As spring signals all sorts of renewal, I am unsurprisingly trying to revamp myself. Read: diet. Ok, I know "diets" sound pathetic, but don't hate. I'm trying to be more aware of how I eat. I don't, however, have a whole tonne of self restraint, so putting in some concrete rules to help sort me out doesn't strike me as ridiculous or pathetic.
I am doing the 17 Day Diet: I did it in the Fall and lost about 10 lbs when starting my job at a restaurant derailed me. Now I'm back at it. But after 4 or 5 days of doing fish fillets, eggs, and chicken breasts, I started craving some comfort food. And voila, I brainstormed this...
Cauliflower and Turkey Shepard's Pie
So the 17 Day Diet banishes sugars and simple carbs, amongst other things, and so creamy mashed potato-topped Shepard's Pie was a no go. Same with the ground beef - lean proteins only. So I thought I would give mashed cauliflower and turkey pie a go. It turns out I was not the first to have this stroke of genius. Ah well. I read a number of recipes and ended up going my own way with it.
To start, I wanted to roast my cauliflower rather than steam it. Roasted cauliflower just takes on such a savoury, nutty flavour. And since I was going to have the oven on for a while, why not roast some garlic?
Well after an hour, the caulifower still wasn't easily mashable, so I pulled it out and finished it in the microwave with a generous helping of chicken broth.
Into the vitamix with it. I thickened and richened it with diet friendly fat free greek yogurt, tossed in 2 cloves of roasted garlic, salt and, my mum's secret to awesome mashed potatos, white pepper
Then I chopped carrots, mushrooms, white onion and celery. This is always way more time consuming for me than any recipe alots. 30 minute prep for a Shepard's Pie? Uh, no. Sorry.
I still had plenty of leftover garlic from the small clove I had picked up at Planet Organic, roasted and ready. I couldn't resist - all of these ingredients went into a pan, with 2 tablespoons of heated olive oil. Pop the lid on and let it simmer down.
I added ample spices before I added the ground turkey; cardamon, corriander, poultry seasoning, savoury, thyme, oregano and some parsley. Salt and pepper, obviously. A touch of ginger - I would never have thought of it, but I read it in one of the many recipes I had checked out, so I gave it a go. It was very subtle, but thoroughly seasoning the veggies - overseasoning them, even - is key. I couldn't add flour to thicken the drippings into a gravey, I couldn't add Bisto or wine, so seasoning carries this dish. Add in the turkey, and cook most of the way through. Then I added frozen peas.
Into to baking pan with it. I could have used more than one head of cauliflower, in the end. It sunk into the filling quite a bit, and I've always liked an ample layer of mashed potatoes in my classic Shepard's Pie.
I then threw it into the oven for about 40 minutes. I had been waiting to see the top brown, as most Shepard's Pie recipes called for, but with the cauliflower, already roasted, it didn't change much. I think it's best to give it a little extra time when working with ground poultry in any event.
The finished product?
Delicious. It didn't taste a thing like "diet food." My dad, who offered to go on the diet, but promptly ignored all the restrictions I listed off for him, and my younger brother, who offered no such thing, both enjoyed it. I went back for seconds. I topped it off with a sprinkle of smoked paprika and some coarse salt.
I entered it all in on MyFitnessPal app, estimating that the ample pan would give about 8 servings (those three portions were less than half the pan). The results? 220 calories, 3.2 grams of fat, 5 grams of fibre, 31 grams of protein. Seriously. Make it.
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