A Legit ETL Soup Mix!

I can't emphasize enough how difficult it is to find good salt-free shelf stable food products. Granted, ETL is all about the fresh and natural. Yeah, I'm all over that.....but, not gonna lie.....I need/want/accept shortcuts on a daily basis in anyway I can get them. I will happily commit time and effort into a project, such as modifying a recipe or experimenting in the kitchen, but that stuff happens on my time, when I feel I can spare the energy. Meanwhile, in my day to day existence and even at my very busiest, I still have to eat. These are the days I dread the peeling/chopping/grating/slicing/sauteing/baking/measuring saga that accompanies an average ETL meal and would do anything to just hit the EASY button.

All that to say: I present to you.....Frontier Soups! A mix that consists of strictly ETL ingredients. With dried onions, carrots, leeks, lentils, and a seasoning blend. I found it at my local Safeway in Washington. I was looking for buckwheat groats (more on that later, promise:), and I found this instead. I'll take it! The recipe provided on the back of the package is no bueno for ETL. It calls for butter and cheese and bread, oh my! If I was looking for a fast meal, I would put this mix in a saucepan and add water in stages (start with maybe 3 cups, add more to taste as it cooks) and let it simmer a bit to bring out the aroma and flavor in the seasonings. In true ETL fashion, I would make every effort to add greens when the soup was done, just to wilt them before serving. This is a very easy step and takes no time at all to do. Bag of spinach in the fridge? Toss in half and done. However, on this fortuitous day, I was so excited to have found this that I forgot all about that EASY button I often covet and instead allowed for some inspirational experimenting.

Ingredients:
One large yellow onion- sliced
White wine vinegar
Half a large bundle of kale- stems/ribs removed, coarsely chopped

Slice up the onion and saute it with the vinegar over medium-low heat until it softens. You can start with just splashes of vinegar and add more as it sautes, keeping in mind you can use water if you require more than maybe 1/4 cup of vinegar. Add the soup mix and 6 cups of water. Bring to a low boil. Add the kale and simmer on low for maybe 10-20 minutes. Just to allow for blending of flavors. If your soup tastes good, eat it whenever you want to!

Sidenote: Stay tuned for a blog post about all the salt-free stuff I buy at my markets.

First soup of the season!

It must be the cold, because early in the day yesterday, I found myself eyeballing my smoothie mini blender (16oz capacity). "I could totally do that," I whispered to myself. I could make my Cannellini Beans w. Spinach and then puree it in batches. And I did! I haven't been to the market, so no mushrooms this time, but I did switch it up a little bit as I often do based on what I have fresh in the kitchen by adding one medium diced shallot to the garlic while it was water-sauteing. Then the cracked pepper on top and ta-da! A hot, thick, and creamy soup for a cold evening.

Salad as an art form

For my first six months or so of this ETL life, I diligently perused bookstores, libraries, and amazon for raw and/or vegan cookbooks. I had exhausted my own ability to be creative in the kitchen with different methods of preparing natural food without fat. It took me a while to realize that raw/vegan cookbooks use copious amounts of oil and nuts. I found myself modifying recipes at the same rate as I would in any traditional cookbook. Alas, I found a few gems and one of those is The Raw Gourmet. This book is half raw cookbook and half instruction manual on how to sprout seeds and soak nuts. It has some recipes without oil (all my cookbooks must meet this criteria to be placed on My ETL Test Kitchen shelf), and great advice on using sprouts in everyday cooking. It also contains one of my very favorite quotes that I recite to myself almost daily:

"Think of salad making as an art. Seek to obtain the highest possible nutritional value from your salads while making them a feast for the eyes as well as the palate."

Love that! It's so true, too! Salads are so gorgeous with their vibrant colors, their multiple textures, and most importantly, their great tasting, highly nutritional ingredients. Making and eating an amazing salad has become an art form for me. I'm inspired by what is fresh at the market, I plan my ingredients according to taste and texture and then I create art in a bowl. Eat To Live is so rewarding on so many levels in my life. I can only hope to inspire others on their journey towards optimum health and happiness.

Simply fill a large bowl with what inspires you and toss it all up.

I like to pick out the greens to form a bed on the plate.

Top with all that yummy goodness and enjoy!

Cannellini Beans w. Spinach

One of my very favorite things to do in my ETL Test Kitchen is modify an existing traditional recipe. It probably won't ever be as good as the original (let's face it: butter, oil, animal fat, cream, and salt really are hella good). But with a little bit of effort and a healthy understanding of the negative effects those ingredients have on our bodies, the ETL version is going to be worth trying and eating!

I learned this recipe from my current client's mother who is an absolute powerhouse in the kitchen. The woman cooks the most amazing dishes from memory alone. She is a walking encyclopedia of Julia Child and Marcella Hazan recipes, two women credited with writing ground-breaking cookbooks in their time. I'll spare you the details of the original recipe, for your own good. (it includes bacon!)

Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic
1 can no salt added cannellini beans (Eden Organic)
1/2 cup no salt added chicken or veggie stock (Kitchen Basics)
Bag of spinach
Fresh cracked pepper

Water-saute the garlic with just a few spoonfuls of water. Add cannellini beans and stock. Top with as much spinach as your pan will hold. That stuff wilts down to practically nothing. I try to add the entire bag even if it's in stages as the spinach begins to cook. Cover and simmer until the spinach wilts and the beans soften, but before the stock evaporates completely. Top with fresh cracked pepper and enjoy!

Notes-
Chicken actually isn't on ETL, but I make an exception for this stock because:
1. No way I'm making my own. I barely have time to chop all the veggies I eat in a day, let alone make a basic ingredient I can find at the market without salt.
2. It's fat free.
3. It has even less sodium than the veggie version of no salt added.
4. Did I mention I can buy it already made without salt?!

This recipe just begs to be pureed into a soup! The cannellini beans plump up and start to fall apart the longer you cook them. They would be truly creamy once pureed. I was desperate to do just that recently, but I don't yet have a blender in my DC apartment. I've decided with Winter upon us, to buy a stand-up hand mixer for just this type of thing. Soup in a flash! Also, tell me this doesn't sound good: coarsely chopped woody (maybe shitake?) mushrooms on top! Yes, please!

Oh, for shame!

It's been much too long since I've written about this ETL life I love so much. One too many burners going at once, I guess. (pun intended:) So anyway, I've got pictures and recipes piled up from the last few months ready for posting. Look for a burst of fresh, natural food coming this way!

FAIL: Creamy Tri-Pepper Dressing

I was actually really surprised this effort failed. When I rely on my own devices in the kitchen, I often end up with a meal that is mostly good but could use some tweaking or refining. That's okay, I expect that. But I made this from an ETL recipe online. Usually if I have a recipe, it's a no-fail, no-brainer. I expect for someone else to have ironed out the kinks. Which is why I was totally bummed to open up the fridge and see a cup full of what looks like chicken fat!
I suspect it was the soy milk. The recipe called for unsweetened soy milk. I only had light. That's the only thing that differs from the original recipe. I am determined to try again (and I'm honestly curious to find out where I made a mistake).

Carrot-Ginger Salad Dressing

I discovered a delicious no-oil salad dressing at the Darien, CT Whole Foods when I was staying up there for work last summer. I placed a special order for it at my local WF 3 months ago but I am starting to suspect it's never coming. So, I think I'll try to make my own! Here's my first try (totally on the fly), without much preparation:

1/4 cup carrot juice
1/2 tbs. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. ginger paste
Few splashes golden vinegar
(All measurements are approx. I just eyeball everything.)

You can use a blender or fork to mix it up. This took me about two minutes to throw together. I really want to experiment with a variety of preparation methods. I'd like to juice my own carrots and use the pulp to thicken up the dressing. Also, I think I'll try white wine vinegar next time and I think it needs sesame seeds.

Travel at your own risk.

The single most complicated aspect of ETL has to be: TRAVEL. For more than just the obvious reason that you can't reasonably carry fresh, natural food everywhere you go. It's also really hard to deny yourself all those things you used to eat when out and about and on vacation, no less.

This weekend I was in Tampa, FL visiting my husband. I certainly indulged while there with him (totally worth it), but on my return flight I was determined to stay focused on my Eat To Live life. So, this is was ETL looks like at an airport. If you're lucky. I've eaten dry iceberg lettuce at an airport once. The hummus had soybean oil in it, but I reasoned that at least I wouldn't eat the pita. I'll be flying A LOT this summer and I'm curious to see how I can beat this one! (Last year I had an awesome ETL meal at a cafe called French Meadow inside the Minneapolis Airport. That one wins, hands down so far.)

Natural beauty

Look at these gorgeous colors. Never ceases to amaze me. Truly. THIS is Eat To Live.

Salad: Spring lettuce mix, beets, grape tomatoes, lentils, Zesty Tahini dressing.

Zucchini & Kidney Beans

Thank goodness for ETL because even on a day like today, when I'm just really tired and on mental auto-pilot, I get to eat like this. I had a large zucchini sitting in the fridge and I just threw this together off the top of my head. It was delicious!

I water-sautéed the zucchini with one large diced clove of garlic then poured on an 8oz can of Hunt's no-salt-added tomato sauce. I seasoned it with 1/2 tbs of Mrs. Dash salt-free tomato, basil, and garlic blend then added a can of no-salt-added kidney beans and let all the flavors blend for a little bit on low. It was actually a lot of food in the end so I split it and just ate it for dinner too. Perfect for an evening of going to bed early.

Zucchini, garlic, nsa tomato sauce, Mrs. Dash, nsa kidney beans.

