Leek and Bean Soup

I hate raw onions. Having said that, my friends have extolled the flavors and likability of leeks. Up until a few months ago, I had not knowingly tried this vegetable that looks like a chive on steroids. I mixed the chopped goodie into a salad and gagged. It tasted like an onion.

Monthly, I receive a delivery of fresh fruit and veg from an organic farm in the area (Farm Fresh To You). To my disappointment, they gave me two large leeks in my package. Determined to make friends with this bulbous tuber, I remembered that I do like French Onion soup and The Chew offered a white bean soup recipe that seemed doable. I decided to merge the two. The results are yummy.

Oil – Extra Virgin Olive is my favorite

Black Pepper—Fresh ground

1 to 2 Large Leeks—sliced in nice circles

6 Stalks of Celery—coarsely chopped

3 Garlic Cloves—smashed and chopped

½ Large Yellow or White Onion—finely chopped

1 Quart Organic Vegetable Stock

Herbs—your choice. I like bay leaf, basil, caraway seed, and cayenne pepper.

Coat the bottom of a Dutch oven with oil add leeks, onions, and celery.  Make sure there is enough oil to coat everything. Cook, stirring occasionally, on the stove at medium high heat for at least 20 minutes to caramelize the onions, soften the celery, and un-spiral the leeks. Add pepper and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes more.  NOTE: I do not salt my cooking. If I want more salty flavor I add more celery.  You can salt to your heart’s lament. 

NOW you have a choice at this point to transfer everything to a crock pot on low adding in the vegetable stock & herbs. OR keep everything in the pot adding in the vegetable stock & herbs. Cover and cook on low heat for about three hours. The first choice, you can go shopping. The second, you stay home and clean the house or write a blog.

When everything is hot, soft and yummy. 4 hours in a crock pot. 3 hours on the stove.

Add:

2 Rinsed Cans of White Beans, or Garbanzo Beans, or Your Favorite.  If you hate canned, then prep your fresh or dried beans the day before. Canned is faster.

Mix all.  Take 3 cups of the soup and dump it into a food processor and puree. Add it back into the soup. Mix and leave the soup on warm.

When serving in individual bowls sprinkle cheese (fresh, grated or veggie) on the top. I like Cashew Cheese or Feta. Both are yummy. Serve with a slice of hearty bread. Enjoy! Makes a great meal for Christmas Eve before Church. 

Un-Cook Books

I bought my darling a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day and a pile of books for me. Yep. I went online to Amazon.com looking for raw un-cook books. Most raw recipes I have found so far feed an army of six and I am just one—Moose has a whole other diet. So I let my mouse do the walking. I purchased “Alive in 5—Raw Gourmet Meals in Five Minutes” by Angela Elliott, “Ultimate Raw Vegan Chocolate Recipes” by Kristine Suzanne—hey, it was Valentine’s Day—and “Raw Food Made Easy—for 1 or 2 People” by Jennifer Cornbleet. I liked the fact that Jennifer’s last name looked edible.

After reading all three cookbooks, I found that “Raw Food Made Easy” may be the most useful. Both Ms. Cornbleet—I loved that name—and Ms. Elliott had complete information on how to set up a raw kitchen, what utensils to buy, and when to use them. The chocolate book had pretty pictures.

“Raw Food Made Easy” covered a wider range of flavors including Asian, East Indian, Mexican, and Italian. I craved Italian. Because the portions were smaller I could visualize preparing the food daily. Jennifer Cornbleet had some of my favorite foods listed in a raw version like Olive Tapenade and a mock spaghetti recipe—“Zucchini Pasta al Presto with Marinara Sauce and Not Meat Balls.” Oh, yum. Her book included full menu ideas and a collection of raw desserts for my Sunday cheats.

Hope you will get the spirit to try something new this week. BTW you can go on Amazon and preview the books and a couple recipes.

I gained two-tenths of a pound. Given the holiday and the past month’s events, I can’t complain.

Fruit Bars

Yesterday I made my first fruit bars. This whole-fresh-raw thing is scary to me. I have shied away from making anything that looked like baked goods for fear of difficulty and disastrous results.

After spending my usual two hours surfing the internet, I found enough information to make me dangerous—an informed neophyte. This was what I learned.

Raw fruit Bars are a combination of dry ingredients and wet/damp ones in equal proportions.

Dry—Choose a mix of two items up to a total of 1 to 2 cups
Sprouted Almonds finely chopped, sprouted flax seed ground, sesame seed ground, chocolate nibs lightly ground, or pecans chopped.

