Turkey Leek Soup - Kidney Diet / Renal Diet

This recipe is the first in a series of indeterminate length on kidney-healthy foods.
The goal is to cook food that takes good, and meets the following nutritional guidelines:

1. <2000mg / day potassium
2. <1500mg / day sodium
3. Low to moderate protein content

Along with each recipe, I'll post the nutrition breakdown based on the USDA nutrient database.

Turkey Leek Soup

Leeks are a kidney friendly vegetable, and I like them in soup, so I thought I'd give this a try.  The ingredients are:

• 0.5lb cooked (in my case smoked) herbed turkey breast
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth (from TJs, note: do not buy broth containing Potassium Chloride as a salt substitute)
• 5 medium leeks, just the bulbs and lower leaves (~3 cups diced)

The prep was easy. I finely cut the bulb ends and top leves off the leeks and halved them, before blanching in boiling water for ~5min.  Then I rinsed them in a collander and chopped them finely.

I cut the leftover turkey into chunks, threw everything in a  pot and let it all simmer for 2hrs.

First let me say that my salt-loving palate this soup tasted bland.  It definitely needed more bite, and I will play with that in future iterations.  That said, the smokiness from the turkey really added needed flavor, so I recommend using smoked meat.  The herbs from the turkey (a standard herbs de'provence mix) also helped. 

Extreme Soup close-up

Serving suggestion:  We ate this with sourdough bread, and found the sourness complemented the coup well and added some of that missing bite.  I definitely recommend this, especially as sourdough bread is high in neither potassium nor sodium.

Nutrition

Recipe makes 4 servings (~2cups each)

Nutrient	Unit	3cups boiled leeks	4 cups low Na broth	250g roasted turkey breast	Total	1 serving
Water	g	283.3	921.6	169.7	1374.6	343.65
Energy	kcal	97	154	367.5	618.5	154.625
Protein	g	2.53	19.2	75.325	97.055	24.26375
Total lipid (fat)	g	0.62	5.76	5.2	11.58	2.895
Carbohydrate, by difference	g	23.77	11.52	0	35.29	8.8225
Fiber, total dietary	g	3.1	0	0	3.1	0.775
Sugars, total	g	6.58	1.25	0	7.83	1.9575
Minerals				0	0	0
Calcium, Ca	mg	94	38	22.5	154.5	38.625
Iron, Fe	mg	3.43	2.02	1.775	7.225	1.80625
Magnesium, Mg	mg	44	10	80	134	33.5
Phosphorus, P	mg	53	288	575	916	229
Potassium, K	mg	271	826	622.5	1719.5	429.875
Sodium, Na	mg	31	288	247.5	566.5	141.625
Zinc, Zn	mg	0.19	0.96	4.3	5.45	1.3625
Vitamins				0	0	0
Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid	mg	13.1	0	0	13.1	3.275
Thiamin	mg	0.081	0	0.0875	0.1685	0.042125
Riboflavin	mg	0.062	0.288	0.5125	0.8625	0.215625
Niacin	mg	0.624	13.152	29.375	43.151	10.78775
Vitamin B-6	mg	0.353	0.096	2.0175	2.4665	0.616625
Folate, DFE	µg	75	0	22.5	97.5	24.375
Vitamin B-12	µg	0	0.96	0.975	1.935	0.48375
Vitamin A, RAE	µg	128	0	7.5	135.5	33.875
Vitamin A, IU	IU	2533	0	27.5	2560.5	640.125
Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)	mg	1.56	0	0.15	1.71	0.4275
Vitamin D (D2 + D3)	µg	0	0	0.75	0.75	0.1875
Vitamin D	IU	0	0	25	25	6.25
Vitamin K (phylloquinone)	µg	79.2	0	0	79.2	19.8
Lipids				0	0	0
Fatty acids, total saturated	g	0.084	1.718	1.4825	3.2845	0.821125
Fatty acids, total monounsaturated	g	0.009	2.63	1.565	4.204	1.051
Fatty acids, total polyunsaturated	g	0.346	1.21	1.32	2.876	0.719
Cholesterol	mg	0	0	0.06	0.06	0.015

Banana Cream Trifle

I decided to make a Banana Cream Trifle for a monthly gathering, which is basically a fancied name for banana pudding.  Originally if was going to be a banana cream pie, but since nilla wafers are better than crush with banana pudding, why make crust?

