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. :-)

Warm and Creamy Winter Squash Soup and a Method for Broth

Another two down of our butternut squash inventory, but I'm adjusting the recipe to one squash, for normal people. :-)  The warmth in this comes from the fresh ginger and a little chile.


WARM AND CREAMY WINTER SQUASH SOUP

1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 small chile pepper, minced
1 pint high-quality broth (see below)
1 sprig rosemary (optional--I just floated a stem sprig in the pot at the last minute)

Heat oil in a large saucepan and add onion, stirring occasionally to brown evenly while you're preparing the squash.   Use a potato peeler to take off the outer skin, then cube the squash with a heavy knife, removing seeds. Add squash cubes to onions and continue browning with occasional stirring while you prep and add the other ingredients.  Add water as needed to cover squash cubes. Simmer all for about thirty minutes, until squash is soft, then puree in batches and serve.

Verdict: Excellent.  Smooth and satisfying, with sweet body and a kick from the pepper. I didn't even notice the lack of salt (though my broth may have had some) I had two small bowls of this to start off my lunch, being willing to use up a significant portion of my starch allowance on it today.  The only disappointment about this squash is that it doesn't have any fiber!  But I get plenty of fiber elsewhere. :-)

I think I'm taking this to my sister's for Thanksgiving, with some fresh rosemary to decorate the top of custard-size bowls of soup.  

Inspiration for this recipe comes from my friend Renee and from The Joy of Cooking.

VEGETABLE BROTH

This is a method I am initiating this week, and I thought I'd record what I'm doing.  Beginning several days ago I started freezing a gallon zip-loc bag with vegetable trimmings (onion skins with some adhering onion, garlic peel, the rind of a lemon, several brussels sprouts bottoms, some bell and pimiento pepper stems, butternut squash peel and fiber and a few seeds, the butt of a bunch of celery, etc.), and today with a full bag I dumped the contents into a pot with some water and boiled it for about an hour, then drained it and had a beautiful brown broth which tastes a bit weak only because it doesn't have any salt.  I am freezing it in ice cube trays to then keep in a bag so I can pop a few cubes into a dish as I'm cooking later.

Holiday Challenge and Apple-Carrot Salad

Drfuhrman.com is having a Six-Week Holiday Challenge to help people maintain and even increase their health during the holidays. You can join for free and get six weeks' membership in the Member Center and a Vook (video-enhanced e-book) of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss.  There's a new version of this book coming out in January, I believe.

In joining the challenge you're pledging to eat every day a big salad, a plate of steamed greens (though I'm sure having them in soup or otherwise is fine, too), three fruits, and a cup of beans, and to avoid white flour and sugar (as well as sugar substitutes).  With that much fruit every day, you should find your sweet tooth diminished, actually.  Dr. Fuhrman is a kind and reasonable man, and he believes you CAN have a little splurge on the holiDAY, but most of us take that way too far and make it a holiMONTH or similar.

If you decide to join the challenge, look for my thread there and join me for daily accountability! I've been doing this with focus for a bit under a month and have lost over ten pounds already.

Below is a recipe I submitted to the drfuhrman.com Member Center Recipe Guide, and it was accepted today. I have others on this blog--please search by the tag.

APPLE-CARROT SALAD

  

1 large apple, in chunks

1/2 cup matchstick or shredded carrot

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/2 ounce chopped nuts, toasted if desired (optional)

1/3 cup plain lowfat yogurt or non dairy substitute

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

a few drops vanilla

Combine apple, veggies, and nuts in a bowl. In a separate dish combine yogurt with spices and vanilla, then toss with the apple mixture. Verdict: Excellent! The day's flax seed meal works nicely with this as well.  I think the cinnamon and vanilla help cut the need for any other sweetening, but if it's too tart for you, try adding in some clementine or pear.

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!

Asian Cabbage and Sweet and Simple Squash

Today I made a couple of experiments that turned out very nicely, and they're now part of the drfuhrman.com Member Center Recipe Guide. :-)

Asian Cabbage

1/2 oz sesame seeds
1 cup baby carrots
1 small head of napa cabbage, cut crosswise into shreds
1/2 small onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 cup sugar snap peas
a few drops of soy sauce, to taste

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet on a medium burner until browned, then set aside.  In the same skillet add some water to mostly cover the carrots and cover, simmering until they're nearly tender. Then add the cabbage, onion, and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, uncovered, until cabbage is tender and water has mostly cooked off. Add sugar snap peas and cover again until those are tender. To serve, toss hot vegetables with sesame seeds and sprinkle on a few drops of soy sauce.

