adventures in "kottage" pie

I'm supposed to eat keto on Sundays, but I wanted to do a cottage pie, so at the very least, I had to keep the peas in. I did switch out the potatoes with cauliflower mash, making the dish much lower-carb than the original, but peas themselves are fairly carby, so this isn't a truly keto cottage pie. It's nonetheless far enough removed from the original to be called "kottage pie." So that's what I made tonight. I'm slow at prepping food, so this took me a few hours. Here are some photos. 

a mixture of ground skirt steak, onions, and mushrooms, with a
bit of ketchup, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and wine thrown in

peas and carrots; had to peel and dice the carrot I used

cauliflower mash: cauliflower, cream cheese, Grana Padano cheese, salt, pepper,
whole garlic cloves, and caramelized onions, all blitzed in my food processor

the kottage pie I made for tonight's dinner

making the two other kottage pies to be eaten later

layering on the mash

The Death Star is complete.

my pie after baking; the cheese helped with the browning

a glimpse into my pie

another glimpse

half eaten

You will hear people swear up and down that cauliflower mash tastes just like mashed potatoes. Well, I'm here to tell you that no one will ever mistake cauliflower mash for potatoes, so if you hated cauliflower before, you're still going to hate it as a mash. 

That said, I didn't mind the mash as much as I thought I might. It wasn't mashed potatoes by any means, but it also wasn't horrible. I'd do it again, in fact. It can be appreciated on its own terms, and since I don't hate cauliflower, it works well enough for me. I might use a different cheese next time, though. This time, I used Grana Padano, mild and mellow relative of Parmigiano. It was all right, but I think I'd prefer Gruyère. 

Come to think of it, I might also want to try making fritters with mashed cauliflower, almond flour, eggs, and cheese. That might be kind of cool. Fried food can be keto as long as you're not using regular flour to make a regular batter. And the oil you use needs to be avocado, olive, or coconut: other oils are considered inflammatory and therefore unhealthy. 

Anyway, tonight's culinary adventure ended fairly well, and I have two more servings of kottage pie to eat over the next two weeks, so that's cool.