Last night I made super delicious pork chops for my husband and I. Now, when I think of pork chops I think of how my mom makes them. She pan fries the chops and then makes a gravy from the drippings which we put over mashed potatoes or rice. It's delicious. If you've never put country gravy on rice then try it sometime. Anyway, I wanted to try making a paleo version of this dish and lucky for me there was a recipe for mashed cauliflower on the Whole30recipes Instagram page by @rockinmomskitchen. This isn't the recipe I wanted to blog about, but I'll give a quick rundown.
I ate my pork chop before I remembered to take a picture... And I was really sad because it was PERFECT! So, I just took a picture of my cauliflower and gravy with the left over juices because the juices are the most important part! Sorry if it looks gross.
Crockpot Mashed Cauliflower
1 head cauliflower, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1 bay leaf
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil or ghee
Place everything except the olive oil in a crockpot and fill with water til it just covers the cauliflower. Cook on low for 6 hours then drain. Add olive oil and mash.
So, I did this. Here's the thing: The cauliflower was super watery, I almost wonder if it would have been better to steam them instead of boil. I feel like I need to get some cheese cloth and strain it. Also, it's not exactly like mashed potatoes because you would add milk, butter, or cream to make them fluffy, but you can't do that here. So, I added a little bit of the cream from coconut milk, but they were so runny it didn't matter.
I didn't like it. I consider this a FAIL, but I'm sure I could do something to salvage it.
Anyway, on to the main event!
Paleo Gravy - I really just eyeballed this because that's how we've always done it, but I'll try my best with the measurements.
2 Pork chops
2 tbsp Ghee
1 large floret of cauliflower, boiled and mashed (Obviously, I used some from the crockpot)
1/2 can of coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
onion powder
garlic powder
Heat the ghee in a pan over medium heat. Season pork chops with salt and pepper and any other spices you'd like (I used onion powder and garlic powder). Cook both pork chops until white and juicy inside, if the pan gets dry during cooking then keep adding ghee, you want there to be a small pool. Remove pork chops from the pan. Add cauliflower to the leftover pan drippings and sautee for a minute or two. When the drippings and cauliflower have mixed start stirring in the coconut milk, adding a little at a time until it forms a nice gravy. You don't have to use the full amount as you don't want to overpower the drippings with coconut flavor. Add salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder to taste. If you want you can puree this gravy to make it smooth, but I left the cauliflower chunky because it still worked.
This was surprisingly good and gravy-like and I was able to use things I already had. I put it over rice for my husband and over the cauliflower for me. I'm giving this recipe a big SUCCESS, but I'm slightly biased.
Let me know what you think!
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