Cauliflower Hash Brown Muffin Cups

I love muffin-tin dishes.  They are handy for storing and having a grab-n-go meal when you need one. Here's a low-carb twist for breakfast. After using cauliflower as a stand-in for pizza crust and rice pudding, I had to try it as faux-hash browns. Turns out, it's pretty TASTY!!

Ingredients

2 heads of cauliflower, trimmed, stemmed and chopped
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 dozen + 2 large eggs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Chives, chopped (optional)

4 strips bacon - fried crisp

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375° F. 

Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin and set aside.

Bring large pot of water to a rolling boil

Add chopped cauliflower

Blanch for 3 minutes

Drop the blanched cauliflower into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they start to resemble a fine grain.

Pour the ground cauliflower onto paper or cloth kitchen towels and twist to wring out excess liquid. Do this up to three times until the cauliflower comes out completely dry.

Transfer dry cauliflower to a large mixing bowl. Add cheddar cheese, garlic powder, salt and two eggs and stir to combine.

Distribute the mixture evenly throughout the muffin tins and use your fingers to press the mixture into the sides and bottom of each cup to form the nests.

Bake the nests for 15-17 minutes until brown.

Add a couple bits of bacon to the bottom of each cup and crack an egg on top, without breaking the yolk.

Bake for 7-8 minutes.

Sprinkle with chives and pepper to taste.

Cook's Notes:

A food processor is a crucial for getting that hash brown texture, but a powerful blender could work too. Once your cauliflower is pulsed to bits it's imperative that you remove ALL of the liquid. 

From there, you're just forming a dough with eggs and cheddar cheese (and a little garlic powder, salt and pepper, to give it more of a potato-like flavor). Your fingers are really your best tool when it comes to incorporating here, so roll up your sleeves and get that "dough" mixed and molded. A shot glass works well for molding the nests too

Be sure to pre-bake the nests before adding the eggs and other toppings. But really, treat this cauliflower concoction as "dough" because you can essentially put anything you want inside. We chose bacon and chives but anything you like in a savory egg dish would work: avocado, tomatoes, spinach, kale—you name it!