Cauliflower Nuggets aka IHOP Redemption

So yesterday morning I set my alarm for 8 AM with the intention of going to the gym or like...popping in a workout DVD or SOMETHING. Instead I rolled over and went back to bed until 9 and then spent an hour on tumblr. And then I saw a GIF of a cat eating pancakes so my roommate and I went to IHOP.

And then I ate cookies for lunch.

Needless to say, my New Years Resolutions are off to a somewhat rocky start.


Despite not having done anything AT ALL yesterday, I managed to sneak in a 30 minute nap while watching Maury. At that point I decided to snap out of my rainy day funk and actually do something productive!


Something that I've learned in the past few years is that there is no time like the present. Sometimes too little is too late, but it's always better than nothing at all. And that is how I spent the last half of yesterday.

If you could ignore the electric mixer and the crappy
homemade candles (that post is coming up soon) in the
background, that would be much appreciated.

I managed to fit five full servings of fruits and vegetables into my dinner. If that's not overcompensation then I don't know WHAT is. My dinner consisted of a slice of papaya (really, it's like a whole quarter of a papaya...whatevaaa), a green smoothie (an apple, a banana, a handful of spinach, greek yogurt, a splash of milk, and a bit of honey all smoothie'd up...it looks pretty nasty but it's really freakin' delicious), and CAULIFLOWER NUGGETS!!

Breading vegetables is surprisingly drama free
in comparison to breading chicken breast

I've been meaning to jump on the cauliflower train for like months. I really like the way cauliflower tastes as a vegetable, so even though I was skeptical of the claims that you can use cauliflower to make pretend chicken nuggets, I figured I might as well try it out. Even if they don't taste like chicken, at the very least they will taste like cauliflower...which I like.

So I hit up pinterest, which led me to this recipe, which I modified a little bit for convenience. I just used seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs instead of panko, because it's what I had on hand. Also the egg whites I was supposed to dredge the nuggets in wound up being an egg white and a whole egg because of my butter fingers. Whoooops.

But they turned out beautifully!

(this is literally the exact same photo from above,
only I instagrammed it.  wow melanie.  wow.)

I'm gonna go ahead and say that they didn't taste like chicken...but they didn't taste like cauliflower either!  The texture was totally different from the steamed cauliflower that I normally eat.  It was much softer and a little bit...fluffy?  I think the cauliflower itself creates a nugget-like texture.  In terms of flavor, the seasoned breading in combination with the sauce were the main events in this dish.  It was pretty nomable.  I will definitely do this again some time.

And actually, I think I probably got more than 5 servings of fruits and vegetables...I used an entire half-head of cauliflower for the nuggets, and that slice of papaya was pretty generous.  I don't think that this meal necessarily made up for the giant meal I had at IHOP, but I think it was a step in the right direction.  In the past, when I let my day start off on the wrong foot I would let myself get stuck in that mindset.  As of lately, I've been trying to treat each moment like it belongs to itself.  Which is to say that I don't let the bad decisions of the morning give me an excuse to make bad decisions at night.  It seems simple...but this is a big deal for me.  I never used to think that way.  And I still don't think that way 100% of the time...but I'm getting there!

In the meantime, I'm going to do some more cauliflower experimentation...maybe give this recipe a shot!