Taking Stock

The best advice I can give you about making soup is to try making your own stock.

I know you don't have time; I know that there are "good" broths and stocks available at "Whole Paycheck", I know people like Ina and Rachel tell you that store-bought stock is okay.

But I'm telling you from my experience of making soups for many, many years:  the soup always tastes better if I start with HOMEMADE STOCK!

And besides that, here are some other things I've discovered:

It's not difficult.
It doesn't take that much time and effort.
It's inexpensive, since all of my stocks are made from parts of meat, veggies, and fish otherwise thrown away.

Really!

Let's start with a simple veggie stock.

Any time I cut up veggies for a mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) any discarded parts, including the bottoms, tops, and skin of the onions and bottoms and tops of celery and carrots, get stuffed into a ziploc bag and thrown in the freezer. Also, anytime I clean out the veggie drawer in my frig, old dried up baby carrots that I wouldn't serve and limp celery get thrown into the freezer. I also will save a stray potato gone soft but not rotten or other root vegetable (except maybe sweet potato since that has such a distinct flavor). Old tomatoes and tops and bottoms get thrown into a separate bag. They're good for starting a vegetable broth that will be made into a tomato based soup, but you don't usually want that taste in a straight up vegetable stock.

Then when I have 2 or 3 bags of remnants and I'm in the kitchen doing other things, whether making dinner or baking, I'll throw the contents of those bags into a pot of water and boil the shit out of 'em. Like I mean really boil the shit out of them. That doesn't mean a rolling boil, it just means simmering for a really long time. Until they are mush. It could take 2 hours, but that's not time you need to tend it. I've put pots of stock on a low simmer and gone shopping. I usually partially cover the pot, letting steam escape so I don't have a boil over situation. Sometimes foam will form. Don't worry about this. It will be fine. This ain't rocket science.

When the veggies are almost unrecognizable cuz they're so mushy, you'll pour the stock through a screened colander. You really need a screened colander for this because there will be small bits of veggies you want to strain out. What you will be left with is an amber-colored stock imbued with the flavors of whatever veggies you put in it.

OPTIONS: I'll throw some fresh herbs in with the stock, such as fresh thyme sprigs, oregano, or even sage, whatever I might have lying around. Whole leaves are good because they'll be big enough to get stuck in the colander when you strain it. I do not salt my stock. I leave that task for whenever I use the stock. So when you taste this stock without salt, you might not think much of it, but believe me, the flavor is there! You have wrenched the flavor from those veggies by boiling them within an inch of their lives.

From there it can go straight into the freezer in sealed containers or you can make this fabulous albeit very simple butternut squash soup.

For this soup, I had a container of veggie stock in the freezer I needed to use up.

Roasted Squash Soup

2 small - medium butternut squashes
1 large onion, diced
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, diced finely
1 roasted red pepper, diced
6 cups homemade veggie stock
juice of 1 orange
1/2 to 1 cup half-n-half
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon hot curry powder
a few leaves of fresh sage
salt and pepper
olive oil
GARNISH: fresh jalapenos and cilantro

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Split squashes and de-seed. Baste generously with olive oil and salt and pepper liberally. Roast them
cut side up for approximately 40-50 minutes. They do not have to be mushy done. If they are fork tender but the flesh is still a little resistant, that will be fine. You just want to roast them until they get that yummy roasty flavor and they are easy to scoop out of the skin. When they're done, let them cool a few minutes so they're easy to handle.

Saute onion in olive oil in a large heavy-bottom soup pot for 3 minutes. Throw in chipotle pepper and seasonings and saute another 2 minutes.

Pour in stock and bring to a simmer. Scoop out each squash half and add to the pot. Add orange juice.
Let simmer another 10 minutes, turn it down to lot heat and use a hand blender to smooth out the soup. Once the soup is smooth, slowly add the half-n-half stirring to blend.

Throw in the roasted red peppers at the end, so you can see the pretty red bits.

Cilantro makes a nice garnish. If your folks like heat, garnish with fresh jalapenos.

So simple, but so unbelievably delish. Just one little chipotle pepper gives this soup a smokey heat. And the juice of the orange compliments the sweetness of the squash so well. I served this with a couple of wings and some tortilla chips. The perfect Autumn meal!

More stock advice to come!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes--Turn and Face the Strain!

My boyfriend is an excellent cook. The first meal he cooked for me was boeuf bourguignon a la Julia Child, a dish that he literally started the night before. When it came time to serve it, he ladled rich glistening helpings of it over thick slices of toasted italian bread cut into the shape of a heart (am I lucky or what!). It was unbelievably delicious and I was falling in love.

The next time he cooked for me, it was a traditional bolognese sauce over pasta. Again, it was a day's labor as he cooked the sauce from scratch and used it to smother a bowl of thick noodles.

Then a week later I found out I had an A1c of 12.2 and my doctor wanted to see me to talk about treatment for Type 2 Diabetes.

All this by way of saying that I am not the only person who has been affected by this sugar beast. When we met, my boyfriend's recipe repertoire featured those dishes that we are told to stay away from when managing blood glucose levels. Specifically, pizza, pasta, and meat and potatoes with gravy.

But over the past year and a half, he and I have learned how to amend our favorite dishes so that I can make more sensible choices to manage my blood sugar and still eat scrumptious food.

