese first if you prefer). Pop into 350º oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted nicely. This tasty dish was delightful served with butter-seared pork chops and a salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 6 servings, each contains:

259.3 cals, 23.4g fat, 6.36g carbs, 1.99g fiber, 4.48g NET CARBS, 7.7g protein, 350 mg sodium