A Trip to Jerusalem

It's spring.  Can you imagine?  We've had sunshine for 3 days straight and I'm still not used to it, I just keep staring out the window in shock and awe.  Yesterday I worked outside for a bit, though I'll be the first to admit there was less working and more staring at the light playing off the tulips.

I've spent the winter months writing furiously on our elimination detox, developing recipes and making sure every statement we make about food allergies and intolerance is well-researched and supported by facts.  Our testers just started with the first week of the menu and what do I keep hearing?

"This is good."

People are shocked that a diet that eliminates all the major allergens, most grains, and many meats tastes like anything at all, let alone delicious (yes, it tastes like delicious).  This, my friends, is why this project is taking so long.  When Julie and I embarked on creating the ultimate elimination diet guidebook and meal plan, the very first thing I said was, "The food has to be real food, and it has to be delicious."  There will be smoothies and cleansing options (and they will be equally amazing), but if smoothies aren't your schtick, you don't need to drink them.

So, outside of elimination recipes, what have I been cooking?  Ben and I have been loving on the recipes from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi.  I know this cookbook is old news; it's circulated through the national consciousness and people have moved on, but I can't.  Not quite yet.  Vegetables flavored with za'atar, sumac and harissa speak to me on a visceral level.

In my practice, I tell patients that I don't care how they eat their vegetables, as long as they eat them and low, here is a cookbook that gives me plethora of vegetable choices in lip-smacking combinations.  Their roasted butternut squash and tahini recipe has been a revelation, though I'll admit that more often than not I make this recipe with unpeeled sweet potatoes because it's easier.

Here are a few of the recipes I've made (and remembered to photograph before gobbling up!):

Pureed beets with coconut cream and za'atar

I use these recipes as a guide, a map toward unknown flavors and a hint of places I've never been.  Of course, they must be modified to suit your particular brand of dietary intolerance.  Most of the veggie and meat dishes are naturally gluten-free, but they're definitely not dairy-free.  There's yogurt everywhere, and in our house the best we can tolerate is a little butter, so I've been making substitutions.  In the pureed beets with yogurt and za'atar, I used coconut cream mixed with lemon juice and honey instead of date syrup (not that I haven't tried to find date syrup, it just doesn't exist where I live).  It was lovely, served with pita for the gluten-eaters and crackers for the rest of us.  

Tuna steaks in chraimeh sauce

A few weeks ago we hosted a small birthday dinner for a friend and true to form, decided to prepare a number of dishes for the very first time the day of the party.  One was tuna steaks in chraimeh sauce.  Mr. Ottolenghi's recipe calls for salmon steaks, but we had tuna in the freezer.  The sauce was delectable and I followed the recipe exactly (rare, I know).  There was paprika and caraway, cumin and cayenne, cinnamon, chiles and tomato paste.  Ben declared that he'd like to eat this sauce on everything, and the entire table scraped pita bread across the bottom of the pan until it was gone.

Hummus with golden raisins, toasted pine nuts, fresh parsley and olive oil

Do you make hummus?  I do, every week it seems.  I have my recipe memorized and can throw it together in about 5 minutes, so I was a little suspicious of a new hummus recipe.  I shouldn't have been, because everything we'd tried thus far was amazing.  Jerusalem's recipe calls for a lot of tahini and to drizzle the olive oil over the hummus at the end.  Through many, many batches, we've reduced the tahini a bit and add olive oil to the beans while processing so we can easily consume hummus on the go.  However, now that's we've experienced decorated hummus, I'm not sure we can go back.  Dried fruit perfectly complements the savory complexity of the tahini, lemon, garlic and garbanzos, and we've even taken to sprinkling bits of sumac and za'atar over our plates.

Roasted cauliflower and hazelnut salad

Roasted vegetables, slightly cooled, with nuts, pomegranate and spices: I have a new way of cooking vegetables!  I'm not the biggest fan of green salads unless it's high summer (yes I know, what kind of nutritionist am I?) but a cooked vegetable salad... that I can embrace with my whole heart.  When I made this I was missing a key ingredient: hazelnuts.  Do you ever make a great grocery list thinking you have certain ingredients in the cupboard and then come home only to discover you were utterly mistaken?  This happens to me constantly, and necessity breeds invention.  Pistachios are sort of Middle Eastern, right...?  At any rate, that's what I used, and the salad was fabulous.

Stuffed eggplant with lamb (or beef) and pine nuts

In the grey days of March we prepared stuffed eggplant twice and both times it was utterly amazing.  The flavors were both grounding and complex and the cinnamon added just a hint of fun.  I don't eat lamb, so we used ground beef, and though I have nothing to compare it to, I'm sure it was just as good as the lamb would be.

Baby spinach salad with dates and almonds

Just two paragraphs back I said I don't care for green salads, yet I'm now showing you one.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

But this salad is different.  It has sautéed pita (or GF bread) and warm almonds thrown on top.  It has marinated dates and chili and sumac.  This salad has weight to it.  In fact, I've taken to making it with a poached egg on top for suppers, and I think you should too.

