It's casserole season and this cauliflower dish is showstopper

When winter weather turns nasty, it becomes casserole season.

Holiday season get-togethers call for casseroles since they are relatively easy to make, serve a lot of people and are simple to keep warm until they land on a buffet; yours or someone else's. With only two of us here, casseroles are also perfect for make-ahead meals with leftovers.

This casserole story began at Thanksgiving when one of my guests planned on bringing a loaded cauliflower casserole that mirrored a restaurant-style loaded baked potato. Instead, he arrived with a potato-based casserole since he could not find any at the store the day before due to cauliflower's current popularity.

My guest tried to do me a favor since I follow a low-carb food plan. Using cauliflower instead of potatoes, he would have cut the carbs and trimmed over 900 calories from the casserole. It was a good idea since, ounce-for-ounce, potatoes have almost four times as many carbs (25 versus 93 per 100 grams) as cauliflower.

After the dinner, my guest told me he had gotten the recipe from allrecipes.com.

A week later, I wanted to make the same cauliflower casserole for a dinner party to which we were going. I searched for the best recipe and landed on the Southern Living magazine website. And my local store was stocked with plenty of fresh cauliflower.

As has been my habit for nearly as long as I've been cooking, I changed Southern Living's recipe.

Instead of using cooking spray in the casserole dish, I used some of the bacon fat rendered from the bacon, giving my casserole a flavor boost.

Southern Living used garlic powder in their casserole, and I went with roasted garlic granules. They used fresh chives, which were not easy to come by and were expensive. I switched to organic Italian parsley.

I made the casserole, and although I used a large mixing bowl, I needed a bigger vessel to combine everything easily. I transferred the mixture to the casserole dish, topped it with cheese and bacon and baked it for 20 minutes. It surprised me that was all the oven time it took.

I covered and insulated my casserole and took it to the dinner party, where it was an enormous success. Some guests suggested it was like an excellent macaroni and cheese. There was almost none to take home.

The following week we had another holiday party to go to, and since that casserole was such a success, I made it again.

This time I added carrots cut into julienne match sticks for color and added flavor. I also bumped up the white pepper from ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon. And I used a much larger mixing bowl.

Once again, effusive compliments, with one guest offering to pay me $50 to make one for her and her husband. Wow.

This casserole takes time to make since there is a lot of preparation. You will not regret that time, though.

Give it a try.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

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Holiday Loaded-up Cauliflower Casserole

8 ounces organic, no-sugar bacon slices, cooked and coarsely chopped, divided

2 (1½-pound) heads cauliflower, leaves and stem trimmed and cut into bite-size florets

1 (8-ounce) package organic cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup sour cream, organic preferred

1 teaspoon roasted garlic granules (or garlic powder)

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

½ teaspoon sea salt

6 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1½ cups), divided

6 ounces pepper Jack cheese, shredded (about 1½ cups), divided

1 medium organic carrot cut into julienne matchsticks

¼ cup finely chopped fresh organic parsley, divided

Place oven rack in the center position and begin heating the oven to 425-degrees.

Place bacon strips onto a rimmed baking pan and roast for about 15-17 minutes, turning once. Drain bacon on a paper towel. Pour 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat into a 13-by-9-inch casserole dish and coat the bottom and sides. Set aside.

Add about 1 inch of water to a deep saucepan and place a stainless-steel steamer basket into the pan. Transfer the cauliflower florets to the steamer basket and cover the pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium, and steam for 20 minutes, or until easily pierced with a sharp, thin knife. Remove the pan from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

While the cauliflower steams, in a large mixing bowl, using an electric hand mixer mix together cream cheese, sour cream, garlic granules, white pepper and salt until very smooth, about 2 minutes. Fold in 1 cup each of the cheese, half the bacon, the carrot and half the parsley. Fold in warm cauliflower. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining bacon and cheese.

Bake until cheese is melted and starts to brown around the edge, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve.

Serves 12

Nutrition values per serving: 266 calories (75 percent from fat), 22.2 g fat (12.4 g saturated fat), 7.6 g carbohydrates (5.3 net carbs), 3.5 g sugars, 2.4 g fiber, 10.8 g protein, 63 mg cholesterol, 430 mg sodium.

Suggestions: Start bringing cream cheese to room temperature for about 2 hours before use.

Although I did not try it, 3 pounds of frozen cauliflower florets could be used to cut down on the preparation time. Bring the frozen cauliflower to room temperature, drain off any water, warm slightly in the microwave (do not steam) and use like the already steamed fresh cauliflower.

SaltSense: Omitting the added sea salt reduces the sodium per serving to 333 milligrams.

Based on a recipe from Southern Living magazine.