Farmers Market Meal

My girlfriend Anne Marie came to Casa De Schmidt on Saturday, bearing gifts from her Farmers Market run that morning. She brought me heirloom tomatoes, snap peas and a gorgeous bundle of basil. I was so inspired by the brilliant colors that I pulled out the fancy vinegar for this meal. I used a little bit of water to start off the peas and squash, then added the vinegar later with the tomatoes and basil. I find that if you use vinegar instead of water to sauté, the vinegar burns off before you can get a good infusion of flavor, so I add it as a seasoning at the end instead. This was totally delicious!

Sauté: summer squash, snap peas, heirloom tomatoes, basil, Lucini Pinot Grigio vinegar.

Squash "pasta" sauté.

Ahhh, the water-sauté. Such an important cooking method in ETL. It's super simple, yet requires a lot of attention. The trick is in the amount of water used because veggies release water as they cook too. Best to start low (less than 1/4 cup) and add as you go. Also, it really helps to have all your ingredients prepared before you start or you might end up with soggy veggies from interrupting the cooking time. Always start with the hard, crunchy veggies like onions or carrots first and add the softer more delicate ingredients as you go along so that everything cooks evenly. Add your seasonings to taste. If I have any greens on hand, I will toss those in last and give them just a quick flash saute to wilt them.

Truly, you can add whatever you want. I LOVE to play with flavors and colors. Often I find myself influenced by what is fresh at the market, naturally.

Now to the squash "pasta". I found instructions online for how to best make these ribbons. The video tells you to discard the core, but that is just too wasteful for me. No reason for it. I dice it up and add it to the sauté.

Sauté: onions, capers, exotic mushroom mix I bought at Wegmans, summer squash, and cumin.

Zesty Tahini Dressing

So, Whole Foods makes some no-oil dressings under their Health Starts Here brand. Everything they make under that name is from their fresh kitchens. You'll only find it in the refrigerated produce section. I've counted maybe 7 in the last year. They are always changing, I guess depending on the demand at each location. It's mostly just by chance that you will find them. I wish they were more readily available, but it has happened to me before that I go looking for them and find none. I certainly don't want this to happen to you, but there you have it. When you find them, rejoice! :)

The only sure thing about today's salad is that it had to be cold, crunchy, and refreshing. It is hot and humid in DC today and I was really looking forward to lunch! I like to toss everything in a big bowl first and then pick out the lettuce onto a plate and pile everything on top.

Salad: Earthbound Farms spring mix, steamed green beans, Zima sweet grape tomatoes, garbanzo beans and lentils.

Green Bean & Salsa Salad

I love, love, love salsa. Fresh, finely-diced is my favorite. It's also one of the top things I don't make myself. I just don't have the time for that much mincing of veggies. For this reason, it contains salt. Trust me, it's impossible to find salsa without salt. I've tried. A lot.

I made this up one day when I was out of lettuce AND had left-over steamed green beans. It is crazy good! I use a fork and knife to cut the green beans as I dig into the pile of salsa. I also add lemon juice to make everything swimmy.

French green beans, garbanzo beans, salsa: from the refrigerated produce section of most grocery stores. This one is from Trader Joe's.

Tenleytown Whole Foods Lunch

A pretty typical day in the life of baby and nanny involves a trip to Whole Foods. Today we spent the morning at the park playing in the sandbox and swinging before heading over to WF for lunch. Their raw food bar is my one-stop ETL shop. Selection varies from one WF to another. Some have a few prepared ETL salads which is always a nice surprise, but if not, I can always choose from the multitude of peeled, chopped, steamed and otherwise ready to eat veggies and fruit.

This is spinach, brussel sprouts, radishes, roasted corn, sweet peas, beets, and wheat berries. I added a no-oil creamy roasted pepper dressing available in the produce section.

My ETL Test Kitchen

It's no secret that I love my ETL life. I hope to use this blog simply to document and share all the truly amazing food that can be prepared without oil, salt or animal products. It won't always be perfect, sometimes I'm going to make lazy choices like, store bought dressing. And sometimes I won't post for days because I fell off the wagon. Never fear, I ALWAYS climb back on! 

As I go, I will talk more about Dr. Fuhrman and Eat To Live. I often get requests for ETL recipes and however happy I am to share the methods of food preparation, I feel it is lost on anyone who doesn't know about Fuhrbie and the book that truly changed my life. When you read it, you know it. It's that easy. 

I suspect that sometimes you'll just see a pic of what I ate for lunch with a list of ingredients. This will be for when I just throw something together quickly from what is available in the fridge. Other times I will follow a recipe or experiment with tools and special equipment. I will make every effort to post where I buy my produce, where I found a certain recipe and how yummy/yucky it turned out. Watch for me to sometimes throw in the towel and run to Whole Foods for an instant ETL meal. (LOTS more on Whole Foods later!)