My Kind of Gift!

I received such a treasure from my fiddling friend Becca's sister and mom - fresh artisan ricotta made from their own dairy goats. I can't describe the delicious and distinctive taste, lightyears away from the taste of any store-bought ricotta. To prevent me from eating the whole container just plain, I decided to make into a delicate herbal spread. A visit to my organic gardens provided chives, thyme, lemon balm, Italian parsley, and fennel fronds… a combination I thought would taste good without overpowering the cheese. I chopped the herbs in my hand blender, then mixed them into the ricotta with a bit of cracked black pepper. The cheese was crumbly in texture, so I felt the need to add something to make it more spreadable. I had some plain organic Greek yogurt, and a few spoonfuls were all that was needed. A lovely chive blossom finished it off, and I served it with raw peapods just picked from my garden. Try this yourself if you are fortunate enough to find a source for artisan cheese, or use some gourmet goat cheese from the market.

Please Eat the Flowers!

"Am I supposed to eat the flowers?" I often hear this question when I add fresh flowers to a salad I've brought to a potluck. Many flowers are edible, but we are more accustomed to eating other plant parts in our salads, like leaves (lettuce, spinach), roots (radishes, carrots, onions), fruit (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers), stems (celery, asparagus), and seeds (chick peas, peapods). Add broccoli to your salad, and you are even eating unopened flower buds. Flowers can add color, beauty, flavor, and, in many cases, nutrients, to a dish.

Many edible flowers grow wild, and others grow on trees and shrubs, and in our cultivated flower, vegetable, and herb gardens. Use caution if you intend to harvest any flowers to eat. Here are good rules:

• Be 100% positive of the plant identity - Use reference guides, like my favorite for wild edibles, Peterson Field Guide: Edible Wild Plants. Some online references are included at the end of this post.
  
• Know what plant part is edible - Even though a plant is in your veggie garden, the flowers might be poisonous to eat, while another part of the plant is edible - such as the case with potatoes. Inversely, some flowers are edible while the other parts of the same plant are toxic. You wouldn't want to make a mistake and end up with a mouthful of poison ivy!
• It is best to harvest plants grown on your own property, from locations where you know they have not been exposed to pesticides, herbicides or pollution from vehicle exhaust fumes. Do not use florist flowers, which might be treated with chemicals. If you pick from someone else's property, get the owner's permission. Gathering plants is prohibited on most state and federal lands, such as in a National Forest.
• Don't eat too much of any one plant - Eating too much of even the most mild substance can cause illness
• Beware of allergens - If you are allergic to strawberries, you might also react to strawberry flowers, for example. Perhaps try only a very small amount of a blossom the first time. While blossoms might be delicate they can still pack a chemical punch. Introduce them gradually into the diet if you are not sure. Also, some flowers have known side effects, such as yellow violets which can act as a laxative when eaten in quantities.
• Harvest sustainably - In the case of wildflowers, don't overpick any one species or you might wipe them out from that location, and don't pick if there are just a few of one plant. Keep in mind that the flower is the plant part which produces the fruit and seeds… if you pick strawberry flowers, you'll have that many fewer berries. Also, tread softly in the wild and respect the land.
• Cultivate wild edibles - You can scatter white clover seeds as a groundcover, collect the fluffy white seed heads from dandelions and plant them in a pot, or grow your own chicory from purchased seeds, just as a few ideas.
• Learn the best way to eat your flower harvest - Flowers can be eaten raw, cooked, stuffed, fried, steeped as tea, coated with sugar to use to decorate cakes, or infused to flavor vinegar, jelly, wine, or alcohol. With some flowers it is best to just use the petals, others need the inner parts (pistils and stamens) removed.

Here is just a partial list of edible flowers:
WILD PLANTS or TREES
Bachelor's Buttons
Chicory
Clover
Dandelion
Redbud Trees
Violets
Mustard
Indian Strawberry
Pink Showy Primrose
Wisteria (note, only flowers are edible, everything else is toxic)
Blackberry
Daylily
Violet
Yucca - young flowers
Wild Rose

HERBS
Borage
Chamomile
Chive
Lavender
Mint
Basil
Calendula
Fennel
Dill
Cilantro
Oregano
Rosemary
Sage

CULTIVATED FLOWERS, BERRIES, SHRUBS, FRUIT TREES
Carnation/Dianthus
Chrysanthemum
Strawberry
Citrus
Apple
Fuchsia
Gladiolus
Hibiscus
Hollyhock
Impatiens
Jasmine
Johnny Jump-Up (violet family)
Pansy
Lemon Verbena
Lilac
Nasturtium
Rose
Sunflower
Violet

