Smoothies & Lettuce Wraps

Its Friday night and Tom is dutifully doing all the dishes so I can write. Yes its late, but our twins, now nearly 11 months old, have awoken twice already this evening. They are great at not sleeping, but somehow we survive on what little sleep we manage to get. I am hoping that by the time they turn a year we will have them sleeping at least a five hour stretch at night.

Stammering down the stairs this morning in a half asleep state all I could think about was water and a tall glass of green smoothie. You see, I nurse those babies all night long and am dehydrated by the morning. Nevermind that I have drunk all the water I had next to my bed during the night, I am thirsty in the morning.

We make a green smoothie nearly every morning with what we have available. This morning it was a tropical-tasting smoothie with banana and pineapple. A few months ago I bought a few pineapples and cut them into chunks and froze them. Today I used a handful of those frozen pineapple chunks, 2 small bananas, 1 large pear, 1 large apple, a chunk of ginger, and 1 Meyer lemon. I added a few cups of water and then blended it all up until smooth and then stuffed the Vita-Mix with as many fresh greens as could fit. I used spinach, collards, and parsley. Blend again until smooth. Drink up! My 3-year-old slammed down a whole glass faster than I did. Oh, hydration, its a wonderful thing!


While the babies were taking their morning nap, I managed to start a pot of garbanzo beans, make a pot of vegetable and leek soup stock, and make lettuce wraps for lunch. My 3-year-old daughter, Grace helped me by skimming the foam off of the boiling garbanzo beans. The white, frothy foam that rises to the top of a pot of cooking beans contains the indigestible starches that can cause your belly to get upset. Soaking your beans overnight, skimming the foam off of the top, and cooking with the seaweed, kombu, all help to make beans more digestible.

When I cook beans, I cook beans! That is to say, I don't just cook a small pot. I cook as much as can fit into my 8-quart stock pot. It is much easier to cook a large pot of beans and then freeze them in 2 or 3-cup containers for future use. In fact, the adzuki beans I used for the lettuce wraps today were in the freezer. All I needed to do was run the jar under hot water and place them into a pot to reheat. Easy!

The garbanzo beans I cooked today will be used for hummus tomorrow, some will be frozen, and some were used in the Fall Vegetable Stew I made for dinner tonight. Served it over quinoa with a green salad on the side. A warming autumn meal.

Lunch today: lettuce wraps, or shall I say lettuce tacos? The romaine lettuce I used was a little to small to be used as a "wrap" so it was a taco. I am often not in the mood for something heavy at lunchtime. I need something light and energizing to keep me going through the afternoon.

This recipe is from our cookbook in the Elimination Diet section in the appendix. Tom created it for Phases 1 and 2 of the diet.

This fall we took a group of 19 people through the diet with weekly cooking classes and meetings. During the first phase of the diet a friend of ours, who was doing the program, approached me and asked me to create recipes she could eat with sauces. She said "just give me sauces and I can eat anything." So I did, and during the next class, elimination diet sauces were born. Atop our brown jasmine rice, adzuki beans, and yam "wraps" comes a creamy, salty, slightly sweet, rich, green sauce made from pumpkin seed butter, coconut milk, fresh cilantro, Herbamare, raw garlic and ginger, and a little agave nectar. I don't have exact amounts for the sauce but I can give you estimates. Use your taste buds and intuitions to find the right balance of flavors. Add a little of this and a little of that, blend, taste, and adjust. Be creative, its simple.

Garlicky Green Sauce

1/4 to 1/2 cup pumpkin seed butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
large handful of fresh cilantro
5 cloves garlic (start with less and add more as your tastes desire)
1/2-inch chunk of peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon raw agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon Herbamare
water (I think I used about 1/2 cup to 1 cup)

Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Add water to desired consistency. Add more salt to taste. Drizzle it over cooked grains, steamed veggies, chopped romaine lettuce.

After eating one lettuce "wrap" I decided to just throw the rice on the plate and top it with beans, steamed yams, and crispy chopped romaine lettuce and then smother it all with the Garlicky Green Sauce. Much easier to eat and make. Enjoy!