Wet— Choose two items place in food processor till thoroughly mixed for a total of 1 to 2 cups
Medjool Dates pitted, dried cherries, dried cranberries, fresh cranberries, raisins, dried figs reconstituted, fresh figs.

Mix—1 cup dry and 1 cup wet together. I have a small one cup food processor plus a coffee grinder I use exclusively for nuts and nibs. So I made these batches in small groups. You can do the same with a larger food processor.

Add—Spices. I like allspice and cinnamon. You pick your favorites about a teaspoon of each.
1 tablespoon of Meyer lemon juice or orange juice
1 teaspoon of citrus zest.

Taste.

Add—2 to 3 tablespoons of honey or Agave syrup to taste.

Taste.

If the texture is very wet add more dry ingredients. If dry add more wet.
I found using reconstituted figs and fresh cherries caused my mixture to be wet.
Press the mixture into a greased or lined pan to be cut into bars. Or roll into balls. Top with finely chopped nuts or coconut. Refrigerate for an hour then eat. Delicious.

If you want very dry more portable bars, you can dehydrate them in a warm oven for about two hours. Calories per bar depends on the combination of ingredients. Each bar is packed with vitamins and minerals. Fruit bars are great snacks in the winter.

Comment

Beth—my friend, mentor, and blog reader—pointed out that the marmalade recipe may dilute the vitamin C content from over cooking. I disagreed at first, but the more I think about it, she may be right. I altered the recipe to enhance the vitamin C. This weekend after picking another peck of oranges, I will try the recipe out. The flavor should be similar to the previous recipe.


Almost Raw Organic Orange Marmalade ala Pam
Into pan on the stove
• 2 cups of fresh squeezed orange juice
• Zest of 3 oranges sliced in thin ribbons
• Zest of ½ organic Meyer lemon
• 2 Tblsp Candied ginger if desired
Cook on low heat until the rind is soft and yummy. Shut of the burner and set the pan on trivet to cool.
While warm add
• 1 jar about one pound of organic honey
• Pulp of 10 organic large orange sections – no white parts. Double the amount of oranges if they are small
• Pulp of 1 Meyer lemon—no white parts
Mix thoroughly
Cool to room temperature
Mix in 1 package No Cook Pectin.
Stir for 3 minutes

Ladle into 3 small Ball brand plastic freezer jars or containers you already have
Refrigerate for 1 hour before eating—freeze or give away the rest.

Taco Night

My husband came home from a week’s stay in the hospital. He is recovering from a partial foot amputation and infection. During his incarceration, I was free to munch on carrots for breakfast, make fruit smoothies for dinner, and order a veggie omelet at the hospital cafeteria. Now he is back home, I face the daily grind of making two different meals three times per day. At times it is overwhelming. Yet I have found that my friends that make one major meal at dinner time for their families face the same dilemma—what do we fix today?

Moose is on a BRAC diet mostly. That is a diet consisting of bananas, rice, apples/applesauce, and chicken. This mix helps his digestive track which is totally messed up by the twenty-eight different medications he takes three times per day. We deviate a little but keeping in mind that too much of anything makes him very ill. His system cannot tolerate salt, sugar, or animal fats. I cook with none of the three and only have extra virgin olive oil in the cupboard.

A typical day for us.
Mine

• Breakfast: Water, 1 Slice--Organic sprouted wheat toast, soy butter, honey with 1 cup ½ caff coffee with rice milk
• Snack: Water, Fruit or nuts or combination
• Lunch: Water, Salad with raw blue cheese or tofu or raw Ahi tuna
• Snack: Water, Spoonful peanut or almond butter
• Dinner: Water, Steamed seasonal veggies sometimes with chicken slices sometimes not
• Dessert: Water, Fruit or Fruit Smoothie

His

• Breakfast: 1 container Lite fruit yogurt, glass of juice, ¼ cup caff coffee with milk
• Lunch: ½ sandwich with turkey luncheon meat, cheese, and deli mustard, Ice tea
• Snack: ½ banana or apple or pear
• Dinner: BBQ chicken, 1 cup steam rice, applesauce, Ice tea
• Dessert: Glass of Port, biscuit or International Decaf Coffee and sugar free cookies

You can see that we do not eat much of the same things. Once in a while I try to combine foods that will accommodate both of our diets. Moose’s favorite is taco night which happens once a month.

