Paleo Mexican Dinner + Cauliflower Rice Experiment

They say that fitness is 80% food and only 20% based on fitness. After months of cranking it out at the gym and continuing to gain weight and feel bloated every day, I decided to try changing my eating habits. I consider myself to be a pretty healthy person and try to always buy the highest quality, organic ingredients. I was most nervous about cutting out foods like dairy and gluten. I've heard too many stories of people changing their diets and then not being able to go back without their body protesting. This would mean a future without fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread.... what a terrible thought!

I finally got the courage to start cutting food out of my diet. I decided to keep a food journal of everything I ate to see how I felt afterwards. You may not be surprised to hear that when I only ate whole and unprocessed foods - I felt a huge difference in my energy levels, mood and how I felt in my body. I'm not perfect and I still eat things that I know aren't great for me, but i'm slowly gaining the power to keep going as I see better results.

Stripping my diet down has caused me to get more creative with how I flavor and cook my meals. I have always shunned away from the idea of substitutes because it seems like a poor representation of what the food COULD be. For example, friends have told me to put coconut oil instead of butter on my popcorn. "It taste's the same!" they say. They... are sadly mistaken. In this same vain of logic, I thought cauliflower rice seemed silly.... until tonight. I decided to give it a try for the first time and incorporate it into one of my all time favorite dishes - cilantro lime chicken topped with an avocado mango salsa. AKA... heaven on a plate.

Mexican dishes are a great way to go when trying to eat paleo or whole 30. I mean c'mon... jalapeno, cilantro, lime, garlic, onion and avocados? Yes, please.

Let'start with the most important stuff... the sangria. There's just something about sipping on a tasty beverage while cooking in the kitchen! I like to keep my sangria pretty simple - chilled red wine, half of a fresh squeezed orange, half of a fresh squeezed lime and a shot of this incredible blood orange liquor I found.

Now that we have a drink in hand, let's start cooking. First, start with prepping the mango avocado salsa. This is a dish that I not only use to top chicken, but bring to parties as a dip. I get requests to bring it all the time! Recently, I made a triple batch and it was still gone in no time.

The avocados are sliced at the very last minute - but everything else can be prepped in advance. In fact, letting the mango sit with the other flavors for a couple of hours really helps to enhance the dish. I used to always buy fresh mango, but I recently started using frozen mango, and it has been a game changer. Not only is it way easier to chop, but it is much more cost effective. I will admit that fresh mango has a sweeter flavor, but I hardly notice the swap out once the other flavors are added to the dish. I get this bag from Costco for about $8.

I'm not a huge recipe person, and tend to just taste as I go and adjust - but here are the ingredients I use.

Frozen Mango - chopped in small, uniform pieces
1 sweet onion
1/2 a bunch of cilantro
1/2 a fresh jalapeno
1 clove of raw garlic
2 limes - juiced
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
Cumin (to taste)
S & P (to taste)

I put everything except the mango into my Ninja blender and give it a couple pulses until the ingredients are well blended and not too chunky. This is KEY. Blending all the flavors together really helps it to disperse throughout the dish. Big pieces of onion or jalapeno just wouldn't have the same affect. I honestly think this simple trick is why the dish turns out so good every time.

You can then mix in the frozen mango chunks and store in the fridge until you are ready to eat. Right before eating - slice up two large avocados and mix into the mango mixture.

I also just want to give a quick shout out to the Bellamain Lemon Squeezer. I use this to juice all of my citrus and it's pretty amazing how much more juice I get. Check out these pulverized limes. They really had nothing left to give!

Here comes the experimental part... the Cauliflower Rice.

I used the larger ninja container to chop up the cauliflower florets. I know most people use a food processor - but the ninja works great as well. My grocery store didn't have a big head of cauliflower, and so I just bought two smaller ones.

It's hard to believe that this board of veggies is going to turn into a satisfying and flavorful side dish.

First, I start with cooking the onions, garlic and jalapenos until softened with about a tablespoon of oil. It is completely fine to cook the onions for 5 minutes or less - but if you aren't in a rush, I recommend giving them some time to cook down to extract the most flavor. If you keep the temperature low enough, you can't really overcook them.

Next, add in fresh chopped tomato and saute for a few minutes.

Tomatoes are in season where I live right now and so I am eating as many possible. They are juicy, flavorful and sweet. The rest of the year I have to settle for flavorless tomatoes that are picked way too early and imported from California or Mexico.

Next, throw in the chopped cauliflower! Warning - I made a total rookie mistake here. I left the cauliflower too chunky because I was worried about it turning into a paste instead of rice. This really increased the cooking time and threw off my timing for the rest of the meal. Basically... my chicken started to get cold.

Normally, you would just saute the cauliflower with remaining ingredients until it was softened, but I ended up throwing in a little chicken stock to aid the cooking process. All we add next is 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, cumin, and salt & pepper to taste. I also decided to throw in some frozen corn last minute.

Once the dish is done cooking, stir in the fresh chopped cilantro.

Here are the ingredients I used.

Mexican Cauliflower Rice

1 large head of cauliflower (or two smaller ones)
1/2 a jalapeno (or a whole one if you really like the heat)
1 yellow onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 small/medium fresh tomatoes
2 TBS tomato paste
Half a bunch of cilantro
1 TBS oil of your choice
Cumin to taste
S & P to taste

Here it is all together on the plate. You can't really see the chicken breast because I have completely doused it in the avocado mango salsa. #sorrynotsorry

Thanks for following along on my food adventure. It has been a lot of fun playing with different flavors using whole foods. I hope this post has inspired you to try something new... even if that thing is cauliflower rice!