Healthy "Cream" of Mushroom Soup

I love cream of mushroom soup.  Have loved it since I was a kid, even those ones where it's super concentrated in a can and you have to add water to it.  But I know whats in those cans can't be healthy, must be full of preservatives (it comes from a can after all), full of sodium and probably not much actual mushroom in it.

Last night I was partly craving some cream of mushroom soup, and didn't really want the unhealthiness that comes along with it, and I also had a bunch of mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be used up.  Luckily I found a healthy version online!  And even more lucky, I have most of the stuff thats needed for the recipe from the Healthy Foodie.  A great fridge clearing recipe!!!  Just a few notes before I post the actual recipe, I made a few substitutions (since I wanted to clear the fridge).

Substitutions made:
1. Used home made chicken broth (I had some in the freezer from steaming a chicken before)
2. Used milk to total the needed amount of liquid since my milk was nearing expiry date
3. Left out wild rice because I didn't have any
4. Left out onions because I didn't have any
5. Subbed yogurt with whatever sour cream I had left in the fridge
6. Subbed dijon mustard with chanterelle dijon mustard I bought from Paris since, well it's a mushroom soup anyways.

Here's the recipe:

• 1/3 cup uncooked wild rice
• 7 cups water, divided
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 celery ribs, chopped
• 1 large head cauliflower, outer leaves removed, coarsely chopped
• 1½ tsp Himalayan salt, divided
• ½ tsp black pepper
• ½ tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 500g (1.1lb) mushrooms, chopped rather finely
• 1 cup plain Greek Yogurt 
• 2 tbsp arrowroot flour

1. Start by cooking the wild rice: add 1/3 cup wild rice, 2 cups of water and ½ tsp salt to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce heat, cover and simmer until water is almost completely absorbed and rice is tender, about 20-25 minutes. 
2. Add onions, garlic, celery, 1 tsp salt and black pepper to a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat for one or two minutes, just to soften up the veggies a little bit.
3. Throw the cauliflower in and continue cooking for a minute or two. 
4. Add 4 cups of water, Dijon mustard, onion powder and half the chopped mushrooms. Bring to the boil then reduce heat, cover loosely and simmer until the cauliflower is fork tender, about 5-7 minutes.
5. Ladle the mixture into your blender and process on high speed until super smooth and silky in consistency. You might have to work in several batches
6. Return the soup to the saucepan and add the cooked wild rice and the rest of the mushrooms. Bring back to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked, about 3-4 minutes. 
7. Meanwhile, mix the remaining cup of water, yogurt and arrowroot flour together in a small mixing bowl. Add that to the soup and stir until well incorporated; bring back to a simmer once more then turn off the heat and serve.

Elimination Diet

When I hear the word diet, I cringe.  Reminds me of all the countless diets that I have put myself through to lose just a few pounds.  It seems like no matter how much you weigh females all want to lose just five more pounds.  This time, this diet was for another purpose, it really was for my health.  And by health, I don't mean that I'm obese and I NEED to lose weight.  I do consider myself as heavier than I should be, although others say no.  The main motivation for me (health wise) is because of the feeling of constant exhaustion.  Everyone, including myself, thought that it was because I was over exerting myself.   I have a full time job (with a long commute time), and working towards getting my Masters part time (almost done, yay me!).  My naturopath suggested that I try the elimination diet for the exhaustion and other things I was dealing with.  Each time I go back to visit her, I update her on what I have noted.  So yes, I keep a food/mood journal.

The elimination diet is a test to see which foods you may have sensitivities or intolerances to.  Very similar to an allergy test (which looks strong reactions such as rashes, hives, swelling etc), the elimination diet looks for more subtle reactions such as gassiness, bloating, acne, tiredness, muscle stiffness, etc that may not appear in an allergy test.  This diet comes in two major phases: elimination phase, and food re-introduction phase.

The elimination phase ranges between 4-6 weeks long.  Purpose of the elimination phase is to clear your body of toxins and inflammation from the foods you are currently eating.  The following food groups need to be excluded from your diet: 

• Dairy (milk, cream, cheeses, butter, yogurt, ice-cream)
• Red meats (beef, pork)
• All gluten-containing grains (what, spelt, rye, barley) i.e. breads, pasta, pastries...
• Corn, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, potatoes
• Eggs
• Caffeinated beverages (coffee, black tea, sodapop)
• Shellfish, catfish
• Soy products (soy beans, tofu, soy milk, soya sauce, miso, tempeh, TVP
• Peanuts, pistachios, cashews
• Bananas, strawberries, citrus (oranges, grapefruit), melons
• Dried fruits
• All sweeteners (corn, maple syrups, honey, molasses, brown/white sugar, etc..)
• All fruit drinks high in refined sugars

Once the elimination phase is complete, you start re-introducing the foods that were eliminated in the first phase.  Food introduction is done in 3 day periods, making sure you at least include that type of food in 2 out of 3 meals.  If you think you have had a reaction, stop eating that particular food, and go back to the elimination phase friendly foods for the remainder of the 3 day period.  Once the 3 day period is completed, you can move to the next food group.  If you don’t have a reaction to a particular food group, you can continue to eat that food for the remainder of the diet.  I however, have decided to still cut that food out.  I always go back to the elimination phase friendly foods.