Taco Night Recipe
The taco meat:

• 1 pound ground turkey meat
• Chile powder
• Cayenne pepper
• ¼ cup diced onions (yellow, white, or green)
• 2 cloves of garlic smashed and chopped
• Olive oil wiped on a nonstick pan

The taco makings:

• Taco shells
• 3 or 4 washed dried lettuce leaves the size of your hand
• Black olive slices
• Homemade no-salt guacamole or sliced avocados
• Non-fat plain yogurt
• Salsa Verde or Rojas (I make my salsa fresh)
• Grated cheese (I use Trader Joes Raw Cheddar Cheese)

First add oil, onion, and ground turkey into the frying pan. Cook on medium high heat until the meat is browning. Add garlic and spices to taste. Add a little at a time until you get a flavor that you like. Remember Cayenne pepper is hot and Chile powder is not. Mix while cooking until the meat is browned and coated with flavor. If the mixture looks a little dry add some water and stir.

Serve with the taco makings. My husband fills the taco shells for his meal while I fill the lettuce leaves for mine. The leaves are crunchy like the taco shells with almost no calories. The meat makes it warm and satisfying. If you are not eating meat substitute the turkey with a soy based taco filling in the produce section of your market. Or you can eat the veggies without any meat at all. The salsa will give the south-of-the-border flavor.

You should have enough leftovers for a tasty lunch or taco salad.

Death by Raw Chocolate Covered Dates

How innocent? I signed up for Raw Holiday Desserts Class with Chef Stacey—a local raw chef of some renown in Sacramento. My intentions were pure. Take the class, taste the delights, then determine which recipe to make for my cousin’s Thanksgiving feast. Having zero experience in making raw confections, I had no choice but to go this route. You are following the logic. Yes?

So what happened next truly was not my fault.

I arrived exactly on time to the lovely Rancho Cordova home. Greeted by several nice ladies, I signed in and paid my entrance fee. Cucumber-laced pitcher of water and a bowl of celery sticks adorned the foyer table. Picking up a couple sticks, I sat next to a “Cooking with Chef Stacey” veteran. We talked endlessly about raw foods, desserts, evils of tap water, the loss of favor for agave syrup, and the mortality of bees.

Chef Stacey worked the kitchen like Emeril Live with one important difference nothing cooked—a dehydrator replaced the microwave and the Vitamix 5200 Blender replaced about everything else. She made orange-persimmon cheesecake, chocolate-dipped dates with orange-spice almonds, a blueberry-chia tart, and dark chocolate caramel cups. All raw. Stacey hinted we would taste later and that we could take items home. As time ticked by and trays of delights passed my face, I remembered I had not had a dessert in four months, a long time for this former heavy weight. Finally, the chef’s assistant sliced the cheesecake.

A good size piece slapped down onto the china plate, a fork added then passed to the first person in the first row. Several minutes passed before I received my plate. I skipped dinner so that I would not go over my one thousand calorie diet even if I had a bite or two of dessert.

Persimmon is not my favorite fruit. I like the taste not the pucker affects the flesh offers. Still the fruit, nuts, spices, and honey excited long neglected taste buds. My well-intention one bite plan turned into sucking up the cheesecake and scraping the nut crust across the plate into my salivating mouth. Before I could set my fork down, the plate was snatched from my hand and returned with a gooey blueberry tart plopped in the center of the dish. Blueberry. Good. My favorite. In no time at all, I consumed all of the tart. Looking around I found that I was not alone in inhaling the samples. All ten women managed to keep up with the assistant’s refills that included the last two chocolate tastings.

My head started spinning as soon as the first chocolate bite hit my tongue. My temples screamed for a hot cup of coffee to cut the sugar sliding through my stomach. I knew better than to ask for the roasted bean for it is forbidden in the raw world. My suffering continued when one of the guests offered me coconut milk laced with probiotics to “cut the sugar action.” Politely, I accepted the drink and swallowed what tasted like liquid yogurt. Normally that would not have been a problem but having consumed, in less than ten minutes, four servings of honey based desserts, my stomach thought the sour liquid was a cruel joke.

The food orgy continued with offers of samples to be taken home. Ladies pulled Rubbermaid containers from their purses and lined up at the counter to claim the booty. Unprepared for this stage, I stated to no one in particular that I did not have a container and therefore would not be taking home the gifted desserts. A collective gasp came from the crowd. A search was on to find an unclaimed container. I prayed that none would be found as I was having problems feeling my jaw. The lady to my left proudly held a container just for me and the assistant chef filled it. The sugar hit everyone—the once quiet restrained group now giggled, chatted, hugged and gained volume. I begged pardon to leave, stepped out of the house and into the night. Walking seemed as difficult as keeping my stomach at ease. I climbed into the car and sat the plastic box of treats next to me. I actually considered eating one more chocolate. Oh yes, I did consider it. Thankfully, I had enough reason left in my sugar-shocked brain to stop myself.