GARDEN VEGETABLE PLANTS
Onion, garlic and other alliums
Radish (don't harvest the root, let the plant grow)
Squash, Pumpkin, Zucchini

Peas, Peapods

Broccoli, Collards, Mustard Greens

There's lots of information online about edible flowers, helping with identification, plus creative ways to use them. Here are some websites I've used:
http://www.foragingtexas.com
from the UK:   http://www.torrens.org.uk/FFF/index.html
http://www.pfaf.org/user/default.aspx (Plants For A Future)
http://www.eattheweeds.com/

Have fun using edible flowers and let me know of those you use and how you use them!

DISCLAIMER: Judy's Good Food Blog cannot take any responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. 

March in the Vegetable Garden

March is nearly over, and it's been such a busy time in my gardens that I'm just squeaking in this post before the month ends. Anyone who thinks that Zone 7 is only for warm weather gardening is missing some of the best months of harvests. I've been doing every imaginable garden task this month - weeding, seeding, transplanting, thinning, harvesting, turning soil, raising seedlings, freeezing produce, drying herbs, and EATING great food.... but not having to deal with bugs, diseases or fungi. Unseasonably warm weather (in the 80s) for many March days has made some plants think it is time to flower, like my collards and kale, so I've been harvesting, chopping, and freezing bags of greens (beet greens too). I was concerned when the blueberry bushes began to flower, thinking it was way too early, but the bees appeared just as quickly, doing their pollinating job. I also blame the off-the-chart temperatures on some of my seeds failing to germinate outdoors - particularly several lettuce varieties I sowed, which won't germinate in hot weather. Our average last frost date is April 15th, so I'm still keeping my warm weather seedlings - like peppers, tomatoes, basil, eggplant, etc. - in their pots, rather than planting them in the garden.

Here's what is growing this month:

1. I've harvested greens every day since last October (for our daily green smoothies) and this bed of spinach has been a great producer, particularly since winter was mild. I will need to start pulling whole plants rather than just harvesting leaves, since crowding is one clue that makes spinach think it is time to go to seed. I will continue to harvest, wash, dry, chop and freeze spinach for future enjoyment.
2. I planted a bed of Sugar Ann bush pea pods here in February, and the plants are up about 5" now. Should be ready to harvest in late April.
3. This is a bed of lettuce which has germinated well, even in our March heat. It's an heirloom variety I am trying for the first time, Mignonette Bronze, which is supposed to tolerate heat better than other varieties. Further toward the south in this row were 3 other beds of various lettuce seeds which did not germinate, I think due to the heat.
4. Pointer ends at a lush grouping of Chiogga beet greens, which have generously supplied me since last fall. To the north of the beets I've transplanted Siberian kale seedlings from a bed in the next row where they were growing too close. It's been so hot since I did the transplanting that I have had to drag out the hose to keep the bed wet while the little plants get re-established. Further south down this row, to the south, is a fabulous patch of cilantro. As I've stated before, cilantro will quickly bolt (send up a flower stalk) in warm weather. Since taking this photo, I harvested a huge bowl of cilantro, washed, dried, and pulled the leaves off the stems (which can be stringy). I've now frozen the chopped cilantro in freshly squeezed lime juice, as ice cubes, to see if I can preserve the taste to use in my homemade salsa next summer. I'll report on my success.
5. My strawberry plants - June varieties - began to flower in early March. I have about 6 dozen plants, along this side of the garden and in other beds. 'Can't wait for harvest time!
6. I probably will regret this planting. I grew "Breadseed Poppies" last year, a pretty purple flower I photographed in June in the Vegetable Garden, which produces larger (though still tiny) seeds, suitable for breads and other baked goods. As with my red poppies, I scattered the seeds in one of my flower gardens last fall, but not many germinated. So during the winter, I scattered more of the seeds in the vegetable garden - and loads germinated! I've thinned and transplanted them (I have a very hard time throwing any plants or seeds away!) and now I have a bed of breadseed poppies about 3' x 8'. They will be beautiful, but my challenge will be to harvest the seed pods before they fall all over the vegetable garden and replant themselves. It will be Judy vs. poppies!
7. I took a chance and planted Oregon Sugar Pod Snow Peas in a bed here at the end of January. Peas tolerate cold very well. I was lucky, and they germinated well and now the bush-plants are about 8" tall and I expect they will begin flowering soon. They are twisting their tendrils on the sticks I've stuck in the ground around the plants to support them. I don't like to have to accommodate peas, beans, and other climbers on big supports, since I rotate my plantings all around the garden constantly, so I favor bush varieties. Did you know the leaves of pea plants are edible and very tasty raw? Flowers are beautiful and edible too, but you loose a pod for every flower you eat. Also in this garden row are curly kale plants and brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts plants I started from seeds late last summer have grown well, but I think this warm weather will prevent them from forming sprouts. Next time I'll start the plants much earlier, perhaps July, keeping them in the window of my 60 degree basement to grow until fall planting time.
8. This row has yielded more beet greens, more lettuce, scallions, and collards all winter. In the front row of the garden are the plants I've awarded the "slowest grower" award - celeriac, a root vegetable related to celery. The seeds I started in July started plants which survived in the garden and in the cold frame all winter… but they are only about 2" tall now. I had hoped to be harvesting a big celery-tasting root during the winter, to use in soups and stews. I'll keep it growing, and I can harvest the green tops as I wait for the roots to develop - but the harvest will be small!
9. My patch of Florence fennel has reseeded itself behind the cold frame. I love the fennel seeds I harvested last summer, using them ground in baked goods or throwing a big spoonful in my breakfast granola. I think I will move these young fennel plants from the vegetable garden into my "excess garden" where it can grow and spread relatively unrestricted, where I grow horseradish, mints, jerusalem artichokes, and other perennial or reseeding plants considered to be invasive… that's where the breadseed poppies were supposed to be growing! Next to the fennel I have planted seeds for two types of Japanese edible chrysanthemums, a new crop for me. My regular flowering chrysanthemums grow well, without any pests or problems, so when I read about these greens I thought they might be successful for me. The curly parsley growing here has provided me abundantly all winter, and we enjoy tabouli salad from freshly harvested parsley, scallions, and mint (click for my tabouli recipe). The Italian flat leaf parsley has grown well in the cold frame, being a bit more cold sensitive.

