Loaded Baked-Mock-Potato Salad

 

Perfect for picnics – low in carbs, too!

Nearly every picnic around has someone bringing a great heaping bowl of potato salad. In my circle, the one whose taters are most popular has recently been put on a severely carb-restricted plan, making that just a little awkward.

Naturally, I wanted to come up with an alternative that we can both enjoy when everybody else feasts upon those spuds. And, to my surprise, I learned that cauliflower can be a very nice substitute.

The surprise came because, for years, the cooked cauliflower I'd been subjected to was…well… sort of skunky and cabbage-y. But with the judicious use of a hot oven, some cooking oil, and a little salt, the veggie sweetens up in a way that stir-frying and steaming won't.

As for this salad, it can be served hot or cold, so adapts to suit your mood or menu. Either way, I recommend making it in advance, and letting it sit in the refrigerator for several hours (overnight is ideal), so the flavors meld. It also doesn't require much in the way of clean-up… all you'll need is a baking sheet, some non-stick parchment, and a preferred method for spreading oil on the surface of the veggies for early preparation work, and then a large mixing and/or serving bowl, plus measuring cups/spoons, and a spatula or spoon to mix it all up.

Loaded Baked-Mock-Potato Salad

Ingredients:

1 large head of cauliflower, cut & broken up into bite-size pieces
About 3 Tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil* (just enough to coat the cauliflower bits)
Salt to taste (I use about 1/2 teaspoon)

1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup good mayonnaise (I use Duke's)
1/3 cup coarsely-shredded or small-cubed medium cheddar cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped scallions
1/4 cup diced celery
about 3 Tablespoons diced bread-and-butter pickles
1/3 cup crisp-cooked bacon bits, divided
chopped chives or more scallion greens for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400º F.

Cover large baking sheet with non-stick parchment (or, if you don't have parchment, lightly grease your baking sheet).

Clean and cut/pull apart cauliflower, putting the florets into a large mixing bowl or gallon zipper bag.
 

Pour cooking oil over the florets, stir/shake until all the pieces are coated, and then spread the pieces over the parchment-covered baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with salt, and bake for about 20 – 25 minutes, turning at least once for even cooking. The aim is to get them golden-brown and their edges slightly crisped.

Remove from oven, allow to cool enough to work with (I then pop it into the refrigerator for an hour or two. The choice is yours, though).

In large mixing bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, cheese, scallions, celery, and diced pickle. Stir thoroughly.

Add 1/4 cup bacon bits, roasted cauliflower, and dressing mix. Stir until dressing evenly covers all the cauliflower pieces. 

Almost forgot the bacon.

Store covered in refrigerator for several hours to overnight. 

Fancy-shmancy containers like mine
need to be carefully cleaned before use,
though.

May be heated in oven or microwave, if your preference is for warm salad.

Sprinkle remaining bacon on top of salad immediately before serving, for garnish and extra crunch. Chopped fresh chives or scallion greens may also be added before serving, for garnish and flavor. (I skipped them during the photo sessions, because I was making this for family, and The Bat is not a fan of either flavor.)

*I leave the choice up to you. Others like working with avocado oil, or even melted ghee. I'm kind of a weirdo. I like the flavor and finish of corn oil.

The Sweetest Political Footballs You'll Ever Taste

This is the award-winning cafeteria cookie that Elyria, Ohio's school district was informed no longer met the federal nutritional standards, and, if served to the students, would cost them their federal funding. (I found the recipe and the pic their local newspaper ran on the subject, and I would usually, enthusiastically, send people to the source, but I found the site had an annoying "answer this survey or share on social media to continue reading" block, so I'm sharing the recipe here, with full graphic).

Were I in their town, I'd make these cookies and sell them at every school event, as a big fund-raiser, in order to replace the cuts in federal support. And, I'd wager, that would earn me enough, in the first month of each school year, to make it really easy to tell Michelle Obama and her federal food fascists to drop dead.

