Welcome to #FriendFriday where each week I’ll be sharing a delicious recipe from one of my Instagram friends! I find so much inspiration and friendship in the Instagram community so I’m looking forward to sharing some of that here with you. I’m excited for you to get to know some of my friends, I know you will find them as motivational as I do! Be sure to find them on Instagram so you can follow their journey and find more of their delicious meal ideas!
Today you are meeting Ed from @dwardcooks! Ed is a kitchen wizard, turning all of our favorite comfort food dishes into healthier, WW-friendly creations! On top of that he takes amazing food photos that will make you drool. You can follow him on Instagram at @dwardcooks and you can check out more of his recipes on his blog. Now about this delicious guest recipe…..
Hi, Ed, tell us about yourself!
Hi, everyone! I’m Ed from @dwardcooks and dwardcooks.com. I’m born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia where I love with my two incredible daughters and my amazingly supportive wife who allows me to regularly make terrible messes in the kitchen while I make healthy comfort food for our family. When I’m not in the kitchen or in the classroom (my wife and I are both public high school English teachers), we are exploring the greater Philadelphia area with our girls. I’e been with WW now since June 2016, and I’ve had a lot of success that’s lead to a healthier and happier life with my family. I’m so excited to share my recipe for Chipotle Shrimp and Smoked Gouda Cauliflower Grits with all of you!
What motivated you to change your lifestyle?
I was always on the heavier side, usually wavering between XL and XXL clothes, but I gained a lot of weight during 2016-2017 after we had a late term pregnancy loss in October 2016 followed by months of fertility treatments and eventual IVF. In the Spring of 2017, we welcomed our rainbow baby, Nora, and that’s when we started rebuilding our lives. It took time to heal, time to recalibrate, and time to adjust to our new lives; however, before Summer of 2016, I focused so much on my family and I never really focused on my own mental and physical health. I rejoined WW to focus on my overall wellness and become the man my family deserved — the man I deserved to be. As I write this, I’m officially down 82 lbs from my heaviest; more importantly, I’m a healthier and happier person now.
What are your favorite foods to cook?
I love cooking family friendly comfort food — especially if it has cheese, bacon, or caramelized onions. I like salads, but I love me sloppy, melty, stick-to-your-ribs kind of meals. To me, great food has texture, layered flavors, and will leave the dinner table silent savoring those first bites. Food is meant to be enjoyed and shared. If it doesn’t make you happy, why eat it? With my wife and I both working and us coming home to clingy, hungry kids everyday, I really try to focus on meals that have components throughout the week. I may not be a meal prep master, but I try to make sure my recipes reuse components I can transform into other recipes. If I make caramelized onions, I’ll use them a few different ways throughout the week. I try to make at least one recipe on Sunday that can be frozen or refrigerated for later in the week and reheated right after school, so we can make the most of our afternoons as a family.
What is one piece of advice you’d give someone just starting out on a health journey?
I personally think one of the biggest difference between a diet and a lifestyle change is the enjoyment you get out of your journey with a lifestyle change. I’ve found success in experimenting with food and finding food that makes me happy. I’ll never be a guy that eats a salad more than once a week… or even every other week for that matter. When I first joined, you should have seen how much lettuce, kale, arugula I bought for over ambitious salads I never ate. You can’t make yourself like salads, but you can find your own creativity in the kitchen to make your journey work for you. My healthy journey is filled with burgers, pasta, tacos, and even cheesy grits — the recipe I’m sharing with you today!
Tell us about the recipe you are sharing today!
This past summer, my family took a two week road trip to the South with two main priorities: climb some mountains and eat all the delicious food we could find. Grist are not easy to come by up North, but boy did we eat all the grits we could find. I fell in love with cheesy grits. They are so comforting and so versatile that you can eat them at any meal. A velvety bowl of cheese grits made any breakfast, lunch, or dinner absolutely magical to this guy from the North. When we came back, I thought “there has to be a way to make this fit into my healthy lifestyle.” In walks cauliflower. I know, cauliflower is made into everything these days and sometimes it has no business being there. Trust me though, cauliflower was made for grits.
Ed’s recipe makes 6 servings at 4 Blue WW SmartPoints or 5 Green WW SmartPoints. Keep up with his journey and find alllll of his delicious creations on Instagram at @dwardcooks and on his blog. Enjoy!
- FOR THE GRITS:
- 1 head of cauliflower, broken into florets
- 2 cups unsweetened cashew milk or almond milk
- 3.5 oz smoked gouda
- 4 slices of center cut bacon (I use Wegmans brand)
- ¼ cup old fashioned grits
- 1 cup water
- 2 scallions, finely chopped
- kosher salt
- pepper
- hot sauce, optional
- FOR THE CHIPOTLE SHRIMP:
- 1.5 lbs raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
- ½-1 tbsp chipotle in adobo, minced (depending on heat preferences)
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 cups fat free chicken broth
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cup of cherry tomatoes
- 1 tbsp flour
- kosher salt
- Pulse the raw cauliflower florets until they are small granules, smaller than cauliflower rice. You want it into small, well, grits. Depending on how large your food processor is, you may have to do it in batches.
- Fry up the bacon in whatever pan you are making your grits in. Use your biggest frying pan (the recipe will make six cups). Once you crisp the bacon, remove it for later, but leave the bacon grease in the pan!
- Add all the cauliflower into the pan with the bacon grease. Cook it for about one minute, then add the cashew/almond milk. Stir it up a little and bring it to a boil.
- While the cauliflower is cooking, toss the shrimp, lime juice, garlic, chipotle, and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Let that marinate for about ten minutes.
- Once the cauliflower is boiling, add the ¼ c of grits and the cup of water. Cook for 15 minutes on low and covered. Stir it occasionally.
- Get a second pan nice and hot (I always prefer a cast iron, but use what you’d like). Spray a little cooking spray in the pan, and dump the shrimp bowl into the pan, and cook on medium heat until the shrimp is pink.
- Once the shrimp is cooked, remove the cooked shrimp, add the onion, tomatoes, a pinch of salt, and cook until onions are translucent and the tomatoes begin to pop. Use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan to get the delicious bits of garlic and shrimp loosened from the pan. Once the onions are translucent, add the garlic and cook for about a minute.
- After about 30 seconds of cooking the garlic, sprinkle the flour into the pan. Whisk in the chicken broth. Bring it to a boil, reduce it to a simmer. Turn your sauce on as low as possible until you are ready for plating.
- Back to the grits.. Grits should be done by now and ready for the seasoning and cheese. Chop the bacon and add that and the sliced scallions to the grits. You can reserve a little for garnish if you fancy. Fold in the cheese. Finally, add some salt and pepper. I added about a tablespoon of salt and a half of a tablespoon of pepper. I added a few dashes of hot sauce, but I add that to most things.
- When you are ready, throw the shrimp back in to the sauce, heat it back up, and plate it. Scoop a cup of grits in a bowl, add a few pieces of shrimp on top, then ladle that sauce on top.
Nutritional information is calculated with MyFitnessPal and may vary based on brands used. Smart Points information is calculated with the Weight Watchers app and may also vary based on brands used.
Awesome recipe! I have tried cauliflower “rice” a million ways and disliked every one, until now. I had coconut almond milk, and enjoyed that little hint of coconut with it. Thank you for sharing.