Cauliflower Leek Puree

Lee and I had our Thanksgiving meal more than a week ago. Travis and Vanessa were unable to come, but our girls came and so we had it early. It is jarring when in a grocery store and they are still touting Thanksgiving and shoving turkeys at us. Wasn't that last week??? The good part is that Christmas music doesn't seem all THAT early....

So, while it is Thanksgiving, we didn't want or need a huge carb laden meal. So we decided...wait, that sounds like we had a meeting and figured all this out...I decided to have a turkey breast and use the Cauliflower-Leek Puree recipe from the Atkins web site. It looks rather bland and cauliflower is not my favorite, but Lee likes it and I shouldn't be having potatoes any time soon. So that is what we had with the small edition of peas because it was such a bland white bread appearing meal. Well, there was that whole grain roll with which we indulged.

On the subject of peas, our daughter, Trista tells us that there is a "sauce" called pea wet. It seems that when you prepare Mushy Peas, an English treat, well, food item, there is a greenish foam on top. This is then scooped off and ladled over chips (the English version of french fries). Chips with pea wet sounds disgusting, but never having eaten them, I can't speak from experience. Try it yourself and report back.

Cauliflower-Leek Puree
original recipe from Atkins.com

3 cup cauliflower, separated into florets
1 leek, white and green part
1 tsp salt, divided
3 Tbl butter
3 Tbl heavy cream
1/8 tsp nutmeg

You will get almost 6 cups from one cauliflower, so I made the whole thing. The leeks I bought came in a package of three, so I used all the white parts from the three and a bit of the green.


Cook them in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water for 15 minutes, until very tender.


Drain and return to the pan to remove excess moisture. The recipe call for a food processor to be used to puree this in batches with the butter and cream. I have a hand blender and that is far superior. Just add the butter and salt to the pan and puree until smooth. Then add salt and pepper and a dash of nutmeg. I like to put a dollop of butter on the top to look , well, buttery.


In keeping with a low carb meal, I sliced some strawberries and sprinkled some Splenda on them. Stir and set aside. When ready to serve add a dollop of Cool Whip or a spritz of whipped cream. It looks decadent, yet it isn't!