Creamy Zucchini Soup with Spinach and Corn

I made this outstanding soup the other day and raved about it on Facebook.  But then the great blogger and photographer Wendy at Healthy Girl's Kitchen did a post about it today.  Here's hers.

I would note that I substituted soaked almonds for the cashews and was thrilled to have fresh from our garden (and the farmer neighbor's corn patch) all the corn, zucchini, basil, thyme, and oregano.  What a treat!

Falafel Salad

Faced with a burgeoning crop of elderberries and blackberries, especially, with tomatoes yet to come, hubby decided we needed a chest freezer in addition to our two side-by-side refrigerators, and I have to say I'm glad I didn't have to beg him. As I write he and youngest son are fetching it from the local Sears store.

But as I have tried to reduce bulk in the other freezers, I discovered a quart freezer bag with the "dough" for a recipe I made probably a year ago, Baked Falafel, from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Appetite for Reduction, pp. 121-122.

I remember being a bit disappointed the first time around that the patties didn't firm up and tended to stick to the pan, and when I made some up last night they still had a bit of that trouble, but nothing a little more experimentation can't fix. They're pleasantly mild, but I will make them with higher onion, garlic, and spice content next time.  Here's another blogger's sharing of Isa's recipe, with a photo.

For supper last night I served this with raita and diced tomatoes, and it was very nice.  For today's salad I realized the falafel, being almost entirely chickpeas, would be great for my bean content.  So this is what I did:

Falafel Salad

Several baked falafel patties, toasted if not freshly made (Appetite for Reduction, pp. 121-122)
Mixed dark salad greens (I included some broccoli slaw in mine)
1/2 small green pepper, diced
1/2 tomato, diced
1/4 small onion, diced
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 oz. pepitas (or sunflower seeds), toasted

Assemble veggies and top with crumbled falafel, raisins, and pepitas, then dress with raita (I used about 1/3 cup) and toss.

Raita

1/2 cucumber, mostly peeled and diced
1 cup yogurt (soy is fine)
2 T. minced mint leaves
1 tsp. honey (I had to substitute 2 tsp. lemon curd, and it was pretty good!)

Combine ingredients and let sit for at least thirty minutes before serving, to meld flavors

Verdict:  Very Good.  I really like this change from my usual greens-and-beans, fruit-and-nut lunchtime salads.

Deconstructed Salad Dressing

I have loved making some of the nut- and seed-based nutritarian dressings first inspired by the drfuhrman.com recipe collections and member posts, as well as Chef A.J.'s "Hail to the Kale" salad. My own versions of these dressings are available on this blog under the "salad ideas" tag. But in an effort to be more deliberate in my measurements of seeds and nuts, and to enjoy them fully, I have started "deconstructing" these dressings, including their components in their original form instead of blending them into a dressing.



Tonight, for example, I'm having a salad with a Middle Eastern spin:  dark lettuces, red onion, halved green grapes, diced cucumber, some pinto beans, one pressed garlic clove, the juice of a quarter of a lemon, a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, and some toasted pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds).

Yesterday I had a similar one with a California spin: dark lettuces, a few raisins, diced tomato, diced pepper, a mix of sprouted beans, one pressed garlic clove, a grating of fresh ginger, and toasted almond slivers.

The other day I did one with a Mexican spin: dark lettuces, Vidalia onion, diced tomato, diced green pepper, pinto beans, one mashed garlic clove, a dollop of salsa, and the juice of a quarter of a lime.  I saved the nuts for peanut butter on an apple on the side.

The key is to mix the "dressing" ingredients together with the beans and wet veggies (tomato) in the bottom of the bowl, then toss the leafy and hard veggie bits and fruits with this mixture and enjoy! I really like they way it helps me wean myself away from the idea of a dressing from a bottle or jar and to just enjoy the flavor that the fruits and vegetables give to the salad.

What are some other possibilities for this technique?

• Tropical/Jamaican:  tomato, hot red peppers, pineapple, green onions, black beans, coconut?
• Italian:  softened sun-dried tomato, fresh basil and rosemary from the garden, white beans, pine nuts and/or marinated olives
• . . .

Update June 20:  Today I'm having pinto beans, garlic, a squeeze of lime, a dash of blood orange vinegar, sweet cherries, toasted almond slices, lettuces, baby greens, onion, and yellow bell pepper. It's great!

The Happy Rehab Doc: Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Holiday Meal Ideas, Bon Appetit's Best Vegan, Gluten Free Blogs & Health Care Savings!! AND, the Recipe of the Week!

How fun!  I just found this blog yesterday and was reading through some recent posts this morning, and what do I find?  A link to my own Nutritarian Recipes blog, as the Recipe of the Week!  It's a sign.  I really do need to get back here, for many reasons.  Stay tuned . . .

And now for the particular post from "Dr. Cat":

The Happy Rehab Doc: Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Holiday Meal Ideas, Bon Appetit's Best Vegan, Gluten Free Blogs & Health Care Savings!! AND, the Recipe of the Week!

