Pinned It, Made It: Garlic Beef Stew and Cauliflower Mash

I love crockpot meals. I also like crockpot meals that are very low-grain or grain-free.

We made some major changes in the way we eat almost 2 years ago now; the main change being that we no longer eat wheat and bread and pasta type things on a regular basis. We feel so much better when we eat mostly grain-free! In addition, we have both lost quite a bit of weight.

While we do eat some grains, mostly brown rice, and we do eat dairy, I've found that many recipes geared for the Paleo diet work well for us. The Paleo diet focuses mostly on meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits and nuts-- a "caveman diet".

A while back I pinned this great list of 30 Nights of Paleo Crockpot Meals. There are some really good looking yummy recipes in the list, whether you eat grain or not!

I decided to try the Garlic Beef Stew with Mashed Cauliflower. The stew was good-- I used 1 pound of beef as that's all I had and used Italian seasoning because I didn't have marjoram. The recipe calls for 6-12 cloves of garlic. I used 6 to be on the safe side and we felt it was plenty garlicky!

The mashed cauliflower was awesome! We aren't big fans of cauliflower so to say we really like a cauliflower recipe is saying something. I had tried mashed cauliflower before but for some reason had never thought to use the food processor to blend it up. The result was a very creamy mashed potato-like texture which we loved. 

The turmeric in the cauliflower gave it a bright yellow color which matched the shirt Andy was wearing. We both got a laugh out of that!

I will definitely make both of these recipes again.

This was a great winter meal--warm and nourishing!

**This post is part of Pinned It, Made It Monday over at Country Girl At Home.