OK, so this is a pretty simple concept with 4 ingredients:

1)  A layer of vanilla wafers.  Traditionally you use the 'Nilla wafer brand, but I was at Trader Joe's and so I used their "ultimate vanilla wafers".  They worked well, and I endorse them

2) Bananas.  You need 3 and they should be ripe, y'know with no green and some brown.

3) Whipped Cream.    I made my own, using 1.5c heavy cream and ~2tbspns confectioners sugar whipped in a freezer-chilled metal bowl.

4) Pastry Cream.  More on that below.


The first step was making the pastry cream, and I pretty much followed steps 3 & 4 of this recipe:
http://www.marthastewart.com/331723/banana-cream-pie

However, when I make this again I will introduce a few caveats:

• `5tbspns corn starch is a bit excessive, and gave a slightly chalky taste to me, at least before cooking.  On food and cooking recommends 5-10g / 0.5- 1tbspn per cup of milk.  I think next time I will do 3.5tbspn or 4 total.
• Straining is for suckers
• Whisking is for suckers, and scrapes pots.
• Egg yolk amylase will digest your starch overnight if the mix is not brought to a boil and kept there for a minute.  This is very different from a creme anglaise or egg only custard which needs to be kept from boiling.  I believe this is why step 4 says "until bubbles appear in the center".  In any case, don't be too skittish with the heat.
• I added 2 tspns of vanilla extract to the pastry cream once I had removed it fromt he fire.  This added a lot flavor-wise
• Instead of letting this cool in the fridge over night and then assembling the pie, I should have poured it over the wafers right away.  It is a pain to work with once solidified.

That was so many caveats that I am just going to re-write my process:

1. In a pot combine 4tbspn corn strach, 1/4 tspn salt, 2/3 cup sugar, stir to mix
2. Gradually add 3 cups whole milk, stirring to mix
3. Heat over medium low heat until the milk begins to thicken from the starch
4. Turn off the heat, and whisk 1/4 of the mixture into a bowl containing 4 egg yolks
5. Dump this mix back into the pot
6. Continue to heat over LOW heat with constant stirring, until the mixture boils/bubbles int he middle.
7. Immediately transfer to a new container

The last step was assembly.  

First I layered wafers to cover the bottom of the pie pan, first in on layer, and then with a sparse second layer of upside down wafers to cover the natural gaps.  Second I stood wafers up around the edge of the pan.  I thought this made a pretty effect. Next, I added 1/2 the pastry cream, followed by a layer of sliced banana, then another layer of pastry cream followed by a second banana layer.  On top of all this I spread whipped cream.

Much as I remembered from my childhood, this dish was better than the sum of its parts.  So good in fact, that we had devoured it all before I thought to take a photo:

In conclusion, I recommend this for the crust-phobic or effort phobic, or anyone who just likes cream pies.

P.S.  Look at the pretty pie plate I got for Christmas!

Smoked Brisket

I have a smoker.  Well technically it is a Weber grill with a smokenator in it.

I also joined a beef CSA, so I decided to try a brisket, and see how it compares against the oven.  (hint: smoker wins)

Step 1:
I started with a 2.5lb grass fed beefalo brisket (Not sure what part of the brisket it came from, but it was super lean 'cause that's how grass fed beefalo rolls.  rolls?  roams?

I let it thaw, and coated it super liberally with a mix of 2pts salt, 1pt black pepper, 0.5pt ancho chilli and 0.5pt dry mustard.  I rubbed this all over, and let it sit overnight.  As it turns out, this was too much salt for a small piece of meat with a high surface to volume ratio.

