So, I’m on Day 4 of the cleanse, and it’s going pretty well.  This is an easy week, though– eating plant foods while eliminating caffeine, sugar, dairy, alcohol, meat products, you know the drill.  I usually eat plant foods, so that part wasn’t hard.  It was the caffeine and sugar that got me.  The first day I had the traditional caffeine withdrawal headache, but that night I got food poisoning so that kinda started me off with (literally) a bad taste in my mouth.  But I persevered.  I know, you are all proud of me.

Now I feel better and the sugar and caffeine cravings are subsiding.  Next week will be harder with only raw plant foods, and I’m terrified for week 3 which is all liquid plant foods.  One day at a time, y’all.

So, the other night I made a Moroccan-style stew for dinner, since the program called for a vegetable stew but I didn’t really like the recipe.  It was quite delicious, and my Speedlite flash had arrived that day so it gave me a chance to try it out while taking shots of the stew.

I adapted this recipe from Dean Ornish’s book, which I’ve done before, and it turned out pretty well so I thought I’d share it.

Moroccan-Style Vegetable Stew

serves 4

• 1 medium onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups diced zucchini
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled, in 1/2″ dice
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper (or whatever color you can find)
• 1 cup diced yellow bell pepper
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (preferably no salt added)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 15 oz. can chickpeas or great northern beans, or beans of your choice
• 1/4 cup bulgur wheat

In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the zucchini, sweet potato, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 5 minutes until vegetables soften.  Add the vegetable broth and bring to a simmer.  Cover, lower heat, and simmer for 5 more minutes.  Uncover and add the beans and bulgur wheat.  Simmer for 10 more minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes and serve.

It’s a really easy recipe and has a slightly more unusual taste with the spices.  You can serve it over a bed of pasta, couscous, or brown rice.  Or just eat it alone!

I’m joining in the Real Food Wednesday blog carnival for the first time here, so, hello!  You can see all the great posts on real food here.

The 3 year old decided the other day that he wanted to make his own sandwich up.  It started with every mother’s dream request: “Mommy, can I have spinach on my sandwich?”  And I was all, “YES YOU MAY!”

He was eating turkey, and then he wanted cheese, too, and, as the pièce de resistance, he added… apple.  And you know what?  It was pretty darn good.  Good enough for us to add this sandwich to our repetoire (I guess I’m loving the French expressions today).

I tried to come up with a name via acronym for all the elements of the sandwich.  It’s kind of amazing how many words you can make out of the letters T-C-A-S.  CATS?  Too grounded in reality.  ACTS?  Too verby.  SCAT?  I do NOT want to eat a scat sandwich.  Although the boys would think this was hilarious, no doubt.  So, SACT it is, for now.

The SACT Sandwich

• whole wheat bread
• sliced deli turkey (we used honey roasted)
• cheese (we used Muenster)
• thinly sliced apple (we used Gala)
• baby spinach leaves

Pile it all on the bread and you are good to go.  I recommend putting the spinach somewhere in the middle, as it tends to slide off if it’s right next to the bread.

he was very proud of himself

very proud, indeed.

That’s quite a title, yeah?  I was trying to get all the elements of this post into one snappy, title, but I didn’t really succeed.  At least with the snappiness.

I did another pantry challenge meal the other day while simultaneously returning to my roots.  My maternal grandmother’s family was from Slovenia, and in fact, my great aunt was very heavily involved in that community– I think she ran an import store and she always sent us all kinds of information about Slovenian traditions and such.  So I have quite a few old Slovenian recipes that I go back to every once in a while.

This time, I had a head of cabbage that I meant to juice (delicious, right?  that’s why I never got around to juicing it) that was languishing in my fridge.  And, I recently read that cabbage is an up and coming superfood.  AND, then I remembered that I have a pretty good cabbage recipe from my grandmother.  It’s a dish called Galuska.  There seems to be both Hungarian and Polish versions of this recipe, so it might be a kind of Eastern European staple.  Since it’s just cabbage and noodles, that’s not surprising, I suppose.

I decided to whip up a batch of galuska.  My recipe calls for egg noodles, but I didn’t have any of those. Looking into the pantry, though, I did have some organic soba noodles that needed to be used up.  Hmmm… Slovenian-Japanese fusion?  Why on earth not?

So I created my own cuisine, making soba galuska.  Fab, right?

My recipe is quite retro– one of those recipes with no measurements, just some instructions.  Here it is in original form:

Galuska

Cut a head of cabbage very fine.  Add salt, pepper, paprika.  Cover and cook in 1/4 pound of butter (!) about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cook egg noodles as directed and mix with cabbage. Fry until brown. (Add fried bread crumbs– optional). One package noodles, one head cababge.

Yes, this is the recipe I actually have on an index card in my recipe box.  Straight from grandma, doncha know.

So, I adapted it to more modern standards, adding the Japanese fusion, and here’s what I got:

21st Century Galuska

• 1 head cabbage, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp salt
• dash pepper
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 8 oz soba noodles

Melt the butter in a large pan over medium high heat.  Add the cabbage, salt, pepper and paprika and cook, stirring and tossing often, until the cabbage is soft and translucent, about 7 – 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook the soba according to pacakge directions.  When the soba is cooked, drain well and add to the cabbage. Cook both together until well blended, about 3 – 5 minutes.

I suppose you could use a mandoline to speed up the slicing process, but I have a hard time keeping the head intact while I do that, so I just went old school and used my santoku.

I reduced the amount of butter called for, but if you really love butter and aren’t worried about your arteries, you can use a full stick like my grandma used to.  Or, alternately, you can use a little olive oil, but I would recommend mixing it with butter, because the butter is really divine with the cabbage.

I know, it probably doesn’t look that appetizing.  It’s kinda all white and plain looking.  But it’s pretty delish.  The kids did not really like it, but I suppose cabbage is more of an acquired taste.  They ate all the soba out while singing “The Cabbage Song,” which was surprisingly appropriate.  The 6 year old learned this song in violin, and it goes something like this: “I don’t like that cab-bage; I don’t like that cab-bage…”  I’ll have to have him sing it and post the video, cause I can’t find it online.

Anyway, if you’re up for it, try the galuska.  It’s an adventure, folks.