So rather than post some recipes, I though I'd just share some TIPS on how to enjoy a traditional meal in a more sensible, low GI kinda way.

Check it out . . . 

Looks like meat and potatoes with a rich gravy, right?

That's pretty much what it is, but with minor differences that make all the difference to my blood sugar. Here are the secrets:

• PORTION SIZE - We split one porterhouse steak. He eats the strip, and I eat the smaller filet side. And I make sure I hold back a few bites as treats for the dog.
• MASHED CAULIFLOWER INSTEAD OF POTATOES - My boyfriend never even ate cauliflower before he met me. Now he loves mashed cauliflower with our steak. Unlike making mashed potatoes, you need very little butter and milk to mash the cauliflower. I like to boil my cauliflower in vegetable broth just to give the dish more flavor. If you don't have vegetable broth, make sure you salt the water you boil the cauliflower in.
• GRAVY - Use beef broth with your pan drippings and a little bit of butter. Thickening can happen in one of two ways, either REDUCE, REDUCE, REDUCE. That means just boiling away the liquid until it becomes its own thick sauce. Or, if you're impatient, use oat flour as a thickening agent. Unlike wheat flour, you can add oat flour directly to a hot liquid and it will dissolve completely. And, it thickens the gravy without compromising my blood sugar the way white flour will.
• EXTRA VEGGIES - I always make sure I serve lots of veggies with a meal like this. Besides adding to my overall fiber count, which is always good for diabetics, the more veggies I eat, the fuller I feel and that helps me control my portion sizes. 
• RED WINE - A glass of red wine is the diabetic's alcohol of choice. Yes, sometimes I miss beer, but when it comes to a steak dinner, there's no substitute for a glass of Cabernet.
  
  

One year after I had an A1c of 12.2, my A1c was down to 5.5!! 

Feelin' Kinda Crabby

I was in the mood for fish.

Soooooo, here's my little diatribe about eating fish this far inland. Better to purchase the fish flash frozen in your grocer's freezer than to buy whatever has been THAWED and stuck in a window for who knows how long. Most fish sold in these parts has been frozen to be shipped here anyway. If you're buying it from the fish case at your grocery, you're only buying thawed frozen fish. I won't argue with those of you who live on the coast. I've been there, and it's true there's nothing like eating fresh fish caught that morning. But unless it's Walleye during Great Lakes Walleye season, we're not likely to see anything in Ohio that was caught same day.

Usually when I'm in the mood for fish I end up with some salmon or some shrimp or even some whiting fillets out of my freezer section. But while I was looking for my usual suspects, I noticed some small plastic jars of lump crab meat.

Light Bulb!  CRAB CAKES--the delicate, rich, crabby morsels of scrumptiousness, topped with a little Cajun or Asian heat and served with some dressed greens or sweet slaw or something similar.

Everybody has their own crab cake recipe. Mine is adapted from my buddies on Block Island who have owned countless restaurants over the years and who served a delicious crab cake eggs bennie at their most recent venture.

Going low-carb doesn't meant giving up our favorite foods. It just means modifying recipes so they are carb-friendly. This recipe doesn't use any bread crumbs in the cake. But the crab cakes at the restaurant were rolled in Panko. Panko being white bread is not exactly what I would call a low-carb, high-fiber option. 

So I had to make my own Panko using the high-fiber bread I buy at the grocery store. It was simple really. I just toasted one of the end pieces, let it cool for a bit, then pulsed it in the food processor until it was coarse like Panko bread crumbs. It doesn't matter that they aren't completely toasted and are still soft. They're only going on the outside of the crab cake and then getting fried in oil, so they will create a deliciously delicate crunchy coating nonetheless. Promise.

CRAB CAKES

8 oz jar lump crab meat, drained

1 stalk celery, diced small

2 Tablespoons diced onion or shallots

1 egg

1 Tablespoon mayonnaise

High-fiber Panko breadcrumbs (as instructed above) tossed into a shallow dish

1/4 cup canola oil

Spice Blend:

1 Tablespoon paprika

1/8 teaspoon smoked chipotle pepper powder (or more if you like the heat)

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves ground up in  your hand

1 teaspoon cumin 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

MIX all the spices into a small bowl. Set aside one to two teaspoonfuls of the spice blend for your dressing.

MIX the crab meat with the celery and onion. Toss with the remaining spice blend. Then add the egg and mayonnaise. The egg and mayonnaise will hold this all together without adding additional breadcrumbs. 

SCOOP out a small amount that can be squeezed between the palms of your hands. Because there are no breadcrumbs, these crab cakes are a bit delicate, so as you squeeze gently, form the ball into a hockey puck shape then roll the hockey puck in the Panko, gently pressing the breadcrumbs into all sides of the crab cake.

To make a simple dressing, MIX 2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise with the remaining spice blend and add the hot sauce of your choosing.

Fry these in properly heated oil in a non-stick pan. It won't take long, roughly 2-3 minutes per side. You can transfer them to a paper towel to absorb the excess oil when they're golden brown on each side.

Since there are no fillers in these, the 8 oz jar made 5 small crab cakes. My boyfriend and I ate them all. It was a main course so that's 1/4 lb. serving per person. I served mine with a simple salad of greens dressed with a lemon vinaigrette. They were delish!!!

I'm sharing some low-carb love with following:
Flour Me With Love Mix it Up Monday