Here it is in all its glory

Then I fired up my weber to 225-250F (I am still learning to keep it steady so there was a lot of variance through the day), added some hickory wood, and my brisket.  It turns out that like salt, hickory wood is best used in moderation, and instead of thin blue smoke (which I am told is best) I had great billows of grey-white smoke.  The amount of smoke actually inhibited the fire for a bit, and kept the temp too low.  Because of this I felt I could taste an acridity in the bark, but my other taste tester could not.

At 150F internal meat temp I opened the grill up and wrapped the brisket in foil .  Then I let it all be until 203F, at which point I transferred it to my toaster oven set on warm (140F) to "rest"for an hour.

OK, here's the final product:

From 2.5lb start, I was left with a little over 1.5lbs cooked meat.

Flavor wise I was disapointed by the saltiness and smokiness, but these are easily fixed in future runs (for now I just picked some of the bark off my slices before eating).

Texture wise this was some of the best brisket I have had.  it was very very juicy compared to the oven method.  I was especially surprised because Beefalo is a low-fat meat.

It went well with corned bread and braised cabbage.  (I used this recipe for cabbage and I think I ate half of it: http://www.chow.com/recipes/10712-braised-red-cabbage-with-bacon)

Fun fact to end the post:
I reek of hickory smoke.

Old Time Gingerbread and New Fangled Lemon Curd

It's Fall!  It's not 90F+ in my kitchen!
Let's bake.

These are two recipes I made for a tea party.

The first is gingerbread from Beeton's Book of Household Management  (you know my love of historical British cookery).

Here's the text:

THICK GINGERBREAD.

1760. INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of treacle, 1/4 lb. of butter, 1/4 lb. of coarse brown sugar, 1-1/2 lb. of flour, 1 oz. of ginger, 1/2 oz. of ground allspice, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, 1/4 pint of warm milk, 3 eggs.

[Illustration: GINGERBREAD.]

Mode.—Put the flour into a basin, with the sugar, ginger, and allspice; mix these together; warm the butter, and add it, with the treacle, to the other ingredients. Stir well; make the milk just warm, dissolve the carbonate of soda in it, and mix the whole into a nice smooth dough with the eggs, which should be previously well whisked; pour the mixture into a buttered tin, and bake it from 3/4 to 1 hour, or longer, should the gingerbread be very thick. Just before it is done, brush the top over with the yolk of an egg beaten up with a little milk, and put it back in the oven to finish baking.

Time.—3/4 to 1 hour. Average cost, 1s. per square.

Seasonable at any time.

I basically followed this one by-the-book, but for a few changes:

1. I replaced baking soda with baking powder, and in doing so increased the volume to 3x (1tbspn) since baking powder is 1/3 baking soda by volume
2. I ignored her mixing instructions, which seemed frankly bizarre and instead mixed ala the muffin method (mix all the dry ingredients together, all the wet together, then just combine)  
3. I did not have a 1lb of treacle, so I used 1lb of cane syrup, which is basically the same thing as dark treacle
4. There's no temperature, so following a recipe in another cookbook I did 375.  This was a mistake.  By 45min the gingerbread was done, but I found it quite dry when eating it, best slathered with jam or dunked in tea.  For a moister version I might try 325.*

*Then again, maybe it's supposed to be dry and not moist?  I feel like a lot of what I have baked lately is slightly dry, and this may be because I have switched to stoneground whole wheat flour from whole kernels.  Hmm. . .

I would totally recommend this, with the baking time change caveat or a lot of jam.

My photo standards are really going down hill.

NEXT we jump forward from the pinnacle of 1850s cookery to maybe the pinnacle of 1950s cookery with microwave lemon curd.

To be honest, I was not going to post on this because it's mostly cribbed from one recipe and there are so many variants out there, but I got some requests so here it goes.

Googling "lemon curd" I came across this recipe by Gordon Ramsay:

"Ingredients for about 1 1/2 cups Lemon Curd:

3 whole large eggs

3/4 cup white sugar

2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 1/2 tbsp freshly grated lemon zest

5 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp, cut in 3 or 4 pieces"

It seemed perfect.  By a British person?  check.  Not having to separate yolks? check.

But you may notice the complete lack of ummm instructions on the page.

