Blood tests | Tomato-artichoke soup | Free bread

I'm a difficult draw. And I don't mean with a pencil. I'm referring to getting a blood sample out of the teeny tiny veins in my arm. Every so often a technician will need to call for assistance to get the job done, but there's always been someone at whatever lab I'm at who could just go right in and collect a sample with one try. Recently, I had an unpleasant (HA! understatement) experience at a lab, where, after trying repeatedly to draw blood from both arms, the first technician turned me over to her partner. Tech #2 tried in both arms and failed. She asked if I just wanted to give up and leave but I said no, I wanted to get this required blood test done. Seriously, I try to stay calm and friendly during these sessions because I don't want to be a negative influence on the proceedings, and make things worse, but sometimes it's sure hard to maintain composure in the face of ineptitude. I was keeping calm as best I could when I glanced at Tech #2, and observed her shaking her head. I looked at her fingers, tapping away at my arm, and they were shaking, too. At that point I said, "OK. I think I'm done." And I left. Sheesh.

On Saturday I was finally ready to give it another go at a different lab, and as I faced my first technician, I gently and calmly told her what she was up against, in case she wanted to bail. She was confident, and I liked her. I had to fast for 12 hours for the test but I had drunk lots of water because that's supposed to help in situations like mine. The technician gave me even more water to drink, and she put a hot pack on my arm. I was beginning to worry. After one unsuccessful poke, she called an associate, and I smiled on the outside and cried on the inside, as I met my new tormentor. This woman, bless her, immediately found a vein and got the sample. I got her name and the hours she works, and when I need blood drawn again, I'm making a beeline for her lab.



It's weird that this post is ultimately going to be about tomato soup. I wasn't thinking about the color connection before I started writing but, there it is. It's a little disturbing to me but I hope you'll take it in stride and try this soup. :) I've been wanting to make tomato soup ever since I had a stellar version in a small café on Bainbridge Island, and I think I figured out the special flavor in that soup — artichoke hearts. I was going to wait for fresh, summer tomatoes to make it but it's just too long to wait. (If you use fresh tomatoes you might want to remove the skin and seeds.)

For the tomatoes I used Bionaturæ organic strained tomatoes with no salt added, which comes in a glass bottle, but I don't see why regular canned tomatoes or tomato purée wouldn't work. This tomato purée is very thick. (I started using jarred tomatoes when I became aware of the the dangers of BPA in the can linings.) The artichoke hearts were quartered and packed in water, but, if you don't worry about extra fat, oil-packed ones would probably be even more delicious. I rinsed the artichokes to reduce the sodium a bit, but you don't have to. I used basil for my dried herb but I think rosemary or savory might be good options.



Tomato-artichoke soup (very fast, easy and delicious)

• 2 cups chopped onion
• olive oil (about 1 tablespoon)
  
• 24 oz. tomatoes (mine were strained, puréed, no salt, bottled)
• 2-1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth, or regular vegetable broth
  
• 1 cup jarred artichoke hearts, drained and quartered (mine were packed in water)
  
• up to 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (to taste)
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 1 teaspoon dried herb of choice
• salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

1. In a soup pot, sauté the onions in a small amount of olive oil until translucent, about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally so they don't burn.
2. Add the tomatoes, broth, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, artichokes and frozen corn.
3. Blend with an immersion blender until the vegetables are uniform but the soup isn't completely smooth. It should have a bit of texture but no chunks. (You could also use a regular blender.)
4. Heat until hot. Add herbs, salt and pepper to taste, and more lemon if needed.

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Free bread (for me AND for you!)



Wendy McClelland, the marketing manager at Silver Hills Bakery in Abbotsford, BC. was kind enough to send me a coupon to try a free loaf of their bread. According to Wendy, "Our organic bread is made without flour – when we get our grain (from a farm run on wind energy) we sprout it in a unique 36 hour process. This sprouting increases overall nutrition, triples the fiber and improves the digestibility. We have been making bread this way for [more than] 20 years, and still believe it is the healthiest way."



I found the bread at our local food coop but there was only one loaf left, so I didn't have a choice of which kind to try. I really liked the flavor and chewy texture; it was just the way I prefer bread to taste — not too sweet, not too salty, with a full grain presence. My only complaint was the bread didn't seem particularly fresh, and was a little dry. I don't know how often it's delivered to the store or how long it had been sitting on the shelf. I'd have to try it again before making a judgement.



My solution was to toast it, and it made a great accompaniment to the tomato soup we had for supper. If you'd like to try a free loaf, Silver Hills will send a coupon to anyone who takes simple online survey. I took the survey before offering it to you just to see what it was like, and it's easy and unobtrusive. You can find the survey here. Check their Web site to see if the bread is sold where you live. In addition to the sprouted wheat bread, they also make a gluten-free loaf.

