CHICKPEA TUNA OR CHICKEN SALAD

This is really easy and really tasty.  You can adjust each of the ingredients to fit into your favorite chicken or tuna salad recipe.


1 15 oz can chickpeas/garbanzo beans rinsed (they're the same thing)
1 stalk celery fine dice
3 tsp sweet relish
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dill (dry) seed or 1 tablespoon fresh finely chopped
2 tsp dijon mustard
2 Tbl mayonnaise or Aioli  (this is no oil and no dairy mayo)
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Pulse the chickpeas in a food processor.  Don't over do it.  You want them to be chopped but not a paste.  Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix well.  This will taste better the longer it sits.  Adjust the mayo, mustard and seasonings to your own taste buds.

SPLIT PEA SOUP

I was trying to figure out a way to make this usually rich soup as flavorful as possible without the ham and oil that's associated with it.  This soup turned out even better than I imagined and I can't wait for the next bowl.

Ingredients:

8 carrots peeled and sliced into half inch thick circles
4 ribs of celery diced into quarter inch pieces
1 onion diced (it's about a cup to a cup and a half)
1/2 cup of brandy
2 Tbl garlic (finely diced)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1 1/2 Tbl Better Than Bouillon No Beef Base
8 cups Roasted Vegetable Stock
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
4 cups water
2 cups split peas that have been rinsed (make sure you look for anything other than peas, like stones)
4 potatoes cleaned and diced
1 tsp Smoked Salt (optional, but I received a bunch of flavored salts for Christmas and one was hickory Smoked, you can use regular sea salt)
1/4 tsp liquid smoke
3 cups shredded brussel sprouts

Heat a stock pot.  To the pot add the carrots, celery and onion.  Keep moving them around so they brown but don't burn.  You may add water if they are sticking too much.  After about 7 minutes sauteing, remove the pot from the heat and add the brandy.  Return to the heat and stir the mirepoix continuously until the brandy cooks out.  Now add the garlic and stir it around a bit.  Add all of the roasted vegetable stock, vinegar, turmeric, white pepper, and split peas.  Cook covered for about 45 minutes.  Add the potatoes, bouillon, salt and liquid smoke.  Look at the inside of the pan and gauge where the original stock line was before it reduced.  You want to keep the liquid level at the original level so add water from the remaining 4 cups in order to achieve this.  Continue cooking  covered for another half hour and then add the brussel sprouts.  The soup is ready when the peas are soft.  Check for salt at this point and add more if you feel it needs it.

*Note:  Once the Soup is done and before you add the shredded brussel sprouts, you can blend everything together using a Cuisinart, immersion blender, Vita Mix or any other blender to get the same consistency as Split Pea soup.  Either way, it's delicious.

I served this with crusty whole wheat sourdough, my Cream Cheeze to which I added fresh lemon juice and red wine vinegar.  Sprinkled on the bread was Alderwood Smoked Salt.  I'm really having fun with the different salts.  The salt is more intense in these so added benefit is you use less and get more flavor.

Cream Cheeze and Sourdough

There's nothing better than being able to eat decadent food without the repercussions, and it's good for you.  Here I've baked 3 different loaves of real sourdough.  A good deal of what you buy at the store is made of flour, a citric acid for the sour, yeast for the rise.  True sourdough is a longer process.  You need to have a Mother Starter (I've got 2 and they're almost three years old...one for wheat and one for white) which is used in place of yeast.  All of the breads made prior to the invention of commercial yeast 100 years ago and which most bakers use today,  were made with bread with a Starter.  The quick explanation of a starter is it's a combination of flour and water that ferments over time, needs to be fed regularly, and pulls yeast into it from the air.  The yeast eat the sugar in the flour causing it to bubble and become sponge like and this is what's used to make the bread.  The bread becomes sour because of the fermented yeast starter, and the dough which usually has an 8-12 hour rise period at which time the sourness is intensified.

If anyone wants more information about making sourdough bread I'd be more than happy to share it with you.  One of the things that I have learned while researching sourdough over the years, is that white sourdough that is made the slow fermentation way using a starter is OK for people with sugar issues to eat as the sugars in the white flour are gone by the time you are done baking so your body won't treat it in the same manner as other simple carbohydrates.  These pictures have 2 different versions of 100% whole wheat, no oil sourdough and one loaf of 100% white flour, no oil sourdough.

I read a lot of recipes for making cream cheese and after much experimentation have perfected this one.

5 oz. by weight raw cashews  (approx. 1 cup dry measure)

Cover cashews with water to soak

(A little side note here:  I am a firm believer that everyone should have a good kitchen scale.  When a recipe gives you measurement by weight it is much more accurate than cup measurement or by volume.  5 oz. by weight is roughly 1 measuring cup of cashews even though 8 oz by volume is actually a cup.  See the difference?  This way, no matter how you measure using a measuring cup, you'll never get the same amount twice...that's why I like using measurement by weight)

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt (fine grind)

7 oz. volume Non GMO silken tofu, water squeezed out (it will be about 5 oz. by weight after you squeeze out the water.  Roughly half a block as it usually comes in 14 oz blocks.)

Soak the Cashews for at least an hour but preferably overnight.  Using a blender, magic bullet or Vitamix, blend all ingredients except the water until they become creamy.  If you think the consistency is too thick, add water a little at a time.  You're going to drain out the water anyway, so add the amount you think will aid you in getting it out of the blender, but not too much that will make it impossible to put in a cheese cloth.

The picture with the tomatoes is the Cream Cheeze right after I finished making it.  The picture below is after I took the cream cheeze above and put it in a cheese cloth, pulled it together in a satchel that I closed with a rubber-band and then I hung it over a bowl in the refrigerator overnight (I used a chopstick to support the cheeze over the bowl with two high bowls holding it up.  Next time I'll add a picture of this process)