Moroccan Eggplant-Chickpea Stew and The Latest Green Smoothie

Subscribers to drfuhrman.com received this week a recipe for "Moroccan Spiced Eggplant and Chickpea Stew," and I made the most of our garden bounty today with that for supper, with alterations, of course.  The original recipe is fairly bland and needs a little more sweetness (raisins) AND hotness (fresh hot pepper), as well as the bite of vinegar in the hot sauce I added. You can see the original at the website in the recipes section if you're a paying member, or you can see a similar recipe here.  Here's my version:

MOROCCAN EGGPLANT-CHICKPEA STEW

1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1/2 green pepper, chopped (The original called for red, which would be pretty, as would yellow)
6 small Japanese eggplants (1 large one is fine, but I liked the coin-like slices of mine)
2 large tomatoes, diced (You may want to save one of them to add late in the cooking to retain discernible pieces)
water to give the right consistency (I added probably about three cups)
1 teaspoon each cinnamon and cumin
1/2 teaspoon each coriander (fresh-mortared is great!) and paprika (I think you could leave this out--it didn't add much to mine)
1 minced hot pepper, 1/4 tsp dry cayenne pepper, and/or a dash or two of hot sauce to taste (I used all three, but not a lot)
1/4 - 1/3 cup raisins
1/2 tsp salt if you need it as much as I (and my family) did :-)

Water-saute the onion and carrot and garlic until softened, then add the other ingredients in turn, waiting for the spices until the pepper is softened, and simmer for at least 30 minutes, up to an hour, perhaps reserving the raisins and part of the tomato and the salt (taste it all first!) until the last 15 minutes of cooking. I suspect this will be better the next day or two or three.

Verdict: Very Good. My husband thought it was Excellent!  We ate this in small bowls at supper, with other things on the side, but it would be very nice over rice or couscous or with a flatbread on the side.

Green smoothies can actually come in all kinds of colors, including a deep, dense purple brown from lots of dark berries. Those are pretty ugly, however delicious. But I really like it when a green smoothie is just pretty.  Today's was bright, vibrant green from the addition of golden fruits:

GOLDEN-GREEN SMOOTHIE

1 frozen pear (I put the whole fruit in the freezer and then microwave briefly to make it possible to slice down against the core on three or four sides to separate the fruit from the stem and seeds)
several chunks of fresh pineapple
several chunks of frozen mango
2 large kale leaves
about two cups water

Combine all ingredients in the Vita-Mix or other blender and blend until the kale is smoothly incorporated with only tiny discernible flecks. Add a tablespoon of flax seed meal to the first of two tall glasses of this concoction and enjoy!

Verdict: Excellent, as green smoothies usually are.  The nice thing is that I can taste at the end and add a little of this or that to correct the flavor. Usually I find a new smoothie experiment needs a bit of citrus to brighten it up.

Zucchini "Fries?"

Is it appropriate to call a food "fries" if there's no frying involved?

I have to get creative to deal with all the produce coming in now, like the 30-pound bucket of cucumbers dh hauled up from the garden last night.  Okayyyy . . . Did I mention I'm the main cucumber consumer in the house and dh doesn't even like them?

And of course there's always zucchini.  I made a zucchini frittata (Joy of Cooking) the other day, and a stir-fry with sausage--no recipes here for obvious reasons.  But here's a nutritarian-friendly dish I created last night, vaguely inspired by some recipes I've seen lately, like this one from Vegan Mama for eggplant fries.

CRISPY BAKED ZUCCHINI SPEARS

1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt (soy should be fine)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves (or dry if necessary)
a few grinds of pepper
a sprinkle of salt (optional)
4 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise into about sixths and then halved, for finger-sized spears
2 large slices whole-grain bread, in crumbs
1-2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (or nutritional yeast if you do that, or omit altogether and try another spice or herb with the crumbs)

Combine yogurt, garlic powder, basil, pepper, and salt and allow to stand while preparing the zucchini. Coat each zucchini spear with the yogurt mixture and set aside on a plate until all are done. Then roll the spears in the mixture of crumbs and parmesan until partially coated on all sides, and arrange on a large cookie sheet which has been smeared with a bit of oil or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. It might be a good idea to add the crumbs to a plate in batches so they're not all moistened by the end of the process, and do note that you won't have enough crumbs to completely coat the spears--but getting enough to hold the zucchini off the cookie sheet surface will allow for a crispier result. Slide the pan of prepared spears into the fridge for a little while and pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake for about twenty minutes, until the zucchini is tender and the crumbs are crispy.  Serve with a sauce like the lemon-dill sauce in Vegan Mama's recipe above.  I mixed horseradish sauce with more plain yogurt and that was very nice, too.

Verdict: Excellent!  We really enjoyed these, a great way to use up that zucchini!  This made VERY generous servings for four and would easily feed eight people a moderate serving.

Now to use my friend Pam's Bang Bang Chicken recipe, with variations, to work with some of those cucumbers!  Her recipe, from the book Extending the Table, has a sauce component similar to this one on video:  Bang Bang Chicken.  I will report later . . .

Salads Redux

I've just had a delightful salad for lunch, made possible by earlier salads I've made this week.  Here are the components, then my combination for today:

CUCUMBER SALAD
From The Joy of Cooking (1997), pp. 218-219. This amazingly simple combination of rice vinegar, toasted sesame seeds, and a little sugar, in which slices or chunks of cucumber are marinated, is excellent on its own. I scored the cucumbers with a fork and cut them lengthwise into sixths and then crosswise into little chunks.

CREAMY ONION-BALSAMIC DRESSING


1/2 cup raw cashews, lightly toasted if desired
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
1/2 - 1 cup water

Combine all ingredients in blender and whirl until cashews are smoothed into the liquid.

Verdict:  Excellent.  I like my dressings thin, so I used the full cup of water. I had it first on a salad of home-grown leaf lettuce and arugula, with cucumber, canned beets, canned red beans, and a few raisins.

TODAY'S VERSION


Today I created a salad of home-grown leaf lettuce and arugula, sliced red onion, and halved red grapes, then added a portion of the cucumber salad and a drizzle of the balsamic dressing.  The combination is outstanding--I think a judicious touch of fruit in a savory salad is a magic secret ingredient!