See how the strawberry flower becomes the fruit.

In addition to what is in the vegetable garden, I also have trays of many different seedlings I've been growing indoors - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, beets, squashes, eggplant, stevia, hyssop, and others. My friend Judy's suggestion that my big patch of lemon grass would not survive our winter proved to be correct. Fortunately, I had dug up a portion of it and grew it in a pot in the basement window, so now I've replanted that outdoors. I've also been tending to the grape vines, blackberries, red raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, as well as to my perennial herbs - sage, chives, lavender, oregano, thyme, lemon balm, rosemary, mints, and others. I've started a bed of marigolds to transplant around the garden, but most of my flower beds are perennials. The ajuga is blooming in waves of blue, my fragrant irises are now open, the lilacs are flowering, lily of the valley are perfuming the air, and carpets of creeping phlox are cascading over my rocks. I love this time of year! 

By the way, in the garden photo there is a leaning flowering dogwood in the background. It had been uprooted when we had a direct hit by an EF-2 tornado last April and we propped it up, buried the roots in good dirt, watered it all summer, and hoped it would survive. It has been struggling, but looks like it might make it. It will probably end up with a lovely asymmetrical shape and much character, like a bonsai. Mother Nature does awesome things.

I've now done a monthly garden post for an entire 12-month cycle. I'll continue to update you on what is in my garden, but more sporadically. I hope this will allow me to devote more of my writing time to bring you new recipe ideas, nutrition information, food preservation tips, and other good food news. Please subscribe to this blog in any one of the ways listed in the right column, and share it with others too. Thanks for reading and for all the continuous positive feedback.

Mystery Plant Identified!

The unidentified plant pictured in my February garden post aroused much interest. A commenter said it might be a member of the mustard family, but when I google the commenter's identification of the plant as "Leavenworthia" the flowers didn't quite match my plant, although the leaves are similar. Someone else said it likely is a "Cress", which is indeed plant family related to mustard plants. I searched my books and online references and I finally have narrowed it down to two possibilities, both Bittercress:

Wood Bittercress
(Cardamine Flexuosa)
or
Hairy Bittercress 
(Cardamine Hirsuta) - "hairy" refers to the very tiny hairy spikes, which show best if you click on the photo on my February post to enlarge it.

