Paleo Rice. Too good to be true?

Well. That depends who you ask. If you’re not a rice snob then paleo rice is a great alternative. But I’m kind of a food snob, and rice is no exception. Rice is a diet staple where I grew up in the Dominican Republic. It’s cooked with salt and olive oil (which is why it’s so delicious, no uncle Ben’s for me please!) and the to those of us who grew up on Dominican rice the burned part that sticks to the bottom of the pan is something worth fighting over. It even has a name. Con con. with an accent. You can’t make con con with uncle Bens rice or without salt and olive oil. I’ve been able to mostly switch to brown rice but Dominican white rice will always hold a special place in my heart. As will pasta, that I will blame on the Italian blood.

So when I first heard of people shredding up cauliflower to make paleo ‘rice’ I promptly put that on my ‘things I will never try’ list. But then I wanted rice. So I caved and made it. Cauliflowers are, after all, ridiculously healthy and the mom in me instantly thought that I might be able to trick a tiny toddler into eating some cauliflower. She has eaten purple cauliflower before, but never white. I can’t really say I blame her though. I don’t really like it either unless it’s in a mashed potato style with butter and cream.

So I sauteed some garlic and onion with olive oil and salt and then added my ‘rice’ (cauliflower that I shredded using a cheese grater). Surprisingly enough it did look like rice and Annabelle was very eager to try it. I made sure to tell her that it was cauliflower rice so she wouldn’t go on a complete rice strike if she didn’t like it.

Well. This may surprise you, but it taste exactly like…cauliflower! Annabelle promptly spit it out and then with much drama took a her hand and started wiping off her tongue and she screamed and ran arround in horror. She was thrilled to have a seperate bowl of plain rice! Little did she know that her plain rice was exactly a 50/50 mix of overnight soaked rice and cauliflower rice. It took me a lot of mixing to find just the perfect amount without going too overboard that she could catch me, but it hides pretty well in the rice. She’ll thank me for it later.

What did I think? It was actually pretty good, even if it did taste like cauliflower. Actually, is was good enough that I’ve made it a few times since then. Obviously it’s not as good as Dominican rice and it doesn’t satisfy a rice craving per say it does really well to substitute as a rice base for meals and makes a pretty good paleo stir fry.

What are some dishes you thought you wouldn’t like but actually did? Or how about some sneaky ways you sneak vegetables into your kids/husbands diet? Share, share, share please!