Mashed Califlower and Potatoes with Garlic and Sour Cream

I made this epic Prime Rib Roast the other day.  Nothing goes better with Prime Rib Roast (Yes.  I think it merits capitalization like a proper noun...) then potatoes.  I wanted to bake some potatoes, but the Indian and I negotiated and we landed on mashed potatoes as one of the sides for our Prime Rib.  If you are interested in the recipe for the Prime Rib, you can click on this link here.

He agreed that he was willing to try a hybrid of mashed potatoes and cauliflower.  Personally, I would just eat mashed cauliflower and think it's just wonderful.  The Indian needs a little bit of cajoling/deception to eat most veggies (remind me of the time I made a tofu scramble and just told him it was a scramble and he ate it thinking it was an EGG scramble....whatever.  He ate it and he liked it...) so I was excited that he was willing to try the hybrid cauliflower potato mash.

I peeled six small potatoes and threw them into some salted boiling water.

I like to use kosher or sea salt but you can use ionized table salt if you prefer.

I also like to cut my potatoes into halves to speed up cooking time.  Did you know why cutting a potato decreases cooking time?......Anyone? Anyone?  

Cutting up a potato increases surface area and cuts down cooking time.  You can thank my high school science teacher for that tidbit.  I know you'll use it to win the jackpot round on a trivia game show one day.  Thanks, Mrs. Reeves!

I also happened to be at Costco and grabbed this bag of prewashed and cut cauliflower.  You can use a whole head of cauliflowerbut sometimes it's nice to not have to cut, trim and clean.  I used about half this bag which I approximated to be about one entire head of cauliflower.

When the potatoes were starting to get soft but not quite cooked through, I threw in my raw cauliflower.  The potatoes had been cooking on a rapid bowl for about 15 minutes.   I let it all boulder for another 5 to 7 minutes until the potatoes and cauliflower were soft.

Remove from heat, drain off all the water.  Immediately add about a tablespoon of fresh, crushed garlic.  Using a spoon or masher, I push through garlic to the bottom of the pan and make sure it's covered completely by the hot potato cauliflower mix.  The garlic will cook a bit from the heat and will lose some of that acrid spiciness that raw garlic can have.

I add some real butter (you can skip the butter if you prefer).  I think it tastes fantastic without butter too.  Add about a cup of sour cream and black pepper.  I generally don't salt because I'm pretty generous with the salt that I use in the boiling water.

Using a masher, make sure to mash and mix completely keeping in mind to distribute your garlic evenly.

This steamy, creamy concoctionis divine!

AND...you can make this and start to decrease the amount of potatoes until a certain vegetable avoiding person doesn't even notice that it's mostly cauliflower!  SHHHHHH...

This is a great way to bump up your veggies intake while cutting out some starch and carbs from potatoes but not giving up flavor and texture.