Moosewood Mutation

Sometimes cooking is such a creative adventure!  This morning I accepted a friend's invitation to visit The Apple Castle in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, a local produce store that celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.  Even out of season their Melrose apples are excellent, and I got several interesting items to try, including Skinner's Vaporizing Salve and "No-Bite-Me," as well as some Three-Pepper Lemon hot sauce, pickles, licorice all-sorts, sorghum molasses, local dark honey, red potatoes, a few tomatoes, and a GORGEOUS giant green cabbage.  That cabbage was my inspiration for supper.

UPDATE: The "No-Bite-Me" doesn't seem to be very effective. I put some on before going out about 10 p.m. for some fireworks, and I swatted at least three mosquitoes from my arms in the first five minutes. Now perhaps the stuff slows them down so they're swattable?  I'm willing to try again . . . but as Lifehacker says, DEET is pretty much the only way to go.

I was thinking of a soup using the potatoes and cabbage, but then I came across "Stuffed Cabbage" in the 1992 Moosewood Cookbook. That recipe, p. 155, calls for ricotta cheese, so I decided to play with it a bit and try to use some leftover hummus and kidney beans, plus diced zucchini, to approximate the substance of ricotta for the filling.  I also wanted to cut down on the fat and left out the butter (for the veggie saute) and the 3/4 cup minced cashews (optional) in the original recipe, but I increased the carrot and celery.  I also reduced the soy sauce substantially. So this is a nutritarian improvement on what was originally a great recipe. (I seem to remember making it years ago.) If you need help with techniques, please refer to the original recipe.

MOOSEWOOD-INSPIRED STUFFED CABBAGE

1 large head green cabbage
1 medium onion,  chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds, sliced almonds, or combination
1-1/2 cups mashed beans (white are probably best--I had a combination of leftover dry hummus and kidney beans)
1 small apple, chopped
1/4 cup raisins or currants
juice of one lime or lemon
1-2 tsp soy sauce (or tamari)
fresh-ground black pepper

Core the cabbage and boil it for about 10 minutes in a big pot of water, then carefully pull off 12 of the outer leaves.  While the cabbage is boiling, prepare the filling:  dry-saute or water-saute the onion, celery, and carrot, then zucchini and garlic. When tender, add the seeds or nuts and the beans, then the apple, raisins, citrus juice, and soy sauce and pepper. Taste and correct the seasoning.

When the cabbage leaves are cooled (keep the remainder of the cabbage for another purpose), divide the filling into 12 portions and roll it up in the leaves, beginning at the base and folding in the sides, then place the rolled pieces into a 9x13 dish you have sprayed with cooking spray or a light smear of oil. Bake covered* at 325 for about 30 minutes.

*I forgot to cover them and they came out fine--plenty moist.

The original recipe calls for a cashew-ginger sauce (with honey, vinegar, and garlic, to make two cups) on top of the rolls. I substituted a similar sauce thrown together from an existing mustard-tahini sauce with the addition of maple syrup, ginger, and peanut butter, to make about a cup, and my husband said he'd prefer the cabbage rolls without the sauce, or with just a dab.

Verdict: Very Good.  I really enjoyed these and am thrilled I have leftovers for another day.  I think the mashed beans and zucchini replaced the ricotta very nicely, and I'm glad I left out the original recipe's honey and used half the amount of sauce called for. The filling seemed a little skimpy for the size of the leaves I had, but the final product is fine in proportions of cabbage and filling.  I did use a sauce but did not cover these while they baked, and I think I had mine in the oven shy of the 30 minutes, though they heated through nicely. Without sauce two of these equal 1/6 oz. nuts/seeds, 1/4 fruit, 1/4 cup beans, and about a cup of cooked veggies. You MIGHT want to try a traditional tomato sauce on these, but not too much, and probably sweetened with a date or raisins in the food processor.

Real-Life Survival and Celebration on Vacation

Hubby and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary (today!) last week with a wonderful trip to the Boston area. We had five full days of eating out in one form or another, and I thought I'd cover some things that worked well for me without mentioning too much about getting off-track from nutritarian eating.

In my carry-on I had two clementines, two apples, a sandwich bag of almonds, and a sandwich bag of several types of dried fruit, plus a small bag of green grapes.  When I returned I had one of the apples in the car on the way home from the airport, and the other is still withering in the bag.  We had the citrus the first day, and most of the grapes (discarded the others), and a few pieces of the nuts and dried fruit through the days.  I liked the feeling of knowing I had these things for when other choices weren't good ones.

We found a grocery the first evening and I bought some nice peaches and a box of Hodgson Mill muesli, plus some strawberries, I think, plus a little jar of peanut butter and I think some crackers to put it on (we had such a good time I've forgotten!). I also got sugar snap peas and carrots combined in a little bag, and I kept them on ice. Even without a fridge in our room we had a little coffee maker, and for breakfast three days I added hot water to a little muesli and a cut-up peach and was good to go for many hours. The fourth morning our hotel (Best Western Plus Plymouth) provided breakfast (and I was out of peaches), so I had their lovely untreated melon fruit bowl with a boiled egg and a slice of whole wheat toast.

Don't trust the waitress or the chef. In one family-type Italian restaurant I ordered a veggie-strong chicken dish (and it did have a lot of veggies) but asked that it be prepared with as little additional oil as possible. No go. It was covered with sauce (kind of a garlicky one, but not an Alfredo). On the other hand, at Sam Diego's Plymouth I ordered a vegetarian burrito and asked that they omit the cream cheese inside and the cheese on the outside, and the chef took the clue and also left off the sour cream, giving me extra guacamole, I think. A nice touch!