Are you sold yet?  Ready to run out and buy Jerusalem?  Good!  Meanwhile, I'm taking what I've learned and playing.  Last week we had grilled chicken legs rubbed with ras el hanout and garlic salt.

I wonder what I'll cook this week?

The Mediterranean Diet....On Television!

I was recently interviewed on the local news about a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet.  See for yourself how it went.  Only my second time on TV, so... be gentle.

The study involved 3 groups--two experimental groups and one control group.  The experimental groups didn't restrict calories, and they were taught how to follow a Mediterranean diet at the beginning of the study. The experimental groups also got refresher courses at quarterly intervals, including time to ask questions and get individual dietary help.  One of the experimental groups was given a bottle of olive oil per week, and the other experimental group was given about 200 grams of mixed nuts per week, the idea being that the first group would consume more olive oil and the second group would consume more nuts.

The control group was taught how to follow a low-fat diet, but strangely, it wasn't until 3 years into the study that the researchers decided that the control group should also receive quarterly education and individualized nutrition counseling.

Consistent protocols are for sissies.  Right?

Unfortunately, I think that the lack of consistent education in the control group is a major issue in this study, and though it doesn't invalidate the findings, it should be considered in the creation and implementation of future studies.  That said, I've long adored the Mediterranean diet, and I think most people can and should follow it for health.

The trick is to eat your veggies!

2013

Duncan the dachshund is with me, always.  Or he'd like to be!  He lays at my feet while I'm working at home, occasionally poking me in the leg when I've been sitting too long.  He sits at the edge of the kitchen while I'm recipe testing.  He gets underfoot while I move photography lights and snap photos.  He goes grocery shopping with me, even though he can't go into the store and but is a hit everywhere else we go: the hardware store, the bookstore, the coffee shop, even the emissions testing center.  Sadly for him he doesn't come with me to see patients because he thinks he's the center of attention and I like to give my energy to my clients, so he sits forlornly at home.  Duncan is curled beside me now as I sit on the couch and type this post, quietly waiting for his walk and constantly reminding me that however busy, tired, elated, stressed, bemused and overwhelmed I am, real life is waiting for me when I choose to look up from my computer.

I've been looking at my little neglected blog and I'm reminded of Julia Child saying "Never apologize."  I know there's more to that quote but I'm going to truncate it because it fits my needs.  Life is busy at FoodWise Nutrition and I'm doing exactly how much I can and want to do but I'm thinking I need to make a bit more time for writing in this space.

I've started another business.  I hate to tease you with this because we aren't quite ready to announce but I'm so excited I can't keep it in a second longer.  It's going to involve a guidebook written with my business partner and myself and recipe book, written and photographed by yours truly.  I'll tell you more in the next few months but know that all the fabulous recipes that aren't appearing on this site are going into a cookbook!!

I've also written a weight loss starter guide and I'm working on the art assets.  Whenever I get those done it will be self-published in e-book form but everything takes three times longer than you think it should, especially when the process is new.

Amongst all this writing and recipe testing and photography I'm still teaching at Bastyr University and FoodWise is flourishing.  I introduced Mediator Release Testing, a food intolerance test into my practice last summer and it's really taken off!  I'm so excited to be able to offer this service to clients and it's making a huge impact on patients lives to be able finally identify why the have diarrhea/constipation/heartburn/chronic headaches/nausea/etc.  If you have IBS, call me because chances are, we can get rid of most of your symptoms by eliminating problem foods!

In thinking about all these projects, it's easy to get overwhelmed but I'm remembering to do one thing at a time and then the next thing and then the next.  Google calendar had been a savior throughout this process.  I don't make New Year's resolutions but I do make one word themes for the year and this year's theme is PRODUCE, as in write like a wild woman and get these projects done!  So, happy belated New Year to you all.  2013 is going to be amazing.

Create!

I was supposed to make cassoulet.

After a long day at work I came home, took care of the animals, had a cup of peach tea and read Saveur, then generally bitched about dinner to myself.  Should we order in?  Thai sounded good.  What about the Thai food was appealing?  Well, I didn't have to cook it, but beyond that it sounded fresh somehow, light and full of veggies.  We'd been eating beef bourguignon for a few days and it was delectable, full of layers of butter just like Julia makes it.  But cassoulet on top of beef bourguignon?  It was too much heavy stew, even in these dark Seattle days of grey and cold.

Mark Bittman wrote a piece about cooking with what you have, and one quote rang out to me: "I'd choose what seemed most appealing and figure out what to do with it when we got to the kitchen."  This is how I love to cook--to create.

Don't get me wrong, having a meal plan is sensible.  It allows us to plan for the week ahead and have all the ingredients we need.  We have a weekly meal plan.  Sometime I even follow it.

But more often than not, I use it as a guideline to create new dishes, some of which work and some of which flop horrendously.  I cook nearly all our meals, but I don't want to be bored by it.  I want to be inspired!

Just thinking about making something other than my lovely cassoulet got me moving.  What's in the fridge?  Vegetables were calling to me, fennel and zucchini and green beans.  We ran out of vegetables the week before so I over-bought to compensate, and I could really cook as many as I wanted!

