Getting creative with the recipes - how to.

I can hear you saying you have no idea how to make recipes out of the crazy mix of foods on your LEAP diet list.  There are ways of making recipes but it does take a lot of work  Most of the work has already been done by food bloggers around the world, it's just finding their recipes and modifying them even more - that's what you have to do. 


You'll have proteins, starches/grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy/miscellaneous, nuts, seeds, oils and flavor enhancers.  Those are your building blocks.  Some of these foods you're going to enjoy on their own, just plain, but some you won't and you'll need to find recipes for those.  I like broccoli, cauliflower, and all of my fruits on their own, but the rest of them, I needed to do some cooking.


One of my proteins is turkey so I did a search for turkey with the vegetables that I had (week 1), asparagus, cauliflower, pumpkin, lettuce and zucchini.  That got me a lot of thanksgiving recipes (turkey and pumpkin) but not much else.  Then I looked at my list in greater detail, found navy beans and found a turkey and navy bean soup.  It was tasty enough.    It helped get me through the first week.


Look at your list in detail.  Some of the things I would consider to be vegetables are in the protein list.  Some of the foods have different forms and you will want to consider those forms.  One of my fruits was an apple, so I got some apple juice.  I heated it up and put some cinnamon in it for my nightly hot drink.  (I used to drink hot chocolate every night.)  Consider all the different forms of the food.  Coconut has fresh coconut, coconut flakes, coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut sugar and coconut flour.  Just make sure that it is pure or what it is mixed with is something you can have.  Olives on my "fruit" list means I can cook with olive oil as long as it's pure.  Oats on my grains list means I can cook with oat flour as well as eat oatmeal.   Look at your list carefully.  Get a piece of paper and write down each food with all the forms of it you can think of.    Look for recipes online.  Look for food allergy or vegan recipes.  Search for things with quotes like "cookies without eggs" or vegan cookies.  Search for items you have in a list, like I did with the turkey and navy beans.  Get as many flours as you can and make your own blend to make bread. 


Use whatever flour you have, whatever fat you have, whatever spices you have and whatever milk you have to make a sauce for your meat and vegetables.    On the third week, when I was able to add in celery and carrots, I cooked turkey, celery, carrots and onions, then when everything was cooked, put in a little coconut oil and some oat flour, stirred it around, put in a little rosemary and then soy milk and it made a kind of gravy/soup with the other ingredients.  It tasted like turkey pot pie.  It was delicious.   If you need to get proportions, get a recipe for gravy and use those amounts or just use a teaspoon of fat, a 1/4 cup of flour and 1 1/2 cups milk.   You can experiment until you've got a good blend. 


Don't forget that you (I think all of us do) have vinegar and baking soda, two essential ingredients for baked goods rising without yeast and using fruit (applesauce or canned pumpkin) for an egg substitute.  Try making a Wacky Cake.  I made this one and it was really good.  I just left out the spices I couldn't have.  Fortunately, I do have cinnamon on my list. 


Be creative with google and fearless in the kitchen!  You can do it!