Fish is often the best choice in a restaurant, if you can get it without added oil or as little as possible for the recipe.  At Legal Sea Foods at Long Wharf in Boston I had a deliciously light luncheon-portion Cajun-spiced pollock with diced mango, pineapple, and jicama, alongside asparagus and some jasmine rice.   Yes, I noticed that Legal Sea Foods had a "vegetarian box," but I was at Long Wharf in Boston on the first day of my anniversary trip! :-)  At The Franklin Cape Ann (which we kind of stumbled into when another great restaurant we'd enjoyed 18 months ago seemed to have disappeared) we shared the amazing Grilled Asparagus Salad and I got the Pan Seared Atlantic Haddock.  Only now as I look at the website do I see that they have a vegetarian menu, too.  If I were visiting again, I might try anything on that menu (though skipping the mozzarella salad).  On the other hand, they have an English pea soup listed there with both crispy bacon and creme fraiche!  So perhaps they don't know what they're talking about when they say "vegetarian."  Probably my favorite find as a nutritarian from the sticks (and an hour from the nearest Whole Foods Market) was the WF directly next door to the Cambridge church we visited on Sunday morning, so I experienced the "Whole Paycheck" phenomenon with a big salad bar container that cost me $15!  I couldn't finish it, but it was delicious and about 95% nutritarian.  That was nice. Now that I've mentioned just about every other place we ate, I have to mention Rang Indian Bistro in Stoneham. Gorgeous, delicious food, including Aloo Tikka Chat for an appetizer, and I think I got the Dal Makhani.

I'm glad I'm not a "drinker."  Hubby and I shared a glass of wine at one dinner and a glass of sparkling wine at another, and we even had a first for us and each had a mixed drink in a hotel lounge one late afternoon. I'm glad to have enjoyed these drinks but also glad to have them be so special and not a routine part of life. I have enough challenges with other calorie options out there!  Weight Maven has a good post on this idea of specialness here.

My eating degenerates over the days of a trip.  I start with the best of intentions and practices, and the availability of amazing fun foods and the celebration mentality kind of get to me.  So I had a wrap (grilled veggies with some cheese) sandwich in the airport on the way home, and a donut from the airport Dunkin Donuts afterwards, then both a Diet Coke (my first of the trip!) and salty packaged snacks on the plane. My last hurrah, I guess.  The scale was up a few pounds the first day home, but I'm thankful that just a week later I'm down a pound from when I left.  I'm especially thankful that because I eat mostly nutritarian I didn't have a lot of detox to go through upon my return to nutritarian eating.

It was fun, but it's good to be home!  Our grocery stores (even in the sticks) are paradises of produce compared to what's "out there" on city streets and in restaurants and airports!

Salad Dressing Variation, Banana-Raspberry Soft Serve

With a giant salad my usual lunchtime centerpiece of the day, I like to find easy and delicious variations.  I keep coming back to a combination of a nut or seed or butter thereof, citrus juice, and garlic.  Today I made a new dressing inspired partly by "Hail to the Kale" in Chef A.J.'s and Julieanna Hever's video, linked here: 


ALMOND-LIME SALAD DRESSING


2 dates
clove of garlic
2 oz. almonds
grape-sized piece of ginger
zest and flesh of half a small lime
1 to 1-1/2 cups water


Combine all ingredients and whirl them in the Vita-Mix. A 1/4-cup serving made with 1-1/2 cups water is 1/3 oz. nuts. 


Verdict: Excellent. Creamy and yet with full coverage of the salad when made with the larger amount of water suggested.  Is it strange that I like the garlic aftertaste?  I had this on a salad of artisan lettuces and green leaf lettuce, chopped cucumber, red bell pepper, and scallion, with 3/4 cup home-cooked pinto beans, and a fruit cup on the side.


--------------


BANANA-RASPBERRY SOFT SERVE


We are blessed to have black raspberries growing on the side of an old barn adjacent to our property, and hubby and kids have gathered a couple of gallons of them so far, I think.  For Sunday dinner I made a coulis (1 pint raspberries, 3 T. sugar, 2 tsp. lemon juice blended in the blender and then pushed through a sieve) to serve on vanilla ice cream.  For me I just added to the coulis-coated blender container 1-1/2 bananas and a little water (and, I confess, a dollop of ice cream) to get the consistency right.  I got a beautifully rosy product very similar to soft-serve ice cream (or facsimile thereof) and every bit as satisfying as what the rest of the family were having.  That helps make nutritarian eating more workable.  (By the way, I think it would have worked better with more banana, as there wasn't enough to form up correctly around the blades, necessitating the water and possibly justifying the ice cream addition.)


Bananas are magic in the Vita-Mix.  With a chocolate craving last week I put a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder and a little instant decaf coffee into a quarter cup or so of hot water to dissolve, then added them into the blender with 1-1/2 bananas, for a completely satisfying dessert treat.


Verdict: Excellent on both of these, as well as a toasted-walnut variation I've tried in the past.

