Roast Pork and Mashed "Potatoes"

Let me just begin by saying this: chopping up cauliflower is neither easy or neat. In fact, not having really cooked with it before, I was surprised by how uncooperative a vegetable it is. However, steamed, spiced and whipped up, its a darn good substitution for mashed potatoes. I owe this to my mom. Last time I was at her house she made it for me (but without the spices) and I was inspired.

So after returning to California after a two week trip to North Carolina, I decided to make my husband a tasty meal with only meat and veggies. He's always harassing me that I need to eat more vegetables so I figured this would be one meal he couldn't complain about. 

I grabbed the pork shoulder I had out of the freezer and set to my task! The recipe is as follows:

For the Pork: 

1 8lb. pork shoulder

salt

fresh ground pepper

For the Mashed "Potatoes":

1 head of fresh cauliflower 

milk or half & half

1 clove fresh garlic

salt

fresh ground pepper

butter (or margarine) 

For the pork shoulder, throw it in a pan at 350 degrees until it reaches an internal temperature or for about 3 hours. (I have one of those fancy thermometers that you can stick in the meat and the cord runs out of the oven so you can see what the temperature is and set it to alert you at a certain time or temp.) And should all go well, you should have something that looks like this:

(Forgive my picture quality. The only camera I've got right now is my iPhone.)

For the mashed "potatoes", cut the cauliflower off the stem and into pieces. Steam it until it is soft whichever way you want. You can do it in a pot on the stove, or throw it in a bowl with a little water in the microwave. Either way you're going to add some flavor to it, so however you steam it, that will work just fine! 

Once it is steamed, throw it in the food processor. Add the garlic. Rather than spend the time mincing my garlic by hand, I use a garlic press. Its the one miscellaneous kitchen gadget EVERY cook should have! But add the garlic, a little butter, salt and pepper and a dash or two of milk or half & half. Don't add to much milk because you can always add more but can never take away! 

Press go on the food processor and taste test it. Add more garlic or salt or milk. Just depends on your personal preference (and we are heavy garlic lovers in this house). And you should have this: 

(Again forgive picture quality, please.)

With the finished pork and the mashed "potatoes", I decided the vegetable quota wasn't high enough so I added some corn to the menu and a nice crusty roll of sourdough bread. 

And voila! Our meat and veggies dinner was done! Even the husband didn't have much to complain about. Not that he ever does! He's my taste-tester! 

Overall, it's not a complicated recipe. It's simple but tasty and pretty easy to whip up on a weeknight if you have the afternoon free for the pork. 

Enjoy!!