The Elyria pink cookie

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup Crisco
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons sour cream
3 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix butter (or margarine), Crisco and sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time. In separate bowl, mix baking soda and sour cream until baking soda is completely dissolved. Add to butter mixture. In separate bowl, sift flour and salt together. Add to wet batter and mix well. Dough will be sticky and can then be used as drop dough, if desired. If too sticky, add more flour until it can be rolled  ¼-inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters and bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.

FROSTING
1 pound of margarine or butter
6 cups of powdered sugar
1/8 cup of water
Red food coloring

Beat margarine or butter until soft and creamy. Sift powdered sugar and then beat into the margarine/butter a cup at a time until creamy. Beat in water and a few drops of food coloring until smooth. Will frost about 3 dozen cookies.

Rum-Craisin Sour Cream Pie

The Bat occasionally talks about the raisin pies her aunt used to make, back in the day.  Sadly, I am allergic to grapes, so this legendary treat will never be mine to enjoy. Nevertheless, I was determined to come up with my own variation on this theme – minus the old aunt's methodist aversion to a little "kick" in the fruit.

Granted, raisins tend toward sweetness, and I've never been that much of a fan of excessively sweet foods, so I'd likely not have been fond of old auntie's pie, and have asked for a lemon, instead. I'd eventually have had to compromise.

Tonight, I believe I have found that compromise.  Not overly sweet, and fairly simple, it substitutes dried cranberries for the raisins, which adds a nice tart bite to the otherwise sweet custardy treat.

It takes more than a little prep-time, because the fruit needs to soak in rum for several hours, and the pie is best served chilled. Plus, the custard tends to expand, then resettle a bit, so it needs large ventilation of some fashion, not mere piercing. Since I, personally, hate lattice crusts because they're a lot of work for half the crust, I heartily recommend taking your favorite tiny cookie cutter and making the pie yet a little merrier…

and you can get little cookies out of this, then, too! (see footnote)

Rum-Craisin Sour Cream Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups dried cranberries

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup rum (use any variety you like - either light or dark is fine)

2 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

2 crusts for 8-inch pie (top and bottom)

1 pint whipping cream

1 Tablespoon wild honey

Directions:

(If you want the cranberries to be chewier, and/or if you have no interest in making them slightly rummy, this first stage may be skipped. I recommend "plumping" the fruit, however, as dried cranberries tend to bake up tougher than raisins do.)

To "plump" and tenderize the dried cranberries, in a small microwave-safe mixing bowl or small saucepan on stovetop, combine water and dried cranberries. Bring to nearly boiling, stirring once (in microwave oven, about 1 minute on High). Remove from heat, drain liquids away. Add rum and refrigerate several hours (overnight is best).

When the cranberries have absorbed most of the rum, remove from refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 450º F.

Lay in bottom crust in 8-inch pie pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat eggs thoroughly. Add in sour cream, mix well. Add brown sugar, spices. Finally, stir in cranberries, making sure any remaining liquid does not get into the mixture. Pour into pie shell. Top with lattice crust, or, using a cookie cutter*, make sure the crust has plenty of openings for ventilation and expansion.

Bake 10 minutes at 450º F., then reduce oven temperature to 350º F. Continue to bake another 25 minutes.

Remove from oven, allow to cool completely (refrigeration for at least an hour before serving is advised, if possible). 

Before serving pie, in a chilled bowl combine whipping cream and honey, and mix at high speed. If you wish, slowly add in 1 teaspoonful of rum while mixing (very slowly, in small stream! Dumping the rum in will curdle the cream!). Continue mixing until semi-stiff peaks form (do not overmix, or you will have butter).

Serve cold.

*If you use a cookie cutter to ventilate the top crust, save the cut-outs, lay them on an ungreased cookie sheet, and, using a pastry brush, brush them with a little cream, cranberry juice, or milk, then sprinkle them very lightly with sugar and nutmeg. Or, if you have a little pie filling left in the mixing bowl because you didn't use a rubber spatula to thoroughly empty the bowl,  brush on a little of the custard mixture. Bake in middle of 450º F. oven for 4 minutes. Voilá! cookies! (For the record, I nibbled two before my phone camera setting started up. They're simple, yet nummy.)