Triple-A Salad and a Cookbook Tip

Hubby has the two kids who are home this summer out working in the fields, but supper is ready to go whenever they show up here.  I baked sweet potatoes, broiled chicken legs, sauteed turnip greens, and created this Triple-A Salad:

TRIPLE-A SALAD

1 cup broccoli slaw (packaged or make your own--just shreds or matchsticks of broccoli stem with some carrot and probably a bit of cabbage)
1/2 cup matchstick carrots (packaged or make your own)
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 radishes, sliced thin (I quartered the slices)
4-6 snipped-up dried apricot halves
1 navel orange, diced (making sure all the juice goes in the bowl!)
1 small apple, diced
1 teaspoons grated fresh ginger (or 1/2 tsp dried, if you must)
1 oz toasted chopped almonds (Get it? The bold items are the A's. :-) )

Combine all ingredients and let sit for a half hour to combine flavors.

Verdict: EXCELLENT.  This is another variation on a theme I've come to enjoy--a crisp, bright salad of cruciferous veggies and fruit, along the lines of a carrot salad. Most of the ones I've made include the base of broccoli slaw or cabbage slaw, carrots, dried fruit (currants are nice), and apple or pear with some kind of citrus. Nuts really dress it up.

Here's a tip:  The Joy of Cooking (1997 edition) has a recipe on p. 281, "Lentils and Tomato Sauce With Elbow Macaroni and Fried Onions," and Egyptian/Syrian dish that can be easily adapted to nutritarian purposes. Its distinctive is a lovely seasoning of cumin, coriander, and allspice in a diced-tomato and onion sauce over pasta.  I served it with a topping of raita (cucumber and a little honey with fresh mint in plain lowfat yogurt).

Feta Fusion Rice and Beans

I had my first outing to a Whole Foods Market in Pittsburgh the other evening and brought home a number of lovely things, including golden and regular beets I made into a beautiful dish last night with a recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals. It calls for a simple dressing of vinegar, lemon, and toasted sesame seeds, and the beets were gorgeous in wedges.

This evening I needed a quick supper while grading final exams, so I brainstormed this:

FETA FUSION RICE AND BEANS
Makes 1 serving

1/2 cup rice (I used white but would usually use brown)
1/2 - 1 cup black beans (another color would work fine, too)
1/2 tomato, diced
1/3 cucumber, diced
1 scallion, chopped
2 T. Mediterranean Feta Salsa (from Whole Foods Market--a blend of feta, oregano, onion, tomatoes, kalamata olives, etc.)
2 T. hummus (I used Whole Foods Lemon Hummus), optional

Heat the rice and beans, then toss in the rest of the items and enjoy!

Verdict:  Excellent.  I really enjoyed this satisfying supper.  This includes no more than 1 Tablespoon of feta--I believe in the nutritarian option of using small amounts of animal products to enhance mostly-veggie dishes. Dr. Fuhrman says that if 90% of our calories come from whole plant foods, we can have these variations on the side.

Copyright Law/Ethics and Recipes?

I have been posting cookbook recipes to this blog when I have found them, or their near-equivalents, already posted online.  But today when I was looking up a couple I started to have a qualm about it.  I'd appreciate your thoughts about what to do in such a case.

For example, you can Google the names of the two recipes I made today from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals book I bought several weeks ago, and you'll find the exact recipes (one even seems to be a pdf from another version of this book!).

For now I'll just name the recipes, mention the main and interesting ingredients, and give a review. That should encourage you to buy the book, and then I'm doing the publishers a favor, right?

First up is SOUTHEAST ASIAN COCONUT ZUCCHINI, which is a sauteed mixture of cubed zucchini, garlic, turmeric, a hot pepper, and coconut milk, with accents of fresh basil, mint, and lime juice.  It was very pretty and very good (if spicy) over brown rice for my supper. And it used up one of our many remaining zucchini from the summer.

Then I tried JAPANESE SESAME SPINACH, but with Swiss chard, a very simple dish of the steamed green dressed with a paste of toasted and ground sesame seed, sugar, and soy sauce. Excellent.

Third in my veggie trio was my own concoction and something to get in part of my bean allowance for the day:

GREEN PEAS AND MUSHROOMS

6-8 ounces quartered mushrooms (I used baby Bella)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 12-oz bag frozen peas
2 "ice cubes" of frozen stock

Dry saute the quartered mushrooms and garlic, then add the frozen peas and the stock and simmer until the peas are done. Or overcook and have the family say that slightly-charred peas aren't so bad after all!

Verdict: Very Good.  What a simple, filling staple

Supper tonight was hearty servings of all these items with a half cup of brown basmati rice. Very nice.

Just for the sake of recording it, I'll provide the rest of my food for today:

Breakfast--half cup of oatmeal cooked with pear, a banana, and 1/2 oz. toasted almond slivers

Lunch--can of Amy's organic minestrone soup (180 calories, 6 g. fiber, 6 g. protein) fortified with extra water, 1 cup of home-cooked pinto beans and about three ounces of fresh spinach, with a little garlic powder, dehydrated onion, and marjoram.  I intended to eat all of this but stopped at about 3/4. Also had an orange.

Snack--big Jonagold apple

And that makes a nutritarian day:
At least 1 cup beans
At least 1 lb. cooked veggies (had more like 1.5 pounds)
At least 1 lb. fresh veggies (skimpy on that today! But I had giant six-cup spring mix salads every day for most of the last week.)
At least 4 fruits (I've had about 3.5 today, so if I quit being full before bedtime I'll have a bit more)
No more than 1 cup grain/starch (was a little over today, which can make up for the calories but not the nutrition of that bit of extra fruit)
No more than 1 oz. nuts

Thai Curry With Bok Choy

Participants in Dr. Fuhrman's "Six-Week Holiday Challenge" receive daily recipes via email, and today's is for Thai Vegetable Curry. As I glanced over the ingredients I realized I had most of what the recipe calls for, but I'm never willing to just let things alone, so I created my own version.

