Corn Veg Soup

This is a soup I threw together to use up frozen grilled corn from last summer. It’s from a memory of the one vacation we took growing up. When I was about 6 years old, we flew from the east coast where we lived to California to visit my grandfather and his sisters. They lived in small trailer houses, so we split up. My sister and I stayed with one aunt, who served us soup the night we arrived. It was different, a liquid white base with green beans, corn, and carrots. This brings me back to that night, of a warm welcome, meeting our nice aunts, our big family vacation, and staying away from mom and dad, which was sort of an adventure.

Makes approximately 6 servings.

4c chicken broth
Butter or olive oil
4 carrots, chopped
1 c green beans, chopped
1 c corn (from approx 2 ears)
1 red bell pepper
2 c ½ and ½ or whole milk
Salt
Pepper

1. In a soup pot, warm the chicken broth.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter or olive oil in a large frying pan. Sauté carrots, green beans, and corn for about 1 min.
3. Bring broth to a simmer. Transfer vegetables from the fry pan to the broth in the pot. Add bell pepper. Simmer approx 5 min (a couple min.s longer if you plan to serve immediately).
4. Add milk and reduce heat when warm, before milk simmers. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Potato Leek Soup

This is one of my favorite soups.  It's adapted from Delia Smith with a little Jamie Oliver twist (see references, http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes/leek-and-potato-soup-usa-version-imperia).

4 large leeks, diced
2 shallots, diced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced (bite size)
2 carrots, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 T butter
4 c chicken stock (or water)
10 oz milk
salt and fresh ground pepper
For serving: fresh chives or parsley and cream

To prepare leeks:  Chop off roots and dark green tops, just after the spot where the leaves start splitting apart, and discard the outer hard leaves (or keep for stock). Chop in half lengthwise and rinse with water to clean. Then finish chopping.

1. In a large, thick-bottomed pot, melt butter. Add all the veg: leeks, shallots, potatoes, carrots, and garlic. Mix, cook at low sizzle for about 15 min.

2. Add chicken stock and milk. Simmer with lid on for about 20 min or until vegetables are fork tender. Be careful not to turn up heat too high or milk will boil over.

3.  Add salt and pepper to taste (taste test by pouring from a clean spoon onto a tasting spoon).

4. I eat it like this, with a T of cream, and if available, a sprinkling of fresh chives or parsley. If you like, the soup can be pureed before serving. Wait for soup to cool enough that it doesn’t steam when stirred. Then puree in a blender. Return to pot to reheat before serving with cream and herbs.

Vegetarian Recipes

There's a book called "Feast without Yeast" by Bruce Semon, MD and Lori Kornblum, PhD, that is mostly vegetarian recipes that overlap quite well with the Heal Your Headache (HYH) diet. It has information that links some of the foods together from Dr Buchholz's migraine trigger list (such as nuts and fermented foods).  Whether it's the same reason for triggering migraines or not, it's interesting.  I bought the book because it uses honey as a sweetener, as one Amazon reviewer complained, well, because this is in contrast to other yeast-free diets.  Incidentally, migraines also run in Dr Semon's family, and they have long been making the food-migraine connection and avoiding select foods.   

Semon calls for no vinegar in the diet, and recipes use fresh lemon juice instead.   That's the only modification I've made to the Heal Your Headache diet to use these recipes.  I still eat the other allowed foods for HYH (except white vinegar and yeast), and still avoid the other non-allowed foods in HYH (other than fresh squeezed lemon juice).  If you find you don't tolerate some of the vegetables allowed in the HYH diet, you could try only using them cooked.  I find i'm fine with cooked tomatoes, shallots, and green onions, but probably not raw ones.  Semon uses lots of tomatoes in his recipes.

The book is well organized and has over 200 recipes.   They were developed for kids with other medical problems, but I'm finding I get lots of recipes and fresh ideas from it.  Thankfully, he includes useful tips for gradually changing the diet.  With his book, I am looking forward to adding beans and more soups to my diet. I already subscribe to the frequent use of brown rice and potatoes that he suggests, but now have more recipes for these as well.

Buchholz's "Heal your Headache" drastically changed my health, and thus every day life for me and my family.  Semon's book is another great tool (in addition to Heidi Gunderson's cookbook) for applying the diet in HYH and learning more about what's in food and about food intolerances/sensitivities.  Semon is an MD that has helped many patients and one of his own children by using the diet, a very touching story he includes for the readers' benefit.  He seems to have begun with observations and theories and then learned from his experience with many patients, through trial and error and much listening and observation.  Sound like anyone else?  "Thanks!" to both Buchholz and Semon!

