I've been adjusting my regular recipes to sb fiendly, mostly it's easy. Rice becomes brown rice, butter becomes either evoo or smart balance or ICBINB spray, fruits and veggies are easily interchangeble, white flour becomes whole wheat or whole wheat/white flour blend or oat flour depending on what I'm cooking.
The big thing is replacing the condensed cream soups...like cream of mushroom, chicken, celery. I'm missing my traditional casseroles.
I did try making cream of mushroom for something once, it was too watery for the recipe. I made it like a cream soup using skim milk and fat free half and half and lots of mushrooms. Well, anyway the soup tasted great! Even if it didn't work that well in the recipe.
Sarah, what you want to do is make a roux and add milk. Basically, if you were making a traditional one, you would melt butter, stir in flour until you reach a color you like (I do mine for about 30 seconds because I'm always in a hurry, some go for as long as 30 minutes...but you have to keep stirring!), which makes a roux, then slowly add milk while stirring. Then you would add your ingredients and simmer, stirring, until thickened.
You could make such a roux with either a butter substitute (like Smart Balance) or with olive oil and with WW flour. Then use 1% or 2% milk, or even evaporated skim milk to finish the base. The trick to a good roux is to stir the flour in quickly without letting it burn, and let it combine fully with the oil/butter before adding the milk. Then you want to add the milk slowly, a little bit at a time, whisking the mixture in between to ensure there are no lumps. You could then add mushrooms, broccoli, etc. If you want a "soup" base that is thicker, use more flour. If you want it to be smooth, run it through a blender in batches to chop up the veggies.
I hope that helps! You can find lots of information on roux and on using it in soups, but in general you want to use equal portions of fat and flour.
I make roux sauce even more SB friendly by just mixing skim milk and cornflour. It thickens up as it cooks. Indian cooking relies heavily on onions to thicken sauces and a grated potato with thicken soups and casseroles really well. I don't know if you have powdered stocks available but I always have beef, chicken and vegetable stock in the cupboard for thickening and flavouring potroasts, casseroles and stews. When I cook mushrooms I slice them, let them stew in their own juice then make up a thick paste of cornflour and water and add it to the mushrooms to thicken them up. You get a nice creamy sauce as it you added cream or sour cream.
It must be corn starch. It is a very fine white powder that is whiter and and finer than regular flour. I am from New Zealand and we call some things by quite different names so my posts are sometimes a little hard to understand.
I don't think we are allowed cornstarch because it's made of corn. I couldn't find it in the GFGCG, but I really don't think it's allowed. Shame, though...it's a great thickener!
What about arrowroot? That also thickens things. You can also sweat mushrooms till they release their juice, then mix flour into the juice and add milk. Makes great veggie gravy.
Still a little good fat is not a bad thing. You can use 2 Tb. of smart balance and 2 Tbsp of flour and make a great roux.
I hadn't thought about arrowroot. I will check both for the glycemic index and see what is lower. I haven't made casseroles or stews on SB Diet partly because the meat is probably cooked in its own fat and partly because I can't thicken things. Does anyone know if a little bit of cornstarch is ok just for thickening? Obviously I would substitute it for a starch.
Soy flour works just fine in place of flour or cornstarch as a thickener. Egg yolk works too but remember to gradually stir some of the hot liquid into the egg before adding it to the stew.
And then there's bean flour! I bought this at a bulk food store and it thickens things well. It does taste like beans, however, which is not a bad thing but may overwhelm.
adjusting recipes to SBD friendly questions