Dr. F's recipe calls for basically boiling all the veggies in carrot juice for a while, then stirring in peanut butter, coconut milk, and so forth.  That just didn't inspire me, and I don't have any carrot juice nor any firm tofu (which the family wouldn't want anyway), so I made this variation:

THAI CURRY WITH BOK CHOY

1 T. peanut oil
1 cup diced carrots
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. grated fresh ginger
2 T. each, chopped fresh: mint, Thai basil, and cilantro
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 large eggplant, cubed
2-3 cups green beans, in pieces
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1 head bok choy, chopped
1-1/2 t. red curry powder (for a spicier dish, or yellow for milder)
2 T. natural peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut milk (didn't have the light called for in the original recipe)
1/3 cup peanuts
2 T. chopped dried mango

Heat oil in a wok or very large skillet and stir fry carrot and onion. When those begin to go tender, add peppers and green beans, then mushrooms, then bok choy, allowing five minutes or so between additions.  Cook until crisp-tender, adding garlic, ginger, chopped herbs, and curry powder between stirrings. Then add peanut butter, coconut milk, peanuts, and mango, plus up to a half cup or so of water if needed, covering pan to simmer a bit and combine flavors.  Serve alone or over brown basmati rice.  Serves 8 (or 4 very hungry nutritarians).

Verdict: Excellent. I don't know about the boiled carrot-juice original, but mine is wonderful! :-)  I had 1/4 of the recipe over a half cup of the recommended rice.  I think fresh bok choy is definitely superior to canned bamboo shoots and lots of watercress (though the watercress is nutritionally superior to bok choy, no doubt).  It's more fat than I'm used to having in a dish, but I cut back from the recommended amount of nuts while using full-fat coconut milk and that tablespoon of oil. I could have cut the oil back to 2 teaspoons easily, but I think it was a good first try. I estimate that my version is 150 calories per 1/8 of the recipe while the original is 200 calories for the same amount.  So my 1/4 of the recipe was 300 calories, plus the rice.

Personal Pumpkin Tart

Oh boy, was I happy with this experiment I tried yesterday!  It all started here, with Lilibeth. She linked to a recipe for a crust made with just almonds and oats. I noted the proportions and then lit out on my own, and with a filling of my own, too.

Part of what makes a traditional pumpkin pie so creamy and nice is the evaporated milk in most recipes. I learned years ago that if I simmered my own fresh milk, even letting it scald a bit, reducing it by half or more, I had a better product. So that explains the bit of milk in this recipe.

PERSONAL PUMPKIN TART

Crust

1/4 cup oats chopped very fine with 2 T. raw almonds
1/2 t. tahini (can’t find my almond butter or I’d have used that)
1/8 t. each nutmeg and powdered ginger

Combine these ingredients with just enough water to make the mixture stick together to press into a large custard dish, then bake at 425 until toasty brown. Meanwhile, prepare filling:

Filling

1/4 c. low-fat milk (soy might work)
1/2 cup fresh baked pumpkin, mashed or pureed (canned would be okay)
2 dates, snipped very fine
1/4 t. cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves

In a small saucepan simmer milk until reduced by half--scalding it is fine. Stir in pumpkin, dates, and spices and cook gently, stirring as needed, until thickened. Spoon into crust and bake at 350 until further firmed up and slightly browned on top.

Verdict: Excellent and Amazing, and it uses only half a day’s nuts and grain (ala drfuhrman), then the additional calories of the milk (25) and the two dates.

For Thanksgiving at my sister's tomorrow (about a dozen people) I'm taking the following:

Baba Ganouj (or Dr. Fuhrman's Eggplant Hummus--same thing) with carrot and cucumber and blanched fine green beans and peppers as dippers

Ambrosia--just Valencia and Cara-Cara oranges with coconut, though I'm going to throw in some pomegranate arils I splurged on at Costco the other day

Winter Squash Soup I made the other day (see previous post)

Lower-Fat Yogurt Pound Cake (Joy of Cooking) with a tipsy elderberry sauce I made up.  No, this is not really healthy, but I was assigned a dessert. :-)

Two Wobblies and a Winner

The other day I tried a couple of recipes from my new Moosewood Lowfat Favorites book, and I'm sorry to say they're not that great, though I will make use of the leftovers of one when I'm hungry and need to fill up with "beans and greens," and the other was definitely better the next day.  I tend to find that with some of these nutritarian recipes--I don't enjoy them a lot the first day, but the leftovers are fine.  Maybe it's overexposure to all the ingredients while preparing the food, maybe it's a need for the flavors to meld . . .

Black-Eyed Peas 'N' Greens <--The discussion on the page where this recipe is linked pretty much explain the problem--dry and kind of bland.  Scallions on top and the malt vinegar I tried help somewhat.  But I think the real thing to do with the leftovers is to make this:  Black-Eyed Peas and Greens Soup.  In a nutshell, add water, tomatoes, and oregano and see where to go from there.

Baked Sweet Potato Salad  except that I used butternut squash, which has half the calories and none of the fiber of sweet potatoes--so pick your poison/magic. :-)  This is a beautiful salad and definitely better the next day, and the book suggests either the dressing on this link or a curried mango yogurt dressing, which would be sweeter but I'm not sure better.  It was just not too inspiring. The Cilantro Lime Yogurt Dressing is very promising for other purposes, too--I look forward to using it later.

But here's a real winner, thanks to my friend Marci:

McDougall's Curried Swiss Chard Soup
This quick soup of leek (or onion), broth, tomatoes, white beans, fresh ginger and curry powder (I used McCormick's red), and fresh Swiss chard (I used red) is really wonderful. Half the recipe is a BIG bowlful for a nutritarian lunch, including two cups of chard and 3/4 cup beans. EXCELLENT.

Dr. McDougall has a lot of the same approach as Dr. Fuhrman, except McDougall emphasizes using grains central to the diet and eliminating nuts and not allowing any animal products, if I've got that straight (and am not mixed up with Esselstyn) . So stricter in some ways, easier in some ways, but with a lot of overlap, so the recipes work well both ways.

Marinated Mushroom Dressing

I have many favorite recipes from Traditions: A Taste of the Good Life, a 1983 cookbook by the Junior League of Little Rock, Arkansas--received as a wedding gift in 1986. I once saw this cookbook reviewed as a classic in perhaps a San Francisco newspaper. I agree.  The carrot cake is fought over by two of the May birthday people in my family.

One favorite recipe in that book is for a fairly simple mushroom salad, in which a mustard vinaigrette ("garden dressing") is poured over a salad of mixed greens and sliced mushrooms.  Really simple.  But I discovered years ago that marinating the mushrooms in the dressing first made it really luscious.  Today I made a variation on that recipe to make it more nutritarian-friendly:

Marinated Mushroom Dressing

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup good vinegar (I used a homemade tarragon-red-wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon olive oil (the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup)
2 tablespoons minced red or green bell pepper (I used fresh red pimiento pepper, which is "meaty")
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons good dijon-type mustard
2 teaspoons dried herb (I used marjoram) or 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp. cayenne

Combine all ingredients and let marinate in a shakeable container for at least an hour, then serve over mixed greens. Even better the next day.

Verdict:  Very Good. I started with less honey and just felt I had to increase it to cut the harshness of the vinegar. Anyone have suggestions on how to do that more successfully?  I had half of this on a very large salad of red leaf lettuce, spinach, and romaine, with some red cabbage shreds and yellow bell pepper, plus diced beets (that helped sweeten it up a bit) and a cup of rinsed canned navy beans.

My New Cookbook

Yesterday I had a lovely outing in a community about 25 miles away for supper and book-browsing with a group of lady friends. You see, we live in and on the outskirts of small towns and have to do without Target, Starbucks, interesting and healthy restaurants, and even Super WalMart!  So a trip to the exurb of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania is quite a tame little adventure for us. And of course the company makes the outing--seven in an assortment of married, single, and widowed, with children ranging from toddlers to one about forty. Thanks, ladies!

We gathered at Aladdin's Eatery and had a wide range of things from hummus and falafel through soup and salads and lamb entrees to some take-home desserts (for those who were too stuffed to eat cake there).  I had V-9 soup, a clear-broth veggie soup in which we identified peas, celery, onion, pepper, yellow squash, tomato, parsley, and I've forgotten what else. I also got the almond salad--a bed of romaine, mostly, with mushrooms and cucumbers and some slivered toasted almonds, with a dressing of buttermilk, sour cream, almond paste, and sauteed almonds I just had to try. I had about half my dressing and brought the rest home to enjoy on something another day. It was very interesting, and creamy was good, but only in small doses for a nutritarian, don't you know!  I had a pita, two, which I wrapped up and brought home for a family member (whoever gets to it first). And since hubby was home alone for the evening, I brought him a little pastry I thought they called a baba, which is a sticky-sweet hard shell of phyllo-like dough around a filling of Turkish pistachios. I had a tiny fragment of this to taste, and it was very nice.

Anyway, when we got to Barnes and Noble, supposedly for coffee, though I skipped it after three mugs of herbal mint tea at Aladdin's, I headed back to the healthy/vegetarian cookbooks section and browsed through a few. I'm not into fake meat things like seitan and too much tofu, so some things didn't appeal at all because of heavy use of these ingredients. Others use a lot of syrups and other sweet things--nope, didn't want that, either. Nor too much of grains. I was not really wowed by the famous Veganomicon, but then I spied a winner: Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.

I have loved the original Moosewood Cookbook since I think my sister gave it to me a decade or two ago, and, as a friend says, there's nothing bad in it--everything is delicious.

So I browsed through the Low-Fat Favorites book and saw some potential winners, though I was surprised at a fish section.  For Sunday dinner I'm going to make Fish Tagine with Chermoulla (this link is exactly the same recipe except  for the swordfish or halibut in the Internet recipe), white fish baked on top of a bed of carrots and onions, with a sauce of blended cilantro, garlic, ginger, cumin, lemon juice, chile, and tomato, then served on couscous, which I just happened to buy the other day.

Since we have a lot of peppers around, still, I think I'm going to try soon Middle Eastern Tofu-Stuffed Peppers, which include carrot, tomato, tofu, soy sauce, dill, lemon, couscous, and currants. Maybe I'll even skip the tofu. A Mexican stuffed pepper recipe uses corn and black beans. How about Garlicky Black-Eyed Peas 'N' Greens? To use some nice cauliflower in the fridge I might try Lentil Sambar, which includes some exotic spices like coriander (just harvested from our garden) and fenugreek (never used it--might look for a substitute).

I'm looking forward to this!

Ongoing Review : "Aggressive Weight Loss Plan (non-vegetarian)" Part Two

Go here for Part One.