Verdict: Excellent.  I confess I added 1/8 of a package of ramen noodles to the sesame seeds to toast, because I wanted the crunchiness, and I even reserved the seasoning packet in case I needed it.  But in the end I hardly noticed the noodles and won't make it that way again.  And I left the seasoning package untouched--it was really lovely just like it was.

Sweet and Simple Squash

2 cups butternut squash, cubed
1/2 cup raw cranberries
a few big chunks of fresh pineapple (about 3/4 cup?)

Simmer squash cubes in 1/2 inch of water in a small covered saucepan. When almost tender add  the cranberries and simmer covered, stirring occasionally, until they pop, adding water if needed. Then break the pineapple chunks into smaller pieces over the pot, simmering until the pineapple is warm and melded into the squash.  Enjoy!

Verdict: Excellent. I just had a little bowl of this (half the "recipe") and loved every bite. Good thing I like this, as we have about thirty remaining butternut squashes and a dozen pumpkins harvested from our garden!

Kitchen Work

When you're eating nutritarian, you have a lot of food prep to do, unless you're into an ascetic minimalist approach (apple and banana for breakfast, can of beans poured over bagged salad for lunch, boiled zucchini and a baked acorn squash for supper).  I'm really loving my Vita-Mix, but I'm beginning to lament my knives.

I have a pretty knife block with red-handled knives I got on clearance at Wal-Mart, and I have a single high-carbon knife that I use for "strong" things, as it has a heavy long blade. I have another ancient cleaver-type high-carbon knife that we inherited with our first home, built in 1958. But I don't sharpen these. And then I like those little colored-handle paring knives that come in a set of three for $1 - $3 and break easily, though they are sharp while they last. My favorite cutting tool lately is my julienne peeler from Pampered Chef--it's perfect for making zucchini "spaghetti" that can be tossed in a pot (sometimes with just a few noodles) to create a satisfying nutritarian base for a veggie sauce.

My usual experience is that I suffer through dull or wrongly-shaped knives for most of my chopping and paring.

I think I need a knife makeover.  With a busy household of careless people, I dare not buy several great knives and toss all the mediocre ones. The good ones will be misplaced, misused . . . I just don't trust those folks.  But after seeing this blog and watching the embedded Jamie Oliver video, . . . I think I need a real chef's knife. At least to start with, and a good sharpener--is that sword-thing he used sufficient? My dad used to have a sword ritual with one of those before cutting roast beef or turkey, but it was only occasional and, I think, superstitious rather than effectual. But it's an indelible and pleasant memory. :-)

Improving Canned Soup

Today I wanted a quick lunch and thought I'd just pop open a can of Progresso split pea soup. The can has two servings, each totaling something like 160 calories, 2 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber--fine so far--but almost 700 grams of sodium!  I've gotten used to very little salt added to things, and when I tasted this soup I decided it was just too much for me.  So here's what I did to improve it, in the form of a recipe:


Super Split Pea Soup

1/2 cup shredded or matchstick carrots
1 small white potato, shredded
tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes
2 large kale leaves, snipped into shreds
water to cover veggies
1 can Progresso Green Split Pea Soup With Bacon

In a medium saucepan, combine veggies and water to cover and simmer for about ten minutes, until soft or tender-crisp (my choice). Then add the can of soup and heat to desired temperature.  Makes two large bowls (one sufficient for my lunch).

Verdict: Very Good.  This is a great improvement over the soup by itself.  And I'm not tempted to eat the whole can. And I have a nice lunch waiting for me in the fridge on another day. Instead of having a bowl of soup with almost 1400 mg sodium, I have a bigger bowl of much more interesting and healthy soup with less than 700 mg sodium. Yes, it's more than I want, but it's better than what I was going to do, and much better than a lot of other things I could have had for lunch. Win win all around. 

I use mostly fresh items, but there are times when the canned and frozen are a blessing. Now I'll be restocking my shelves with low-sodium versions of canned goods!