And my research reveals it's an edible plant. The young raw leaves taste mildly similar to watercress, which you might know from gourmet produce markets - a bitter, peppery taste. Watercress grows wild in my creek (roots need moving clean water) and has very similarly shaped leaves to the Mystery Plant. As with many plants, once it starts to flower the leaves get more bitter tasting. My large photo matches one I saw on a good wild edibles website which said: "…when the leaves form a rosette on the ground, it's a small, insignificant weed. However, this is very early in the year when there's not a lot around that's worth eating…. ripe seed heads and stalks tend to be fibrous, therefore unpalatable." The young leaves can be mixed into a fresh salad or used in a sandwich, for a peppery bite.

Beware if you don't want this weed to re-seed. The Barbie-doll size seed pods which form after the flowers contain many tiny seeds. I often hear them "POP" and scatter the seeds when I bump into the plant… meaning many more plants in the future.

As with any edible wild food, be 100% sure of your identification before ingesting. One of my upcoming blog posts will be on more wild edibles now growing.

February in the Vegetable Garden

Our winter weather continues to alternate between full sun and rain, with very mild temperatures. Daffodils and lenten roses are blooming, and the forsythia will burst with yellow flowers soon. Even my purple verbena is flowering, sun-warmed by the limestone rocks in the "boulder garden." I've done gardening tasks never before attempted during the winter, due to this unusual weather. Here are the details:

TRANSPLANTING - This is one task commonly unheard of in winter, but I've successfully thinned the bed of cilantro I planted in the fall, replanted the little plants, and they have new growth. I transplanted a couple of rows of beets from a patch which had reseeded itself. I've also discovered that once you grow garlic, expect volunteers to appear long after you think you harvested everything. Those little stragglers are now moved into the garlic patch and are growing well too.

DIRECT PLANTING SEEDS - In late January I planted a bed of snap pea seeds, more than a month earlier than I normally would. Peas are very resistant to cold, although they will grow slowly. I figured the worst I had to lose was $1.25 worth of seeds. I've just begun to see green growth emerge from the soil, so my head start should be successful. I've also direct seeded corn mache (a salad green), romaine lettuce, and kale, but no signs of growth yet.

RAKING - My latest gardening reading is a book called Good Bug, Bad Bug and I recommend it to other organic gardeners. It prompted me to rake the leaves out of the low walkways in my garden, once I learned that many damaging insects will over-winter in matted leaves. I'll be revealing more tips from this book as the gardening season gets underway, like planting certain crops near others to deter bad insects or to attract good ones.

Please help me identify this weed, growing everywhere!

WEEDING - I've been weeding, which is usually unheard of this time of year. The warm wet weather has spurred on the growth of weeds which usually don't germinate in winter. Can any one tell me what the weed I've photographed is? I added my fingertip as a size reference. This plant is everywhere, and it is flowering now so more seeds will follow soon. There is so much of it, I'd love to learn that it's edible! Meanwhile, at the very least, I am trying to eliminate it from the veggie garden. Other weeds I've been pulling are mostly grasses.

HARVESTING - As I keep saying, I love those collards! My next recipe experiment will be using the leaves to make Stuffed Cabbage, since they are big and flat and not apt to break like cabbage leaves do. The few times the temps have dipped below 20, I've still been covering my collard bed, since I don't want to risk damage. The brussels sprouts continue to produce, so I keep harvesting from the same plants. Even the ones I started from seed last fall have been growing, so I might get a spring harvest out of those plants. Also continuing to pick spinach, beet greens, curly parsley (more cold tolerant than flat leaved, which crocked last month), lettuce, cilantro, mint, kale, onion tops and garlic greens.

PRUNING - It's time to prune my two Concord grape vines. The trick with grapes is to prune WAY MORE than you think you need to. Look online for lots of instructions, and your vines will reward you with much more to harvest. Unfortunately the birds or some other culprit beat me to the harvest last season, so I may need to cover the ripening grapes with netting this year.

INDOOR SEED STARTING - As I would normally do in late January, I've started a couple varieties of blight-resistant tomatoes, and sweet peppers in my south-facing window, as well as some lime basil and stevia - all in peat pellets. The store shelves are packed with seed-starting trays and pots, but I have those from previous years, so I just buy the replacement pellets. Once the roots start poking out of the bottom of the peat pellet, I transplant the seedlings to individual 3" square plastic pots I save and reuse year to year. This year, I struggled to find ingredients for my potting mix for the seedlings. In the past, I've been able to buy shredded sphagnum peat moss, and mixed it with vermiculite and organic potting soil. This year I can't find the fine peat moss for sale. Also, since I grow organically, I don't want to buy any soil starting mixes with chemical fertilizers added, as with the MiracleGro mixtures. I never thought I'd be reading ingredients labels on soil mixtures! With some searching around the garden center shelves, I've found some premixed seed starting which are organic and close to that which I mixed myself, one made by Jiffy (at WalMart) and one from NK Farm (at Lowes).