The one-week plan is stretching out to about ten days for me, and I will not get to all the recipes, since the groceries I have on hand don't match and/or the remaining recipes don't look too great.  So I need to make a menu and a grocery list and start over today or tomorrow, and in the meantime I'm having a lot of leftover this and that.  What's great about the nutritarian recipes is that I know I can grab this or that and be confident that it's "on plan" for the most part. If it has a starch in it I'll skip it today, since I had oatmeal for breakfast. If it has nuts I'll consider how that fits with the other nut/seed things I have had for the day.  And after about nine days I've lost about seven pounds, so that's a nice aggressive start! :-)

I read somewhere recently that the new books (Eat for Health) have better recipes than the old one (Eat to Live).  But for those who are serious, ETL has the quick start and the more science-oriented discussions.  I really look forward to working through the recipes site at drfuhrman.com in the Member Center and getting great new ideas from others.

I'm definitely enjoying the leftovers, though I'm often "tired" enough of a recipe by the time I serve it that it doesn't appeal too much the first time around.

So, without further ado, here are my impressions of several more recipes from the "Aggressive Weight Loss Plan (non-vegetarian)" :

Excellent

• Roasted Mixed Vegetables (photo here, and it does look a lot like mine) (very tasty mix of cruciferous veggies and carrots and asparagus, with garlic, balsamic vinegar, and soy sauce roasted at 450 and finished at 350 to keep them from getting too dry -- and I added the asparagus late for just that reason. I even skipped the brown rice in the original recipe, because I was having butternut squash seasoned with pineapple tidbits and dates, plus a bit of plain potato with my Great Greens -- see below.)
• Tasty Hummus (went VERY simple on this one -- the recipe in the plan calls for the addition of soy sauce and horseradish, but no thanks -- mine is garbanzos, tahini [less than you might think], lemon juice, and garlic, and it is fabulous -- I'm craving it)

Pretty Good

• Great Greens (simple steamed mix of kale, chard, and spinach, dressed with garlic, wine vinegar or balsamic or similar, fresh dill, and basil)
• Rolled Eggplant or "Roulade" (eggplant slices marinated in balsamic vinegar and water, then rolled around a filling of red and green bell pepper., onion, garlic, tomato sauce and tomatoes, and herbs that have been simmered together for a while, with more of the sauce on top -- the whole thing baked for a while)
• Bean Enchiladas (I made this a layered casserole of corn tortillas with a simmered mixture of green pepper, onion, salsa verde [though the original called for regular salsa], black and white and pinto beans, frozen corn, cumin, and cilantro -- and I encouraged the family to melt cheese on top of theirs if they liked)

What I'm Not Making

• Chard and Vegetable Medley (onion, garlic, yellow squash, chard, bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinegar -- just too much like the other stuff I've been eating, and I'm out of greens) 
• Cream of Asparagus Soup (steamed asparagus blended with soy milk [I'd use regular lowfat milk], soy sauce [or liquid aminos], raw cashews, cilantro for garnish, and -- really? -- four dates.  I may actually make this since I have the ingredients, but I'm not sure.)
• Dijon Pistachio Dressing/Dip (may try it later but just haven't needed it -- pistachios, lemon juice, ground flax, mustard, soy sauce, garlic, and a date)
• Lisa's Lovely Lentil Stew (just haven't gotten to it -- lentils, onion, basil, tomatoes, celery -- I'll probably be more adventurous)
• Russian Fig Dressing/Dip (blecch! pasta sauce, almond butter, sunflower seeds, fig vinegar)

Happy Reformation Day!

I usually make a special meal for Sunday afternoons, a great time of rest and fellowship between church services and usually unencumbered by the typical rush of all those six work days. What a great idea God had at Creation! :-) 

Today is a really special Sunday, because we celebrate Reformation Day, this evening with a combined gathering of several local churches in our area--churches that share a common appreciation of the men (and women) who have served the Lord by preserving and preaching and suffering for the truth of the Gospel found in the Bible. Because Luther got the whole thing started, we tend to like to have German, fall-ish foods, too.  So I'm making for the family a pork roast with sauerkraut and red cabbage (from the garden!) and lots of nice herbs (from the garden!) and beer, and for myself a nutritarian version of Braised Red Cabbage with Apple . 

I found two versions of this recipe online, both of which say they come from Joy of Cooking.  But my ancient 1997 version uses caraway instead of fennel, and red wine vinegar (I used Riesling wine vinegar) instead of balsamic.   I tweaked it down to a teaspoon of olive oil instead of bacon drippings, and just a teaspoon or two of honey. (My 1997 version calls for a tablespoon or more, I think.)

To go with this fare I'm making some mashed potatoes from our garden. (I'll have a bit, and probably some braised kale or other deep green, and I think I'm going to bake a butternut squash with some toppings.)  I know people will want dessert, but that will have to be an afterthought.

For breakfast I made myself a wonderful

BREAKFAST WALDORF SALAD

1 rib chopped celery (about 1/3-1/2 cup)
1/3 - 1/2 cup matchstick carrots
1 apple, coarsely chopped (I prefer a golden)
1 clementine (mine was tiny), broken into sections and then each section torn in two to release juice
1/2 - 1 small pear (mine was canned)
1-2 tablespoons plain nonfat or lowfat yogurt
1/4 teaspoon cardamom (well, I just sprinkled it, but that's how I do things)
several pecan halves, lightly toasted

Combine all the ingredients except nuts, which go on top. I let my salad sit for a half hour or so before eating, and I think it helped meld the flavors.

Verdict:  Excellent!  I was really craving this as I constructed it, and it was lovely. I could use more. :-)  I'm not into non-traditional breakfasts (well, a green smoothie is pretty breakfast-y), but I could see having this on shredded romaine or even spinach.  It's a legacy from the excellent pear-walnut salad I had earlier this week (mentioned in my last post).