Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580

October 3, 2007:  Creative Cooking for Special Needs Diets

Many people have found that they simply feel better if they stop eating certain foods.  The challenge is to make meals pleasing and tasty when trying to avoid or minimize certain items.  The goal is to find entirely new foods to use rather than feeling that you’re doing without a particular ingredient.

Doyle became diabetic which cut out a lot of things.  Instead of thinking of it in terms of denying certain foods, he now thinks it as of adding on other things he never would have used before. 

Recently, Doyle has also been having trouble with gout, which is just horrible, and many of the medicines that might be used conflict with other medications he must take.  The way to alleviate gout is to avoid purines, which are in all meat (including fish and chicken), and certain vegetables:  asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower, spinach, and beans.  But he keeps finding other vegetables to replace them, in particular, mirlitons or chayotes, a strange little green kind of like a squash.

While he alters recipes to cut out the meat, he finds that it’s possible to eat other dishes where meat doesn’t enter at all, focusing on the positive rather than on what’s missing.  There are now so many spices and herbs that add richness to foods. 

A caller from Chicago recommends the advice of Dr. James A. Duke, an ethnobotanist who has written extensively on gout (see, for example, http://www.health911.com/remedies/rem_gout.htm); he recommends celery seed extract as a counter factor to gout. 

MEATLESS STRATA

Take a whole loaf of Italian bread and cut lengthwise.  Smear mustard on it, then pimento cheese spread, and cover with the top of the bread.  Pour egg  mixture over it, and bake.  A great baked cheese sandwich.

MEATLESS PESTO PIZZA

A caller from Champaign has a family that doesn’t like pesto on pasta too much.  So she experimented to make a meatless pesto pizza.  It’s not low calorie because of the cheese, but it is meatless and delicious and the family loved it.  She used olive oil in the dough to add some flavor.  Then, she spread pesto instead of tomato sauce on the dough, followed by a combination of cheeses, provolone and mozzarella, and onions and sweet peppers with sliced tomatoes on top. 

AVOIDING WHEAT GLUTEN WITH QUINOA

A caller from Urbana has a daughter in law who cannot eat gluten due to migraines.  She was offered a recipe using quinoa, but information said that to get rid of the bitter taste, you need to wash it five times and rub it, which seems a lot of work.  Doyle has used red quinoa (Inca red), which is a little smaller, but you must wash it in a sieve with running water, and cook it until it is done: the seeds lose their outer hulls, a white surface appears and it also falls off, and then it’s ready to eat. 

QUINOA TABOULI SALAD

Cook red quinoa until it is done.  Add lemon juice, parsley, jicama chopped up (celery would do), green onions, and tomatoes, and a bit of balsamic vinegar to offset the tartness of the lemon juice. 

The caller mentioned that some people can’t stand celery and can taste it in a recipe; yes, it’s a strong taste; Doyle uses jicama for that crunch and it’s a little more anonymous in taste. 

The caller also recommended a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (2006; ISBN 193361501X) – a light guacamole recipe that retains some avocado for its buttery texture and flavor, but replaces some of the avocado with lima beans to keep the calories low.

FLOURLESS CORN BREAD

A caller from Urbana offered the only flourless corn bread recipe she has encountered, which is great for people who have allergies to wheat.   

• 1½ cups corn meal (stone ground)

• 1 tsp. salt

• 1½ tsp. baking powder

• 2 eggs

• 1 cup milk

• 1/3 cup oil (canola)

• ¼ pound grated cheddar cheese

• 4-oz. can chopped green chilis

• 1 cup corn (creamed or whole kernel)

Bake in a 9x9 greased pan at 400° for 45 minutes (because of cheese and corn it takes a while). 

Variation: instead of greasing the bottom of the pan, fry up ground sausage and put that in the bottom of the pan.  That’s really good and popular at potlucks.

SPLENDA INSTEAD OF SUGAR

A caller from Aurora reported on a lemon chicken recipe she got from Splenda, and praised Splenda for its good qualities as a substitute for sugar.  Doyle also likes Splenda, but doesn’t use a whole lot.  In small quantities, it is good in iced tea and desserts.  There is a web site, www.splenda.com, which contains a lot of recipes.  You can also sign up for a newsletter.  But Doyle has learned that he doesn’t need as much sugar taste as he used to think he did!  He does use sugar sparingly for its chemical properties in some recipes, e.g., when you need to caramelize something.   Baking with Splenda is easier than with Equal. 

A caller from east of Danville reports that she uses brown sugar Splenda on oatmeal with cinnamon.  The brown sugar Splenda is half actual sugar, the other half Splenda, and it is good in cooking, even works in cakes.  But it does contain sugar, so you have to be careful. 

A caller from Chicago suggests that cinnamon has an ameliorating effect on diabetes, ¼ tsp. a day, can be steeped in hot water.  The extract is available in health food stores.

FAT-FREE POACHED SALMON

A caller from Champaign who is trying to eliminate fat finds that poaching is a good technique. 

• 1½ pounds salmon, filleted

• 1 can diced tomatoes

• 1/3 cup fat-free Italian salad dressing

• 1 tsp. minced garlic

• 1 Tbsp. dried basil

Stew the tomatoes with the salad dressing, garlic and basic, a bit, then put the salmon on top, cover it on the stove, and poach for about ten minutes.  Serve with brown rice or wild rice.

The caller also doesn’t like onions, but it’s a texture thing rather than flavor, so she cooks with onion powder, which gives the flavor but doesn’t have the onion bite.

SUBSTITUTES FOR FAT

A caller from Champaign explains that “yogurt cheese” can be used to replace sour cream or cream cheese in a recipe.  This is yogurt drained through cheesecloth, which removes about half the volume. You can also use plain yogurt without draining it if the recipe has some liquid that you can reduce or if it doesn’t matter. 

Substitute light pancake syrup for some of the margarine in recipes.  Or, when baking oatmeal cookies use drained applesauce  as a partial substitute for butter (1 cup applesauce when drained through cheesecloth yields ¾ cup drained applesauce, which will be gummy; with 2 Tbsps butter it can substitute for 1 cup of butter).  Even commercial bakers are beginning to use fruit purées in lieu of some butter.  Prune puree is so used. 

You can substitute half whole wheat flour for regular flour without altering other parts of the recipe.  Doyle uses white whole wheat flour, available from King Arthur, which you can use for all the flour in a recipe.  Caller cannot stand cilantro, tastes like soap.