I am always looking for ways to recycle, and many plastic discards become part of my garden supplies. Plastic clam-shells from grocery store lettuce mixes and strawberries provide mini-greenhouses for seeds started in peat pellets. The air holes are already there, allowing drainage at the bottom, circulation of air at the top, and heat escape. You can open the lids when the temperature is warm too. Berry baskets are good for holding peat pellets too. I use 32 oz. yogurt containers to cut I.D. tags (I label everything - too easy to forget what each plant is!), and I also poke holes in the bottoms to use them as pots, both in the 6 oz and 32 oz sizes. Little grated cheese containers make ideal drain cups under the yogurt-container pots.

Next month will be a busier gardening month, so I am enjoying my non-gardening time with my other passion, painting. See what I've been working on lately in my Art Blog.

Valentine Chocolate Strawberry Bread

I bought a flat (12 pints) of fresh Florida strawberries and it inspired me to invent this recipe as a special Valentine breakfast bread. If you like dark chocolate, try this yummy, moist recipe, as quick bread or muffins.

• 1-3/4 c flour
• 1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 c fresh strawberries, chopped into small pieces
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 1 c plain yogurt
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/2 c oil
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 c honey

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 3 mini loaf pans or a muffin tin for 1 dozen. Mix the first 5 dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in the berries and nuts to coat. In another bowl, stir yogurt and baking soda together and set aside - it will get foamy. In a third bowl, beat the egg and add the oil, vanilla, and honey. Fold together ingredients from all 3 bowls just until thoroughly mixed. Spoon mixture into prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

How To Alter Recipes

Low fat, sugar-free, meatless, gluten-free, low carb, dairy-free, no sodium, allergen-free, no alcohol… many people are trying to fill special dietary requirements for health issues and weight loss. If you are in charge of meal preparation for such diets, it might seem like you have to learn to cook all over again. Must you throw away all your old favorite recipes? Maybe not. Of course, 5-layer chocolate truffle cake with mocha whipped cream filling and buttercream frosting might have to be retired upon a diabetes diagnosis (unless you're Paula Dean!), but it's often possible to use alternate ingredients to make old standards still part of your favorite meals… and not feel "deprived" by the dietary restrictions.

I learned to cook when I was about 12 years old, with my mother's instructions on how to start dinner cooking before she came home from work. By the time I left home at age 20, I had a pretty good repertoire of meals, desserts, entertainment foods, and breads. I liked cooking from scratch, but didn't much relate what I cooked and ate to nutrition and health. Then in the early 1990s, when I began to educate myself about how diet could be used to build a healthier immune system and avoid health problems, I truly struggled with how to cook they way I was accustomed to. My goals were not too lofty:

• healthy ingredients
• good taste
• nutritional balance
• satisfying

I had to learn about nourishing foods, experiment with replacing ingredients, not be discouraged by failures, and be open to creative alternatives. Fortunately, my husband Rick is an adventurous eater, and always very open minded to trying new dishes. He is also a very honest critic, so there is never any question when I produce a failure!

Just a note about "prepared" foods for special diets… I've found that food manufacturers often remove one "evil" ingredient and replace it with other "evils" (and/or chemical non-foods), often in the attempt to mimic the taste of the original. Compare a block of regular cream cheese with a nonfat cream cheese, and you'll see a much longer ingredient list on the latter, sometimes with added sodium and sweeteners. I recently looked at Frontier brand Vegetable Flavored Broth Powder as an alternative to meat stock, and the first ingredient is "corn syrup solids," which is a sweetener processed from corn which I avoid, and it also included yeast extract - a taste enhancer - which, for some people, causes the same toxic effects and allergic reactions as MSG (monosodium glutamate). And, if you think you should deal with diabetes by using artificially sweetened "sugar-free" products, google-up "Artificial Sweetener Disease" (or search for "ASD" on http://www.naturalnews.com) and what you read might change your thinking. The bottom line for me is to use as few prepared foods as possible, cooking from scratch with whole foods.

When learning how to cook from scratch for special diets, start with some of your simpler recipes. For an example of a recipe which can be altered for many restrictions, let's look at a Shrimp Bisque I recently made. First is the recipe as I made it (it is very yummy), and below it are notes about my specific ingredients, suggestions for how to substitute for a few different dietary restrictions, and tips on how to change the flavor of the soup even if you don't have dietary restrictions.