This lead to more googling for correct addition order, in which I found many sites claiming you could skip the bain marie and just do this in a microwave!  (I know many chefs skip bain maries anyway and go directly to the stove, but I would totally burn it that way.)

I had to try!

These are the changes I made:

1. I used 4tbspn butter because I was doubling the recipe and that meant I could use one stick
2. I used something closer to 2-3tbspn zest (6 in total) because I LOVE zest.  basically just zest every single lemon.  Yummmm
3. I think I may have used 1/2cup sugar.  Honestly recipes really vary on this.  I would say use the standard amount unless you are trying to cut back for some reason.  

The method I followed:

1. Melt the butter
2. Throw everything in a bowl
3. Taste it (yes I know there is raw egg).  make sure it's not too sweet or sweet enough
4. Whisk it until blended
5. Microwave for 1min
6. Whisk until blended
7. Iterate 5&6 until it starts ballooning in size
8. Microwave in 30sec increments with lots of whisking maybe 3-4 more times
9. Take a small amount on a spoon and put it in the freezer for a minute.  Does it firm up?  If yes you are done cooking, if not, microwave some more
10. Strain the lemon curd through a mesh strainer to remove zest bits and make a smoother consistency
11. Chill

So good there's none left

The one thing I was really disappointing in that I made for the tea party was scones.  They came out like really dense sugar cookies.  I will be working on scone recipes in the coming few weeks trying to perfect one, because seriously!

Ratatouille

OMG, a new post!
The horrid summer heat of Walnut Creek is receding, and a young girl's thoughts turn once more to ovens.

I looked in my fridge Thursday and realized that the only thing in there was all the ingredients for ratatouille.  Sio that had to happen!

There are a million ways to make this dish, but I primarily read Julia Child's recipe, the wikipedia article and a nice article in the Guardian.  (A shout out here to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, my 2yr home town paper).

Rifling through these I evaluated all steps for a) necessity and b) difficulty.  Here is what I did:

Step 1) make a piperade

• Saute one large onion (finely diced) and 2 bell peppers (finely diced) until soft
• Add minced garlic to taste, bay, thyme, and herbs de provence
• Add 2-3 small tomatoes (also finely chopped but neither peeled nor seeded) and simmer down till thick

Piperade

Grilled veggies are yumm

Step 2) grill veggies slices

• Slice up equal amounts of eggplant (1med-peeled)  zucchini (2 large) and tomatoes (3 med)
• Grill the zucchini and eggplant slices.  I did this on my cast iron griddle while simmering the piperade and it was very little effort for big payoff.

Step 3) bake it

• In a pot (I used the same cast iron one I had made the piperade in) layer piperade, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, more piprerade.
•   I think I should actually have put the tomatoes between the eggplant and zucchini.
• Place in a 350F oven with a lid 3/4 on, and leave to bake down for 90min-2hrs/when your house starts smelling like deliciousness

I ate it with some Parmesan cheese over rice.  My only two criticisms:   Needs more eggplant!!!  Also, it seems a waste to cook heirloom tomatoes, given how delicious they are raw.  Especially in caprese.

Fun fact:  I found out while doing research that Thomas Keller was the consulting chef for the film Ratatouille.  I suspect this was just so Pixar guys could try and work expense meals at the French Laundry (The first place I will eat upon becoming filthy rich).

Heirloom tomatoes in all their glory

My camera is useless once the sun goes down.  I promise this looked more appealing than the amorphous yellow blob leftover when I remembered to take a pic at 10pm

+Slack -Cholesterol Hippie Instant Pancakes

Months ago, for a party, we bought some Bisquick, and then had it lying around the house.  I really loved this stuff, in terms of have quick just-add-water pancakes.  I didn't need milk or eggs or anything refrigerated, just the mix.  Nevertheless, when we ran out I didn't buy more, because I try to eat whole wheat stuff, and it was not.

However, as a friend pointed out, Trader Joe's also has well received multi-grain baking mix, so I thought I would try that.  Only, it need milk and eggs!!  what?!  Why don't I just make the damn things myself then?  Is adding baking powder really that much of an inconvenience?  When I want to go lazy, I want to go all the way.