The biggest struggle that I had throughout this diet, was not the actual elimination of the food from my diet.  After the first 3 days I didn't have any bad food cravings (junk food).  What I want to eat all the time are grapes.  My social life became a bit of a bust because it’s REALLY REALLY difficult to find restaurants that offer items on their menus that are made with organic/free range grain fed chicken, grass fed beef, or items that don't include nightshade vegetables, or dairy.  The motivation to keep me going throughout this diet is the amount of energy I now have, and of course the weight loss. The other thing was that I found it extremely difficult to find recipes that were elimination diet friendly.  Yes there were some websites that claim to have recipes, but they were far and few in between.  One website claimed that they had so many recipes, enough for a cookbook.  They never actually posted the recipes online, they wanted you to buy their cookbook.  What I found did help was looking up vegan recipes, and paleo recipes.  Most of these recipes I found using Pinterest.  The key to this diet I think is to eat whole foods.  In the beginning I thought there might be snacks I could snack on, but after reading the labels on some boxes, it made me very frustrated because I couldn’t find anything that didn’t include some form of wheat, corn or soy.

I’m still in the food re-introduction phase, very close to being done!  Here are some meal suggestions/recipes that I was able to throughout this diet with a few modifications here or there.  Some of these meals I like so much that I think I’ll continue to incorporate them into my meal rotations even after I have finished the elimination diet.

Breakfast:

Breakfasts can get pretty boring, and repetitive.  The way I got through this was to change up the fruit that I added to the smoothies or hot cereals.  But texture wise, it was almost all the same.

• Smoothie (1 cup frozen fruit usually blueberries, mangoes, blackberries, 1 cup almond milk, 1 or 2 kale leaves, 1tbsp flax seeds, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp tahini)
• Cereal with Almond Milk (Arrowhead Maple Buckwheat Flakes, Whole Foods 365 Brown Rice Crisp, Natures Path Millet)
• GoGo Quinoa Quinoa Flakes, it cooks like oatmeal (For flavouring, applesauce, fresh apples that were cooked down, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves)
• Bob’s Red Mill Hot Buckwheat Cereal (For flavouring, applesauce, fresh apples that were cooked down, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves)
• Blueberry Gluten Free Pancake

Mains:

Some of these recipes required some modification, as they might have included an ingredient here or there that I wasn’t allowed to consume during the elimination phase of the diet.  So I just left them out.  Some recipes will call for cornstarch or potato starch.  What I used as a substitution instead was arrowroot flour or tapioca flour in the same quantities.  Arrowroot and tapioca flour can be found in your local bulk food stores or in health food stores. 

Also, for the soups, recipes will most likely call for canned or boxed broth.  From the boxes of organic chicken and vegetable broth, ingredients usually include some form or soy or potato starch in it.  So what I did was I either take the carcasses from the roasted or steamed organic or free range chickens, boil it down with water to make broth, or make broth by boiling a free range grain fed chicken breast in water for about half an hour, and that was my broth.  The chicken breast would then either be hand shredded or cut into cubes to later be put back into the soup.

To help cut down on costs of the meals, because organic chicken/turkey is so expensive, we went with the free range grain fed route.  But even that is more expensive then conventionally raised chicken/turkey.  So I looked for meals that used beans as a source of protein.

• Chickpea Pancake
• Steamed Chicken (Take whole chicken and steam it in a wok for about 10-12 mins per pound)
• Falafels
• Squash & Lentil Soup (boil squash, carrots, celery, onions and lentils in chicken broth for about 20-30 mins)
• Ginger Fried Rice
• Roast Chicken/Duck (The Alton Brown method for a turkey works too, you will just need to adjust the time because the chicken is smaller)
• Duck Spring Rolls (Using leftover duck, combine with carrot, cucumber, vermicelli noodles and wrap with rice paper)
• Beet Quinoa Salad
• Spaghetti Squash Yoga Bowl
• Chicken Leek Soup
• Kale Toasted Chickpea Salad
• Palestinian Cabbage Rolls
• Avocado Pasta
• Daikon Chicken Soup
• Brussels Sprout Millet Salad
• Turkish Lemon Kebabs
• Avocado Chicken Salad
• Tapioca Noodles (Cooked in chicken broth)
• Swiss Chard Spinach Quiche (chickpea flour crust)
• Zen Brown Rice Bowl
• Chicken Quinoa Soup
• Winter Roasted Kale Salad
• Turkey Pot Pie with Chickpea flour crust
• Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Avocado
• Sweet Potato Kale Shrimp
• Lemon Garlic Shrimp 
• Roasted Tomato Soup
• Chicken Meatballs (Ground Chicken, Egg, herbs) with Tomato Sauce on GoGo Quinoa Quinoa Pasta
• Roasted Cabbage

Snacks:

• Almonds (unroasted, unsalted)
• Almond Butter on Brown Rice Crackers
• Almond Milk (If you have to buy, I prefer that Aureeva brand over Silk or Blue Diamond)
• Endurance Crackers
• Fresh Fruits
• Applesauce (non-sweetened)

I hope to be able continue eating this healthy once this diet is done!