So what else do I have to do but to write this fabulously simple cookbook which compiles the best of my recipes created over the many years of cooking for and feeding people who visited us at our Natural Food Store in Southern California -called Seacoast!
My husband Geoffrey and I have been in the natural foods business for the past 30 years; selling vitamins, selling food and yes selling natural home cooked food in our Deli. After 30 years the vitamins have gone to cyberspace offering the world the best of the best in nutritional supplements via the internet. Our “Deli” is now my own kitchen overlooking the beautiful shores of Lake Superior at our Seacoast Lakeshore Resort in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan;
our visitors are now family and friends who have encouraged me over these many years to write the recipes down!! I hope you try the recipes, eat this healthy food and share the simplicity and joy of cooking with your family and friends!
I have been creating and cooking food my entire life with the dream that I would, at some point make a cookbook! Not just any cookbook but one that was simple to understand with simple healthy recipes that were not intimidating or complicated! Yes easy to prepare food that didn’t exhaust the cook and made the consumer, the dinner guest very happy and satisfied! After all that is what cooking and eating is all about, a satisfied cook and a satisfied guest! The years spent in our deli at Seacoast Natural Foods in San Diego, California afforded me the opportunity to test and try out many different food creations with a built in and dedicated cliental that candidly critiqued the special of the day! The feedback from clients, friends and family that ate and continue to eat my food preparations has encouraged me to finally after all these years write down the recipes and share them with the world! Now located and working in our resort on the beautiful shores of Lake Superior, our inland sea, I continue to test and try new food creations on friends, family and guests and look forward to many more Simply Natural Gourmet Cookbooks, each with a special theme, in the years to come! And remember always, Enjoy!!
Here’s a terrific soup recipe that is not in the cookbook so make sure you keep it!
2 Tbls olive oil
1 leek and 1 onion
1 red chili pepper or pinch of chili flakes
2-3 bunches of organic celery with leaves
2-3 organic ripe tomatoes
1 organic fennel, bulb and fronds
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 tsp Ras el Hanout, Frontier
1 tsp roasted ground coriander
1/2 tsp garlic powder
32 oz lo sodium broth + water
6-8 shitake mushrooms
1/2 cup cooked barley
fresh ground salt & grains of paradise pepper
In a large pot heat the olive oil and add chopped leek, chili and onion and stir
Chop celery, fennel, tomato and swiss chard and add to pot
Stir in garlic powder, Ras el Hanout and coriander powder and stir
Add broth and water and simmer
Slice shitake mushrooms and add to the pot along with the cooked barley
Salt and pepper to taste
Simmer the soup for 25 minutes
Enjoy!!