Full disclosure: I was given a free coupon to try the bread but was under no obligation to write about it favorably, or at all. All opinions are mine.

Thanksgiving has come and gone

My plate from bottom left: stuffed, roasted seitan with mushroom gravy, salad, potato kugel, roasted veggies and figs, herbed orange-cranberry relish

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and most people have moved on, but I'm still dragging my feet about my Thanksgiving post. Please indulge me while I do a little blurb about our feast so I can move on, too. We had the whole family at our home this year which was a unique treat for us since we've not lived in the same city with all our kids in a long time. The guests brought contributions to the meal so the work was spread around a little. I got so caught up in the celebrating that I forgot to photograph some parts of the feast, like the delicious potato kugel brought by our oldest son and daughter-in-law. This is an old family recipe that came to the U.S. with my Russian great-grandmother, and appears at nearly every family holiday event. It just wouldn't be a holiday without it. I forgot to photograph the Thai coconut corn soup based on a recipe in "Vegan Express" by Nava Atlas. I love this soup, and have served it to a LOT of people. (My adapted recipe appears at the end of this post.) And I didn't photograph the mushroom gravy.



The main dish for Thanksgiving at our house is always stuffed seitan. Here you see it (uncooked) in the baking dish with the stuffing. My husband's fingers are keeping the very elastic seitan from shrinking down into the pan while I do a photo shoot. The stuffing is brown rice, wild rice, home-made-bread cubes, mushrooms, celery, shredded carrots, onions, dried cranberries, herbs and spices, and maybe other things, too.



The seitan is first rolled out and then transferred to the dish, where it's filled, and the top folded over and sealed. It's always a stressful and comical process to roll out the stretchy seitan and get it into the dish before it shrinks up, but this year I made a brilliant discovery. I rolled the seitan onto a large sheet of parchment paper, and it seemed to stick in place. My husband and I then lifted the whole thing up and placed it, paper and all, into the dish, to be stuffed. (I also added chickpea flour to the seitan mix which may have made it more pliable.)



After the stuffed seitan was baked, we lifted it out of the baking dish and onto the serving platter using the paper. It was so much easier then trying to un-stick it from the pan! I raised the seitan up a little with a spatula and slid the paper out.



In the photo above you see the vegetables — Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots and potatoes — before they went into the oven to roast. When they were nearly done, dried figs were mixed in. I forgot to photograph the veggies after they were roasted to perfection with olive oil and herbs.



For starters, we had various raw veggies, olives, pickles, crackers, hummus and Tings. (Yes, that's right, Tings.) We also had bowls of Thai coconut corn soup. This soup takes only minutes to make but tastes like it took hours.



Here's the herbed cranberry-orange relish I blogged about recently. This time I remembered to decorate it.



This is the fabulous salad brought by our middle son and his girlfriend. It was delicious.



We had two desserts. We had almond twiles filled with pumpkin mousse. (Our mini-guest was particularly taken by the mousse and wanted more, more, more...)



And we had a pumpkin chocolate spice cake from this recipe, minus the anise (I HATE anise. Ugh.) and with only 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. (note: The ganache from the recipe didn't work for me — there was way too much liquid and it turned into chocolate milk. Luckily I had extra chocolate on hand and made my own version of ganache using only 1/4 cup of non-dairy milk, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and 1 tablespoon of Earth Balance.)

Because I've made several alterations to the coconut corn soup recipe, and because the original appears in several places on the Web, I'm going to share my version, here. This is the perfect soup to make when you want something that doesn't take much time or effort but tastes great.

Thai coconut corn soup (adapted from a recipe by Nava Atlas)

• 1 tablespoon light olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 to 5 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into short, narrow strips
• One 15-ounce can light coconut milk
• 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
  
• 1½ cups rice milk
• One 16-ounce bag frozen corn
• 2 teaspoons good quality curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Thai red curry paste, more or less to taste
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• juice from 1/2 small lime or lemon
  
• ½ cup minced fresh cilantro or Italian parsley
  

1. Heat the oil in a small soup pot. Add the garlic, the white parts of the scallions, and the bell pepper. Sauté over medium-low heat until softened and golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Add the coconut milk, rice milk, broth, corn, curry powder, the green parts of the scallions. If using the curry paste, dissolve it in a small amount of hot soup before adding to the pot.
3. Bring to a rapid simmer, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Season with salt and citrus juice, and remove from the heat.
   
4. Serve, with cilantro or parsley and fresh ground black pepper.

Yield: 6 servings of spicy soup.

You can substitute two cups of rice milk for the vegetable broth if desired. I've done it both ways and I like the broth version best, but both are good.