 

SHRIMP BISQUE
1 lb. shrimp (not peeled)
1 c white wine
4 cups broth
2 bay leaves
1 T fresh thyme leaves or 1-1/2 t dried thyme
2 T oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 T tomato paste
4 T flour
1 cup milk
1 t hot chili powder
1/2 t salt
grated parmesan cheese

In a large pot, bring wine, broth, bay leaves, and thyme to a boil. Wash the shrimp and add to the pot. Remove from heat and let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Put another pot or bowl under a strainer and pour the liquid off the shrimp, reserving the broth and discarding the bay leaves. Run cool water over the shrimp to stop the cooking and peel the shrimp, discarding the peels and cut the shrimp into smaller pieces.

In the oil, sauté the onion, carrots, and celery until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes over medium heat. Ladle about 1 cup of the reserved broth into a cup and slowing mix in the flour. Add this mixture and the tomato paste to the vegetables and mix. Pour in the broth/flour mixture, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook 10 minutes. Add the milk, chili powder, salt, and shrimp, and cook for 5 more minutes. Ladle into a bowl and sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on top.

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INGREDIENTS I USED: (NOTE: you can read more about ingredients which appear below in red, in the ingredients column in the right column of the blog)

• I used USA Gulf Shrimp, hand carried by my sweet friend Pam from the Florida Panhandle, frozen in water in zipper bags. Seafood shops label country of origin (if not, ask), so please buy only USA products... wild caught whenever possible
• For the broth, I used organic, free range, low sodium chicken broth, sold in 32 oz aseptic boxes. You could also use seafood stock, vegetable broth, or a water and bouillon mixture
• I didn't have any white wine open, so I used unsweetened apple juice
• I used safflower oil
• My onion, carrots, and celery were organic
• For such a small quantity of tomato paste, I like the type which comes in a tube like toothpaste and is refrigerated after opening
• For the flour, I used my own home-ground whole wheat flour
• For the milk, I used organic nonfat milk
• For the hot chili powder, I used my own ground dehydrated jalapeno powder, which is very hot. Of course, this can be omitted if you don't like spicy foods, and you can just flavor to taste with black pepper.
• My choice for salt is Real Salt
• I didn't have grated parmesan, so I used grated romano cheese

DIETARY SUBSTITUTES:

1. LOW FAT - instead of using oil, saute the vegetables in about 1/4 c of the reserved broth, and either omit the milk (the flour makes the soup thick) or use fat-free milk.
2. GLUTEN-FREE - The flour can be omitted, which will make the soup a little less thick but not change the taste, or gluten-free flour such as sweet rice or sorghum flour can be substituted. You might try ground flaxseeds will thicken the soup base to your liking, while adding good omega 3's to your diet.
3. DAIRY-FREE - Eliminate the milk and parmesan cheese, or try soy or almond milk and soy cheese.
4. LOW SODIUM - Use no-sodium broth and don't add the salt. You could pump up the flavor with your favorite salt-free herb blend, like Mrs. Dash, or add some lemony herbs like lemon thyme, which would accept the shrimp flavor nicely.
5. NO ALCOHOL - The white wine in this recipe imparts a mild flavor, but can be eliminated. I substituted with unsweetened apple juice, but you could also just add 1 c of water in place of the wine.
6. SHELLFISH ALLERGY - Use fish instead of shrimp, something with good flavor, like salmon. Do not do the initial boiling of the broth, and eliminate the bay leaves. Or make Chicken Bisque, with boneless breasts!
7. VEGAN (no animal products) - Instead of shrimp, use a strong-flavored vegetable as the "star" of your soup, such as fennel, sweet potato, or winter squash. Use vegetable broth or vegetable juice for the 4 cups of broth. Eliminate the milk or use soy or almond milk. Garnish with freshly grown sprouts or toasted nuts in place of the grated cheese.

FLAVOR SUBSTITUTES:

If you don't need any substitutions for your diet, or if any of your dietary changes leave the soup tasting bland, here are suggestions for altering the flavor:

• Use tomato or vegetable juice in place of the broth
• Use coconut oil for the fat, add 1 T fresh lime juice (eliminate the milk or it might curdle from the citrus juice), 1 T chopped fresh cilantro, and a garnish of toasted peanuts - for a southeast Asian flavor
• Use different vegetables in the saute mix: tomatoes, peppers, garlic, asparagus, okra (which will thicken the soup), chopped spinach

Experiment, and let me know how you do!