I drove home. I lived. I gained two-tenths of a pound.

No more dessert classes.

Fresh Pickle Recipe (No Salt)

Looking to reduce salt in your diet? Here's a great pickle recipe with crunchy freshness. This pickle recipe takes ten minutes to prepare and one day to cold cure are a delicious alternative to the current briny store offerings. Start with a clean kosher pickle jar. You can buy new or clean a used jar by washing it in the long-hot cycle of your dishwasher.

1 cup Light-colored Vinegar – your favorite rice, wine, or apple. I use raw apple cider vinegar.
16 oz Persian Cucumbers or English Cucumbers—cut length wise, enough to fill jar
2 Tbsp Pickling Spices
1 Tsp Peppercorn Whole (optional)
2-3 Tbsp Agave Syrup or Honey—pickles move from dill to sweet as you increase syrup
1 Sprig Fresh Dill

Optional Flavors use 1-3 Tsp to taste:
Red Pepper Flakes
Fresh Garlic sliced thin
Fresh Jalapeño sliced thin
Fresh Bell Peppers
Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Sliced Celery if you really miss the salt

Mix syrup, vinegar, and spices in a bowl and set aside. Cut up your vegetables. Pack your jar with the cut cucumbers, dill and optional flavorings. Stir the bowl of liquids and pour into the jar to fill. Scrape in any leftover spices. If the jar is not completely filled, add water. Close the jar with a lid. Rock the jar back and forth to insure the ingredients blend. IMPORTANT—Use a marker and put the date you made the pickles on the jar. Move immediately to the refrigerator. It takes twenty-four hours for the cucumbers to turn into pickles.

Don’t get discourage if the pickles are not perfect the first time. It takes a few tries to the flavor exactly the way you like them.

Pickles will last about three weeks in the refrigerator. In our house the pickles are usually eaten in a week. Make sure you throw away uneaten at the end of three weeks.

We Talked About Food

I met with a young woman at Church on Sunday. She sat with her six-year-old and her twin babies of just three months. Slowly, she gave up the story of her also young husband that has contracted a near-fatal heart condition causing him to quit work and go on disability. His illness is so severe that he cannot pick up his newborn sons.

The wife now has three children and a extremely sick husband to care for full-time. Her concern? What to fix for supper. The husband is limited to red meat twice per month, fish and chicken once a week, no packaged or processed foods, with the elimination of fats, eggs, and sugars. We talked about food.

Our angel-of-a-Parish Assistant organized volunteers to bring vegetarian meals to their home. She looked for someone to help do a few chores.

I promised to bring recipes. I dug out my copies of Dr. Timothy Brantly’s book The Cure and Ann Wigmore’s The Hippocrates Diet to give to the young family. Wigmore’s book covers the basics of eating healthy, the curative powers of juicing, and provides some recipes, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen also made it into the box. Though not wholly vegetarian, the cookbook offers excellent food choices and a wide variety of flavors. The couple stated they liked all types of food.

I decided to give them a starter pack of things I found valuable in my diet. From the health food store I included—powdered wheatgrass juice, mung beans for sprouting, and organic veggies. From Trader Joes—Daily Bread brand sprouted wheat-bread, organic peanut butter, soy butter, almond milk, raw milk cheese, Pure Maple Syrup, Agave Syrup, and Brewers’ Yeast. She said she had sea-salt at home otherwise I would have included it.

The items get dropped off tomorrow. Please pray for the family.

Oh and I lost a pound this week.

Figs…

I purchased a dehydrator. I didn’t plan to purchase a dehydrator. It started with a trip to Lodi to pick figs off of Pam and Bob, my friends’ tree—a huge twenty foot farmhouse fig tree. Filling two bags, while stuffing my face with sun-warmed gooey fruit, I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do with all the figs. On the drive home, I thought of sharing my bounty with family and neighbors. Which I did. Also I planned perhaps to find on the internet a few exotic recipes. Did that too. Still I had more figs than I could eat.

Aside from figs. Home-grown tomatoes arrived on my doorstep with alarming regularity. News of my raw diet has spread throughout the community causing an outpouring of free red-ripe and yellow-heirloom fruit offerings. Yes tomatoes are technically fruit. With my gleeful acceptance, the refrigerator now overflowed with tomatoes and the aforementioned figs.