Cole Slaw

This is a good side dish for a picnic, pitch-in, or pot luck.  Brought it to a party the other day and enjoyed it.  It's based on a friend and excellent cook's, Barb's, recipe.

Vegetables:
Small head green cabbage, core removed, sliced thin

1 red or orange bell pepper, sliced thin

Dressing:
1/2 c distilled white vinegar
1/2 c apple juice
1/2 c olive oil
1/2 c maple syrup
1t salt
1 t powdered mustard (such as Coleman's)
1 t celery seeds
1 t cayenne pepper flakes

1.  Slice cabbage and bell pepper and set aside in a glass or ceramic bowl.
2.  Combine dressing ingredients in a pot and stir over low heat until salt dissolves.
3.  Pour dressing over cabbage and bell pepper.   Refrigerate.

Finola’s Vegetable Soup

This is my wonderful mother-in-law's wonderful vegetable soup, without any migraine trigger foods.  It transports me back to her kitchen across the ocean.  The parsnip gives it a sweet and tart flavor.  Parsnips look like white carrots.  They seem common in Ireland, but I had never eaten them in the U.S. until after visiting Ireland.  Since the parsnip is the dominant flavor in this recipe, if you find you would prefer a milder taste, you can use 1/2 a parsnip and 1 1/2 or 2 carrots instead. 

Makes 4 bowls of soup

3 shallots, chopped
3 mushrooms the size of button mushrooms, washed (use water and paper towel), sliced (hard stems discarded)
butter and/or olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 carrot, chop all remaining veg same size
1 parsip (no larger than the carrot), chopped
a little cabbage, shredded
optional: 1 small zucchini, cubed
1 large potato with peal, cubed
1 quart chicken stock
1 t rosemary
1 T fresh parsley
Salt and fresh ground pepper
1 T cream per serving

1. Wash all vegetables and chop the shallots and mushrooms. Then proceed to the next step.
2. Caramelize mushrooms and shallots (15 min at low sizzle in olive oil and/or butter; can be translucent or browned on edges when done) on opposite sides of large fry pan.
3. Meanwhile, if chicken stock is frozen, put it in a pot where soup will be cooked over low heat to thaw. Chop the garlic, carrot, parsnip, zucchini, cabbage (shredded), potato, and parsley. Chop all vegetables the same size.
4. Transfer onions and mushrooms into the soup pot. Turn up the heat slightly and sauté the garlic and remaining vegetables for about 2 min.
5. Pour contents of fry pan into the soup, turn up heat to simmer, and add rosemary and parsley and a little salt and pepper. When vegetables are fork tender, remove from heat. Check after the first 5 min., if vegetables were chopped small, it may be done already.
6. If you have time, let soup cool a little before pureeing, so steam isn't putting pressure on the lid of the blender.  Pour soup into blender and puree until the consistency of a thick smoothie. Add salt and pepper to taste. To taste test: use 2 spoons: keep one clean and pour into a 2nd you can keep reusing to taste.
7. Add 1 T cream to each bowl when serving. Mix. The cream not only tastes good, it’s supposed to make more of the nutrients in the vegetables bioavailable since some nutrients require others to be absorbed.

Tomato Sauce

I wish I could post aromas. There's a tradeoff when switching to cooking from scratch instead of grabbing pre-made items off the grocery store shelf. Benefits of cooking, besides better health, are the scent of sizzling shallots or simmering tomato sauce and the fresh, delicate taste of this sauce. I often make double batches and freeze the rest for later. For making a couple personal size pizzas later, freeze sauce in 1 c containers.

Ingredients

Optional, any or all:
1 lb ground beef (ground round works nicely, it's 15% fat)
1 carrot, finely shredded
1 zucchini, finely shredded
1 celery stalk, chopped

Basic sauce:
3 shallots, chopped
2 T olive oil
3 large tomatoes, mixed smooth in blender
14 oz can diced tomatoes or Roma tomatoes (or 3 more large tomatoes blended if tomatoes are in season)
1 t salt
½ t fresh ground pepper
1 t basil
1 t oregano
¼ t thyme
1 bay leaf
A pinch of garlic powder

Quick Sauce:
Same as basic sauce, except use a 14 oz can of tomatoes and 12 oz tomato paste. Simmer only 20 min, adding water as needed.

Directions

Optional:
1. Brown hamburger with shallots in large, deep skillet. Add carrot, zucchini, and celery and simmer 3 min.
Or:
1. Heat olive oil in large pot on medium heat. Cook onions until tender, about 6-8 min., never reaching more than a slow sizzle.
2. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer uncovered 30 min. for 3 fresh tomatoes and 60 min for 6 fresh tomatoes, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaf.