Green Veggie Cheesy Pasta

Here's the thing: if you've seen my recipes for a while, I'm always trying to get more green (and other colored) veggies into my children. They've generally accepted the idea of green, smooth sauces and soups as long as nothing is obviously leafy. I count that as a win, but sometimes you just have to push the boundaries a bit.

Enter the cauliflower. It's white! How can the kids object?! But my last couple efforts were a total failure. "There's something chunky in here." "Did you put cauliflower in here?" "I don't like this." and so on forever and ever amen. They managed cauliflower pizza crust ok because it's really cheesy but nothing with obvious veggie-ness.

Onto the experiment. Rice the cauliflower? check. Grind up spinach and onions? check. The boys saw me make the cauliflower. But I'm getting smarter to their ways. When we sat down to eat, before they even took a bite, they asked "does this have cauliflower in it?". Evasion... well, there's a lot of parmesan cheese. *Take bite* "I think I felt something chunky in here." It's probably just the parmesan cheese. A little more evasion and they both ate their whole bowl. Success. Hubby said it tastes a lot like a pizza.

Green Veggie Cheesy Pasta

1 head of cauliflower
6 oz spinach
1/2 an onion
1-1/2 tsp minced garlic
2 Tbls butter
1 Tbls lemon juice
2-1/2 cups water
1 Tbls Better Than Bullion
a bunch of fresh mint leaves
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar jack or something fun)
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup whipping cream
16 oz pasta (cooked according to package directions)

Start by chopping up the cauliflower and sending it through the food processor/Vitamix until it's the size of rice or smaller (for the Vitamix, I process about 1/3 at a time). Put all processed cauliflower in a bowl and microwave, covered, for about 8 minutes.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Chop up the onion and sauté with the spinach and garlic in the melted butter. Cook until the onion is translucent and the spinach is all wilty.

Put the water and Better Than Bullion into the Vitamix, then add the onion and spinach mixture. Process on high for 15-30 seconds, until it's all smooth. Pour back into the saucepan. Chop up the mint leaves (I ended up with about 1/2 a cup of chopped mint). Add the lemon juice and mint to the saucepan along with the riced cauliflower. Cook on medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add all of the cheeses and stir constantly until they're well melted. After the sauce is smooth again (except for the cauliflower of course), add the whipping cream and keep stirring until everything is warmed through and the same shade of green.

Pour over your prepared pasta (all together, or in individual bowls). Mix it up before you hand it out to the kiddies. Remind yourself to say "it's just parmesan cheese". Sit down and enjoy.