What to do with all that fruit?
I tried drying figs in my brand new gas oven. Unfortunately the settings did not drop to the required 110 degrees so I burnt my first stab at dehydrating. I found myself that day at Fry’s Electronics and, to my surprise, a brand-new dehydrator sat on the shelf between coffee makers and vacuums. Marked down from $59 to $39, it seemed like a deal.

The three trays of skinned-sliced tomatoes and two trays of halved figs took most of two days to dry in the circular heating unit. After cooling the dried fruit, I packed them in plastic-freezer bags and popped them into the freezer where they will keep bug free for up to two years.

Now what do I do with dehydrated tomatoes and figs?
First the tomatoes—Sundried Tomato Pesto. My recipe.
6 ounces sun-dried tomatoes Soaked in water until soft. Set aside water.
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons red wine (optional)
¼ to ½ cup olive oil
Sea-salt to taste
Combine all the ingredients except the oil. Let rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Mix thoroughly. Add soaking water if needed. Mix in oil to taste. I like Cayenne Pepper for a little kick. Use on raw veggies. I like to pour over sprouted mung bean and grind hard raw goat cheese over the top. Tastes Italian to me!

Finally the Figs—A Christmas Figgy Pudding

Fig-raisin Pudding
2 cups 2-day sprouted wheat and rye
1-1 1/2 cups black mission figs soaked overnight
1-1 1/2 cups raisins soaked in fig water for 1 hour
Put all ingredients in a blender, and puree until smooth
- by San Francisco's Living Foods Enthusiasts

I lost one pound this week.

FIVE POUNDS TO TRANSPLANT WEIGHT GOAL!

Four pounds lost this week. Yea! I upped my exercise a tad with the help of an overactive puppy and ate close to the outlined diet. What I’ve been eating of late: a homemade version of V-8 juice, steamed veggies like kale, carrots, green beans, spinach, and mushrooms, soft-boiled eggs, seared tuna salad with balsamic dressing, tacos made of lettuce, raw-milk goat cheese, homemade salsa verde and seared beef, many salads, fresh fruit, fruit, and more fruit gleaned from our awesome overproducing backyard trees.

My latest experiment attempted Japanese cuisine. I picked up seaweed wraps at the local grocery store, grabbed fresh crab meat, raw ahi tuna, avocado, and veg for California rolls. Following the easy instructions for sushi on the seaweed package, I made two California rolls and two tuna rolls for Mom and Paul. Each roll breaks down to eight pieces of cut sushi. Then I ground up sprouted sunflower seeds and lentils into a paste to replace the rice portion of the recipe and made the same type rolls for myself. I served up salads with ginger dressing, edamame, and hot sake. This was a necessary break from the rut I created with the raw diet. The Asian recipes far exceed most European and American faire in variety of flavor and fresh ingredients.

I am still only two weeks from my last three-day fast so I will start my one-day fast next Wednesday, September 1st. For those who think fasting destroys the muscle, I talked with a health professional who says you must fast forty days before destroying muscle tissue. One day ain’t going to hurt and I know my digestive track can use the break – not to mention what it is doing for the food budget.

July 2010

August 2010

Great Recipe

I found this recipe in Sunset Magazine, August 2010 edition, page 91. Served cold, it is refreshing tasty and low calorie. Enjoy!

Mexican Tomatillo Avocado Soup
Serves 6, 45 minute prep
1 1/4 lbs. tomatilos, husked and rinsed
1 white onion, finely chopped [I only used 1/2 onion and I used a food processor for the dish]
2 1/2 cups of vegetable broth [I changed the chicken broth to vegetable broth]
1 garlic clove, minced
3/4 English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped [I used the cucumber I had in the refrigerator]
2 tblsp lime juice [freshly squeezed]
2 tsp green hot sauce [I increased from tsp to tblsp]
1 1/2 tsp of minced fresh oregano leaves [didn't have this so left it out]
1 avocado chopped [Yum!]
3 tblsp chopped cilantro
1. Chop tomatillos coarsely, Puree half each of the tomatillos, onion, and broth in a blender with garlic. Rub through a fine strainer into a stainless steel bowl; discard contents of strainer. Finely chop remaining tomatillos. Add remaining tomatillos, onion and broth; cucumber, lime juice, hot sauce, and oregano.
to bowl and stir.
2. Nest bowl in ice water; stir often until cold, 15 minutes. Add avocado and cilantro.
Per 1-cup serving 111 calories. 52% (58 cal.) from fat, 3.8 grams protein, 6.5 grams of fat, 12 grams carbo (4.2 grams fiber)58 grams sodium, 10mg cholesterol.