BBQ and Peanut Sauce Cauliflower Tater Tots

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I can't stand cauliflower. Hate hate hate it. 

When I started researching recipes for clean eating, I saw many links for roasted cauliflower covered in spices, cheese, or buffalo wings sauce. This intrigued me, but since I'm not a fan of the texture (on top of the taste), I wanted to find a way to make cauliflower that I could actually tolerate.

Welcome, cauliflower tater tots.

I originally wanted to make a cauliflower tater tots recipe with buffalo wings sauce, but as my bag of frozen cauliflower was sitting on the counter, realized I didn't have any. I did, however, have barbecue sauce and a bottle of peanut satay sauce recently purchased on a whim from Trader Joe's.  About half way through forming the mixture, I decided to incorporate both sauces and cover half the tots with peanut satay sauce and half with bbq sauce.  These came out tasty and didn't taste like traditional cauliflower at all!

Preheat the oven to 350*. Throw a bag of frozen cauliflower in a food processor (could use fresh as well). I let mine thaw a few minutes, so that my food processor wouldn't sound like it was trying to puree rocks. Toss in 4 carrots and 4 stalks of celery and blend everything together, then empty the mixture into a large bowl

Add 1/2 a diced onion (you could puree this with the other vegetables in the food processor, but I wanted to cut mine into large chunks).  Then add whatever spices you like. I did a few shakes of cayenne pepper, black pepper, and creole seasoning

Add a few squirts of worcestershire sauce, sriracha sauce, and one egg 

I added 1 tbs of this chili paste for fun (another impulse buy from Trader Joe's)

Add 1 cup oatmeal flour (or whatever flour you want)

Mix everything together well, then form little tater tot shapes with your hands. Should look roughly like these. Place them on a baking pan sprayed with coconut oil

Pour some of your peanut satay sauce into a small bowl

 …And some bbq sauce in another bowl. I found that the easiest way to coat each tot was to take a spoonful of sauce and drizzle it over each one. Then bake for about 25-30 minutes at 350*.

These are the finished tater tots with peanut satay sauce (bbq ones pictured at the top).  The sauce got crispy, and the flavor complements the cauliflower well

BBQ and Peanut Sauce Cauliflower Tater Tots

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen cauliflower

4 carrots

4 celery stalks

1/2 yellow onion

1 tbs Thai chili paste (optional-found it for 99 cents at Trader Joe's)

Peanut satay sauce (about half a bottle)

BBQ Sauce (about 1/4 a bottle)

2 tbs worcestershire sauce

2 tbs sriracha sauce

1/2 tbs cayenne pepper (optional)

2 tbs creole seasoning

Pepper

1 egg

1 cup oat flour

Directions:

1) Pre-heat oven to 350*.  In a food processor, puree cauliflower, carrots, and celery stalks.

2) In a large bowl, combine cauliflower mixture with onion, Thai chili paste, worcestershire sauce, sriracha sauce, and spices. Add egg and oat flour.

3) Form mixture into tater tot shapes and place on a coconut oil sprayed baking pan. Coat half the tots with peanut satay sauce and half with the bbq sauce.

4) Bake 25-30 minutes until crispy.

Spiced Carrot Chia Muffins

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I used to be the type of person who would skip past any recipe online labeled as "healthy." However, I've started to shift my diet toward clean eating, which means I've been doing a lot of experimenting with recipes lately.  This spiced carrot chia muffins recipe is one of my favorites so far. After perusing multiple carrot cake muffin recipes online to get an idea of base ingredients/proportions, I attempted to make my own healthy version and am amazed at how good the recipe turned out! The muffins are ridiculously fluffy and moist, which I honestly wasn't expecting. My goal was to create a healthy muffin that would be passable as a dessert and satisfy my sweets craving, a boring healthy treat covered in the illusion of rich carrot cake, but these muffins are some of the best I've ever had--even without the addition of vegetable oil, white/brown sugar, egg yolks, butter, and flour.

Whether you're gluten intolerant, on a low-carb diet, reducing your sugar intake, or just looking for a tasty carrot muffin recipe period, these will not disappoint! And that's coming from a girl who loves sugar, carbs, and rich desserts ;)

First, place 3/4 cup raisins in a bowl of warm water and set aside until ready to use. This helps plump them up. Then in a small bowl, combine 1.5 cups almond meal, 1/4 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves, and 1/2 tsp ginger. You can substitute the nutmeg/cloves/ginger for pumpkin pie spice if you want

I used this almond meal! You could easily just toss some almonds in a food processor and make your own, but I was feeling lazy

In a medium bowl, add 1 mashed banana and 1/4 cup honey

Add 2 tsp vanilla, 3 egg whites, and 1/3 cup melted coconut oil. Looks nasty right now, but I swear it turns into something amazing and delicious :)

 Add your raisins. I used golden raisins from Trader Joe's

Add 2 cups finely diced or grated carrots (I just threw some carrots in my food processor and pulsed until they were finely diced). Next add 2 tbs chia seeds! The recipe would be perfectly fine without them, but I wanted the extra fiber boost. Then mix in your dry ingredients

 At this point, I looked at the batter and decided it needed something more, since I was afraid it wouldn't stay moist after baking. I stirred in 1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt.  Adding it after the dry ingredients were incorporated didn't cause the world to burn, but feel free to add it earlier with the wet ingredients if you want

(Shout-out to my phone's camera for making the batter look like chunks of tomatoes)

Better picture here. Batter's all ready for the oven!

Divide the batter into 12 paper-lined muffin tins. I chose to sprinkle a little bit of coconut sugar on top of each muffin before baking, but this step is completely optional

 Bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked all the way through

And there you have it, beautiful/healthy/delicious carrot chia muffins

Nom nom nom

Spiced Carrot Chia Muffins

Ingredients:

1.5 cups almond meal

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

*1/2 tsp nutmeg

*1/2 tsp cloves

*1/2 tsp ginger 

1 mashed banana (or 3/4 cup apple sauce)

1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup)

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup melted coconut oil, cooled several minutes

3 egg whites

2/3 cup raisins

2 cups finally diced or grated carrots

2 tbs chia seeds

1/2 cup nonfat, plain Greek yogurt

Coconut sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

*Instead of nutmeg/cloves/ginger, feel free to use 1.5 tsp or so of pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

1) Pre-heat oven to 350*.  Place raisins in a bowl of warm water and set aside until ready to use.

2) In a small bowl, combine almond meal, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.

3) In a separate medium bowl, combine mashed banana, honey, vanilla, melted coconut oil, yogurt, and egg whites. Stir in raisins, carrots, and chia seeds. Add dry ingredients.

4) Pour batter into a paper-lined muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked all the way through.