With apologies to Saint Patrick and every last Irish ancestor who came before me, let me just say that cauliflower is a great substitution for potatoes.

Whether you’re looking for a keto recipe or simply something different, this Fauxtato Salad comes highly recommended. (Reminder, the French word “faux,” meaning “false,” is pronounced “foh.”)

Simply take your favorite potato salad recipe and convert it.

Fauxtato Salad (keto recipe)

1 head fresh cauliflower, steamed
6-8 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled, sliced/chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
2-4 Tablespoons of mustard (I use brown mustard with horseradish)
Paprika, salt, pepper to taste
Bed of fresh greens for serving
Extras: chopped cucumber, radishes, onion (but only a tiny bit if you want to keep this a keto recipe), parsley

Rinse the head of cauliflower off under cool running water. If there are any age spots, just scrape them off with a knife. Then slice off and discard the stem and leaves.

Chop up the cauliflower florets so that they’re bite sized. Then steam them so that they soften some but still have some crunch left.

Now that I’m retired, I’ve got loads of time to play around with recipes. And I’ve found myself rediscovering gadgets that had been tucked away in the pantry.

As long as we’ve had our slow cooker (actually, we’re on our second one), I had never used the “steamer” function. That all changed the other day.

It worked like a charm! I was short a few hard-boiled eggs and steamed them, too. Who knew?

The ingredients mix up together well. Something included in Mom‘s original Potato Salad recipe that I’d left out for no particular reason: a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar. I may sneak some ACV in the next batch.

Okay, so here’s the embarrassing part:

To celebrate becoming a “pensioner” (simply meaning I started drawing Social Security; Gary and I like the Irish/British sound of the term), I purchased a new food processor.

As always, I checked first with my dear Cousin Jeff in St. Louis.

We’re not blood relation, but he’s my cousin through-and-through (as is his darling husband, Dave.) Years ago, we met through my work and his play. Jeff is a roller-coaster enthusiast; he’s the perfect balance of fan and normal guy. The park’s president once remarked to me how much he liked Jeff. “He’s like family.”

Well, it stuck. We even had a “Cousin Jeff” employee name-tag made for him, although he was sworn to secrecy not to show it to anyone who might get jealous. (He quickly tucked it away.)

I called Cousin Jeff and asked him for a recommendation.

Gurl, you’ll never go wrong with Cuisinart.

I’ve long since forgiven him for his use of the spelling “gurl” over the years. Even when we’re talking on the phone, I can tell he’s spelling it that way.

Jeff was surprised I didn’t have a food processor already. Suddenly the name of my original model popped in my head.

“Oh, Jeff … I remember now. I bought a La Machine the summer before my last year of college!”

If you’re not old enough to remember La Machines, you simply must watch this dreadful old commercial from the 1970s:

Oooo-la-lah! Who could resist, right?

A few decades later, I hauled it off to our local Saint Vincent de Paul donation center in the hope someone else would enjoy its Frenchy goodness.

With Cousin Jeff’s blessing, I ordered a Cuisinart Food Processor. The day after it arrived, we put it to good use on a head of cabbage for another keto recipe. Gary loves cooked cabbage, the stinkier the better.

One thing, though. As I assembled the new toy, something seemed oddly familiar. It all goes back to the southpaw thing, I tend to try to put things together backwards.

Suddenly, I remembered – we used to have this exact same appliance! How embarrassing.

A dozen years or so ago, Gary went on what we later referred to as his “choppa-choppa craze.” He was determined to fill the space under the Christmas tree with every chopping gadget imaginable.

Remember these things?

I believe I kept one manual tool plus an electric mini processor, but the rest of the choppa-choppas headed up to Saint Vincent de Paul. That included the big Cuisinart model. I’d forgotten all about it until just that moment.

As I zipped through the process of slicing cucumbers for the Fauxtato Salad in a mere 40 seconds, I vowed to keep this one.

I do believe I’ll keep that husband of mine, too.

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