Better Beef Stroganoff

Beef stroganoff is traditionally made with flour for thickening and served atop some sort of starchy side like egg noodles or rice. Traditional beef stroganoff doesn't really fit into a healthy low-carb lifestyle, but with a little tweaking we can make it so it can become a regular fixture on your low-carb menu.

Ingredients

• 2 pound ground beef (75% - 8o% lean)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1 t kosher salt
• 1/2 t black pepper
• 1 beef bouillion cube chopped or crushed
  
• 5 cloves fresh garlic thinly sliced
• 3/4 large onion sliced
  
• 8oz sliced mushrooms
• 1.5 c sour cream
• 1/2 c mayonnaise

Directions

1. Brown the ground beef in a deep saucepan over medium-high heat.
   
2. Remove the cooked ground beef from the pan and set aside, but leave any drippings in the pan. A slotted spoon works well for this.
3. Reduce heat to medium.
   
4. Add onions, mushrooms, and garlic to the pan and cook until the onions begin to get soft.
5. Reduce heat to low.
   
6. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan and stir until blended.
7. Add the cooked ground beef back to the pan and stir to combine.
8. Season to taste as needed.
9. Remove from heat.

I think this is great served over cauliflower rice. I posted the recipe for Cauliflower "Rice" - Plain so you'd have something to serve your stroganoff atop.

And in case you're wondering about thickening without using flour, you don't need to thicken since you're using a beef bouillon cube instead of a bunch of beef broth.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat!

Cauliflower "Rice" - Plain

One of the things to do when you adopt a healthy low-carb lifestyle is to make sure that you can still eat some of your old favorites without sacrificing your health and to try to find some healthy substitutes for food that may otherwise thwart your attempts to lose weight and be healthy.

You may not have loved cauliflower before you started low-carb, I didn't, but trust me when I tell you that you will learn that it is a wonderful substitute for all kinds of things from rice to rice pilaf to mashed potatoes, you can even use it to make pizza.

This is hardly a recipe, it's really just some directions for how to turn a head of cauliflower or a bag of frozen cauliflower into a substitute for a bowl of plain white rice. Once you've got your rice, you can top it with whatever you want.

Whether you've got frozen cauliflower florets or fresh cauliflower you should get equally good results. As you experiment, see if you have a preference. Frozen tends to be cheaper and, of course, has a longer shelf life. The quality of fresh seems to be better sometimes, so I get that when it's a good deal.

Enough with the chit chat, it's time for some directions.

Fresh Cauliflower:

1. Cut off the stalk and the green stuff that's attached.
2. Cut the head of cauliflower into 1.5" chunks. Don't worry about being exact, I'm just trying to give you some idea of how to cut it. If you've seen the size of frozen florets, that's about what you're looking for.
3. Rinse the chunks of cauliflower with cold water.
4. Put a steamer basket in a pan of water. The water should come up just to the bottom of the steamer basket.
5. Put the cauliflower chunks in the steamer basket and put the pot over high heat, covered.
6. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the cauliflower begins to separate easily when a fork is inserted. When making cauliflower rice, it's better to under-cook than over-cook.
7. Turn off the burner and remove the the pot from the heat.
   
8. Drain the cauliflower and put it back in the pot.
   
9. Put the pot back on the burner (but the burner better be off).
10. Mash the cauliflower with a potato masher until it resembles the consistency of rice. Don't over-mash.

Frozen Cauliflower Florets:

1. Put a steamer basket in a pan of water. The water should come up just to the bottom of the steamer basket.
2. Heat the water boiling.
   
3. Put the cauliflower florets in the steamer basket and cover.
4. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the cauliflower begins to separate easily when a fork is inserted. When making cauliflower rice, it's better to under-cook than over-cook.
5. Turn off the burner and remove the the pot from the heat.
   
6. Drain the cauliflower and put it back in the pot.
   
7. Put the pot back on the burner (but the burner better be off).
8. Mash the cauliflower with a potato masher until it resembles the consistency of rice. Don't over-mash.

So there's your basic cauliflower rice recipe.

I'll post some other cauliflower recipes at some point, but this will be enough to get you started.

My next recipe will use this, so I wanted to put it up first.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat! (but you won't find any in this recipe, so you'll need to add some)