I started with honey sesame roasted green beans: a little honey mixed with sesame oil, tamari, and chili flakes baked at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes and garnished with sesame seeds.  What's next?  Chopped zucchini and fennel in a bit of olive oil and sel gris, roasted for 15 minutes at the same temperature.

Now I needed a protein source.  Eggs were the obvious choice because the rest of our meat was frozen, and since I had the oven on I went with a modified version of Herb Baked Eggs by the lovely Ina Garten.  Dried basil and oregano, fresh garlic and parmesan.  Soy creamer and real butter.  Two eggs instead of three.  I over-cooked the dish, but I learned my lesson and will make it properly next time.  I rounded out the meal with a freshly sliced Asian pear that has been hanging out on our front porch in a box of apples we brought home from Eastern Washington.

I don't have pictures of this meal.  We ate at 8 o'clock at night by candle light, chatting and laughing about our long days.  I wasn't thinking about working or blogging.  I was eating spontaneously prepared, slightly over-cooked eggs and loving every minute of it.

Oh, I will make the cassoulet.  Nothing goes to waste here.  But this night, I got to create, and those are the meals I remember.

Kale Chip Virgin... No More!

Can you believe this intrepid dietitian has never made kale chips?  I know, living in the Pacific Northwest where kale is practically a food group, I'm not sure how it's possible either.  Ben and I were grocery shopping on Sunday and a lovely young lady was giving out samples of raw kale chips flavored with vegan nacho cheese.  I'm still on the fence about nacho cheese-flavored anything, but I was sold on the kale chips!

I've been fabulously busy seeing patients and teaching at Bastyr and doing a bit of consulting but today I had three (!) cancellations, so I decided to play a bit with my new photography lights. Today is a quintessentially grey Seattle day, the type of grey that seems viscous, reducing all activity to slow motion; the type of day that makes you want to start an IV drip of hot cocoa and watch a marathon of some terrible-yet-lovable TV show.  Instead, I put on my galoshes and picked the few remaining good stalks of lacinato (dinosaur) kale out of my tiny garden patch to try recreating the morsels from the grocery store.

Did I tell you that my garden patch is dying?  There's been an empty lot behind my home for years, but this past spring its owner decided he wanted to do more than store stacks of two-by-fours on his property. He has proceeded to build two monstrous townhomes about 15 feet from my kitchen window.  My little kale plants have put up a valiant, sunless fight, but this is the last year of gardening in my little patch of earth.

Being as this is my first time making my very own kale chips, I learned two very important facts:

First, kale chips are DELICIOUS!  Crisp, covered in olive oil and a touch of salt, I consumed the entire first experimental batch (with the help of Duncan the dastardly dachshund, who deemed them lovely, if a bit difficult to chew).

Second, you really need to remove the stems.  I thought I could get away with stems in the baby lacinato straight from my garden, but even the freshest of kale stems are too tough to chew once baked.  I've been eating kale chips like a maniacal cartoon character whipping through ears of corn on the cob.

Kale Chips

To make your very own kale chips, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.  Stem and chop whatever type of kale suits your mood.  Add a bit of olive oil and massage until all the leave are covered.  Toss on a pinch of salt and whatever other seasoning you desire (wouldn't smoked paprika be divine?).  Lay them on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the leaves are crisp and begin to blacken (but not burn!).  Let them cool, then snack away.

Enjoy!

Essentially Gluten-Free

Gluten-free bread that requires chewing.  Nuts and seeds that end on a sweet, rather than gummy, taste.  Bread soft and pliable enough to eat untoasted with butter.  Bread that doesn't melt in your mouth.

The Essential Baking Company has given us such a gluten-free bread.

I recognize there are foods you want to melt in your mouth--M & Ms for instance--but for me, bread has never been one of those foods.  I want my bread to have substance and weight, to feel like it's going to give me sustenance and carry me through until my next meal, not evaporate like cotton candy the moment it hits my stomach.

So far I've only tried the Super Seed Multi-Grain bread, but I love it so much I can't bring myself to purchase the others.  My first loaf was flawless.  My second had some air bubbles in it.  While not all the slices were good for sandwiches, it was delicious nonetheless.

Try it and tell me what you think!

**I have no affiliation with The Essential Baking Company.  The opinions presented here are mine, and unsolicited.

Brownies! (Gluten-Free, From Scratch!)

Ben just adores brownies.  We often buy the mix, but the other night we were having a quiet evening at home and didn't want to leave, so we whipped up a batch of these!

I started with melted chocolate... but I kept adding chocolate.  These aren't cake brownies, these are dense, thick, triple-chocolate brownies.

I've been into coconut sugar lately, and I like my brownies slightly less sweet, with a richer flavor.
Feel free to substitute another kind of sweetener.

Brownies (Gluten-Free)

1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
4 eggs
2 cups coconut sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup walnut, vegetable, or coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9-inch square baking pan.  Line the bottom with parchment paper.
Combine the flours and xanthan gum.
Beat the eggs, sugar and salt until mixed.  Blend in oil, vanilla, melted chocolate and chocolate powder.
Beat in dry ingredients and chocolate chips.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.

These brownies should be slightly underdone.
Cool completely before cutting.

Enjoy!