This desire for slack has combined with my current desire to eat less cholesterol, and hot internet cooking trends regarding chia seeds, to produce the following recipe for an instant pancake mix:

In a mason jar, combine:

• 3 cups Trader Joe's multigrain baking mix
• 5 tablespoons nonfat milk powder
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 tablespoon baking powder

Make sure to leave 1/3 the volume of the jar empty, so you can vigorously shake everything together to mix it.

When in urgent need of pancakes, combine 2pts of dry mix to 1pt water, stir, and let sit 15min in the fridge.

I think this will be really useful if I start backpacking again. 

How did I get those numbers?

Milk:

According to my dry milk package, 3tbspns dry milk  should be added to 8oz water, though you can go higher for richer milk.

Chia Seeds:

Here is the gooy mix, in all its glory.

The chia seed amount was all about whether you trust public opinion, or expertise.  Bob's Red Mill says that 1/2 teaspoon of chia seeds + 1 tablespoon water = 1 egg equivalent.  The entire rest of the internet (mostly independent food blogs) say 1tbspn of chia seeds + 3tbspns water = 1 egg.  That is a 6 fold discrepancy   As a food blog writer, I am naturally suspicious of the so-called expertise of parvenues like myself, but I 1/2 teaspoon seemed SO little, so I added 1 teaspoon.

The first batch of pancakes were very thin, and so I added both some more dry mix, and more chia seed for the last pancake  It looked lovely, but was substantially more gluey.  Therefore, I decided to stick with the original chia seed amount, but reduce the overall water slightly.  If this doesn't work (I was too full of pancakes to make another batch), I'll revise this article.

Baking Soda:

I basically added this for luck, and because I worry that the baking soda in packaged mixes has gotten old.  Feel free to leave it out.

Pancakes, showing thin and thick

Stir Fry!

I am posting today on my post-Christmas obsession with stir fry.  Though I will discuss a specific dish, I am not going to post the recipe since it is an un-deviated-from duplicate of that in my stir fry cookbook.  Instead I am going to talk about the process and equipment.

First, let me describe the first recipe I cooked:

For Christmas my husband bought me a wok, my sisters bought me a mushroom farm, and I bought myself a cookbook.  So I decided to make chicken with carrots and shitake mushrooms.

Here are the mushrooms, both in all their farmed glory and sliced beside carrots:

 



I have really enjoyed the farm.  It will send out 3 crops over a few months and is fun to watch grow.  They can be bought at the S.F. Ferry building from Far West Fungi.


And here is the completed dish:


The spice level and flavor complexity in this is very low, but the earthy  umami of the mushrooms combined with sweet carrots make it addictive and comforting.  I repeated it recently in a meal for two friends, but using dry mushrooms (which is what the recipe calls for, and found them far inferior to the fresh option, but still good.

















To make stir fry at home you really only need 4 things:

1. A 14 inch carbon steel wok that has been thoroughly cleaned and then seasoned.  These are cheap and can be found at Asian markets or in china town or online.
2. A metal spatula
3. A cookbook (I use "Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge"and like most of the recipes)
4. A trip to Ranch 99 or a similar store where you can buy the ~10 condiments needed to cover basic stir fry.

The process is pretty easy and quick.  The big points are to treat your wok like any other seasoned iron cooking vessel (no soap, clean with scrubbing and hot water or a salt oil rub) and to prepare all ingredients ahead of time because the actual cooking process is often <5min, with a lot going on.  It does require a somewhat good eye for vegetable cooking stages.  Sometimes on my small residential gas range the suggested times in the recipes are off (1min becomes 2) and I just have listen to the sizzle and watch the coloration.

I have found that stir fry combined with a pack of frozen chicken breasts from Trader Joes and a rice cooker  yield's reliably tasty, low fat, high vegetable content meals that can be done in <30min from first slicing vegetables to cleaning the wok.  Because I already enjoyed Chinese food, this has become my normal weeknight meal / next day's lunch.