Bad Comparisons and Good Compromises
“The things I do for love?” Yep. I totally just ripped off a Jamie Lannister quote from Game of Thrones.
Am I really comparing Jamie pushing Bran out of a window and what he thought would be the boy’s ultimate death to me making paella with riced cauliflower instead of real rice? All for the keto-lifestyle-living love of my life?
I guess I am.
Or at least I think it’s a somewhat overly dramatic—and funny—way to emphasize that something so compromising can end up being just what needs to be done.
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
When Peter and I first started seriously talking to each other a few months over twenty-two years ago, he had, for all intents and purposes, already “given up” sugar on a regular basis.
It’s not really my story to tell, but since this is my blog post and may require a little history, I will tell you that Peter has been mostly avoiding sugar since he was sixteen years old. And at thirty-five, when we started up, he was still avoiding the sweet stuff.
Back then, he would, every few months or so on a Saturday, have a “sugar day” as we called it, where he’d devour an entire box of Entenmann’s frosted devil’s food (double chocolate) donuts in less than three minutes flat (true story), or make a plate full of pancakes topped with bananas and as much maple syrup as his plate could handle, and that would be before 9 a.m.!
The rest of that day may have consisted of a favorite dark chocolate candy bar, chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, raspberry Zingers, or maybe just more donuts. And more chocolate anything. Sometimes, he’d settle on eating an entire box of Grape-Nuts cereal with a few bananas sliced in for an extra dose of sugar.
While my dream breakfasts consisted of roast beef sandwiches with Doritos (another true story) or as many tacos as my own plate could handle, Peter’s dreams were always made of sugar.
Long Story, Short
Eventually, he (and sometimes we—although for me not as extreme) dabbled in an eating life that consisted of lowering carbs, or saving carbs for the weekends, or then just Saturdays alone, and then every other Saturday, or then mostly on vacation, or on special holidays and then fewer and fewer carbs became more of his normal.
So, when he decided to go full-blown Keto in 2017, it wasn’t too much of a surprise or a stretch. He had already been perfecting low or very low carb recipes for muffins, cakes and cookies to satisfy his sweet tooth, and was more than happy to forgo those cheat days where sugar and/or carbs played a starring role.
Long story, short, Peter hasn’t had a significant amount of carbohydrates in over a year and a half now. He eats as much as he wants of things that aren’t full of too many carbs, and fake-bakes his way through treats that he allows himself to enjoy. He feels better than he did two years ago pre full-blown keto, and his blood work is better than it was twenty years ago. Maybe better than it’s ever been in his adult life. I know it’s as good as it’s ever been in the twenty-two years that we’ve been together.
While he is able to either make or buy some things that make life in our carby-carb world a little easier, he still has to improvise a bit when it comes to some foods: tacos (he uses lettuce or cheese “wraps”), pasta (he has veggie noodles or no noodles at all) and pizza (he makes “fathead” aka cheese-dough crusts or he just eats the toppings).
And, as the subject of this post, he has/we have, been able to get a small dose of normal with some meals by using cauliflower instead of rice or potatoes.
The Other White Stuff
I have learned to make some really good meals with the crazy looking white stuff: Spanish cauliflower (instead of rice), mashed cauliflower or scalloped/au gratin cauliflower (instead of potatoes), and I even made him some stir fry last year using riced cauliflower for 2018’s Chinese New Year (my year: Year of the Dog!)
Is it real rice? No. Does it taste good? Yes. Yes, it does!
Last week, while reading about a recipe in a New York Times morning briefing email for easy paella, I decided to give it a try using cauliflower instead of rice. Peter loves paella, and he’s been wanting to see if it would work with cauliflower, and I love him, so I decided to give it a try.
It’s All in the Planning
I don’t write recipes, and I am not really interested in writing recipes, but I do have an appreciation for the timing of cooking and the best way to put together a meal. I actually love tweaking or changing up different kinds of so-called recipes, and then put my own twist on them to make them work best for whatever result I might be looking for.
Like a bad Lannister, sometimes you gotta do what needs to be done.
For the paella, I needed to plan how I’d prepare everything (as cauliflower doesn’t need as much time to cook as rice does) in a way that would make everything delicious and perfectly cooked.
The Ingredients
We decided we would have chicken, Spanish chorizo, shrimp and mussels as the main ingredients of our keto paella. Olive oil, salt, pepper, saffron and chicken stock were also in the pan at some point too.
The Method
First, I turned on the oven as after cooking on the stovetop, I planned on finishing the paella in the oven. Second, I cut up some chicken thighs, added salt and pepper and cooked them in hot olive oil in an oven-friendly pan. Once browned, I removed the chicken and warmed up the hard chorizo to soften it up a bit, and once that was done, I removed that too.
With the good bits from the chicken and sausage left in the pan, I added more olive oil and then the riced cauliflower (I used a store bought bag of frozen riced cauliflower) along with a little more salt and pepper. The cauliflower soaked up some of the color from the sausage and olive oil and almost immediately started to smell amazing.
I also added a little freshly minced garlic as the cauliflower was cooking.
When the cauliflower had some texture from the frying, I added just enough chicken stock to barely cover the cauliflower and then put in a pinch or two of saffron. I turned up the heat a bit, and added the mussels; then I covered the pan with a lid and let it cook for a few minutes. It looked like it needed a little more chicken stock so I took care of that before I added the shrimp; I then covered the pan once again and put the pan in the oven for about five minutes.
Good Compromises, Indeed
My keto paella turned out amazingly well. Much better than I thought it would. The cauliflower soaked up all the goodness from the saffron and chicken stock and everything else that was in the pan. The shrimp and mussels were perfectly cooked and well, it just tasted really, really good.
I realize I made this, but I honestly believe that if you would have followed me around watching me eat, you would also agree that it was the best thing I ate last week. It may even be one of the best paellas I have ever eaten.
Seriously.
(At least outside of Spain. Another compromise? Perhaps.)
A Happy Ending
Moral of the story? I didn’t miss the rice in this at all. And since I did save some carbs and calories by eating cauliflower instead of rice, I was able to eat more bread and drink more wine—which, in the end, made me a little more Tyrion Lannister like than older brother Jaime (at least when compared to despicable Jamie in the first two seasons).
Cauliflower instead of rice? My kind of food compromise. More bread and wine? My kind of happy ending.
I wonder if I can get George R.R. Martin to read this…
Elda Eats XO
As I mentioned, I am not a recipe writer. If you’d like more detailed information about how I made this, feel free to ask.
