Replay of the Q&A with Rip Esselstyn 6/10/2021

If you look at what's on the shelves you'll se the new granolas on the top, the popcorn on the second shelf, new chilis and soup on the third. Notice the branding has changed from "Engine 2" to "PlantStrong" now that their contract with Whole Foods Markets has expired and these will be offered on-line now from the PlantStrong Foods web store.

BTW, it was announced that next week a sampler of the granolas will be offered (I assume at a special price) to the members of the PlantStrong community, so be sure you sign up to be a member (free) so you'll be able to get in on the deal.

 

Sandburg Stretches

 This weekend the Esselstyn crew did another series of videos, the topic of these being Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue. Because it was a typical busy weekend around here, I missed almost all of them when they aired live.

But I did catch a few minutes here and there, and a few times I saw mention of something Rip had talked about called Sandburg Stretches. Hmm, wonder what that was all about?

Well, a quick search turned up this blog post that not only explained that they came from Rip's great grandfather, poet Carl Sandburg, who did them into his 90's, but multiple videos of Rip back in 2015 demonstrating them all!

 

The Esselstyn Plant Strong Community

Plant Stock 2020 was last weekend. A wonderful time was had by all who attended the virtual seminars. The link to the replay videos was mailed out the other day, and there was mass confusion! Instead of a link to the videos, the link went to a whole new on-line community called The Plant Strong Community. It was then a matter of click, click, click, return and click something else, nope - that wasn't it, click something else . . . Such a frustrating time! Eventually the replays were found, then it took a few dozen more clicks to find how to sort them so they appeared in order. 

It seems the videos were "sent" as posts to the new private social community and not in a separate section of just the videos. Clicking to sort the "messages" in order of when they were first posted only holds for as long as you remain on that page - click away to watch a video and return and you have to change the settings all over again to find the next video. 

So much wasted time! Most of the messages posted so far have been "Where are the videos? I can't find them!"

It doesn't help that the Plant Stock 2020 private community is a part of a main Plant Strong community that is/will be open to the public to join and all posts are appearing on both the private and main pages, and unless you change your settings, you're also getting all posts sent to your email AND in the Notifications section, and a little bell dings each time one appears.

I'm sure things will get better as time goes on. It's a brand new software (Mighty Networks), a brand new community, and, as I said, dumped on us without any warning.

For now, the Plant Strong Community is only open for those who attended Plant Stock, but some time this week it will open up to everyone. When that happens, if you use this link it totes up to my Ambassador page if you join. Ambassadors get points for every person who joins using their specific link. What do we get out of it? As far as I can tell, we get a little badge, the color depends on how many join from using our link. Why? Makes life interesting? Leads to competitiveness? Gives the Esselstyns more eyeballs on their page? Who knows? If the link doesn't work today, try again during the week. We members have no idea when things are happening (or why). All I wanted was to watch the replays of the Plant Stock 2020 talks.

Texas Armadillo Tater Tots and "Special Sauce" Ranch Dressing

My husband has been in a potato mood lately, and frankly, I'm getting a bit sick of plain old IPot steamed spuds with Golden Gravy and veggies on the side and wanted to make something different but still easy enough to make.

Enter the Esselstyn family instead of the McDougall one.

Here are the potatoes I'm making:

Texas Armadillo Tater Tots
makes 18 tots

18 red baby potatoes (or any color)
1 cup (8 ounces) hummus
1/2 to 3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning

Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a baking pan with parchment paper.

Slice most of the way through each potato at 1/4 inch intervals (Hasselback).

In a food processor, combine the hummus, water, and 1 tablespoon of the seasoning and blend well. Place this into a bowl.

Put all the potatoes into the bowl and stir to coat each potato and get the seasoning mix to sneak down into the wedges of the potatoes.

Place the potatoes on the lined pan and pour the remaining mix over them.

Bake until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked, about 45 minutes or longer, depending on the size of the potato. They should be tender in the middle and crispy outside.

Serve with ketchup or Rip's Ranch Dressing.


Engine 2 Cookbook
page 108

Of course, I used the Esselstyn's Our Hummus.

Our Hummus
From the book by Ann Crile Esselstyn and Jane Esselstyn. "The Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook."

1  (15 oz) can no salt added chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 large cloves garlic
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 T spicy brown mustard
freshly ground black pepper to taste.
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

  In food processor, combine the chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, mustard, and pepper to taste. Add salt if desired and 2 T water and process until smooth. Serve immediately.

Variations.: Top with Caramelized onions, blend in cooked sweet potato, or add green onion.

But when it came to the ranch dressing, I didn't want Rip's because it contains cashews. Instead, I went for a ranch dressing from the McDougall forums:

Special sauce
post by Alvah » Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:14 pm

I'd like to share my version of a ranch dressing I use all the time, in salads, on baked potatoes, over vegetables, in panini. I modified the recipe by omitting the dill and jalapeño and adding a few other things.

Process in food processor:

2 green onions
1 package low fat silken tofu
1 t seasoned rice vinegar
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 t salt
1 t sugar
2 t mild curry powder
1/3 c nutritional yeast
1/2 c low calorie plant milk

Yummy!

Yes, I had tofu! Last week I noticed our grocery store changed the endcap in the "healthy" section from chips and cookies to assorted other foods, from organic pickle relish to organic Kosher jelly, assorted fizzy waters (organic, of course), and there, behind some organic chocolate bars, I noticed the familiar lilac of the MoriNu Lite silken tofu box peeking out! There were 2 of these beauties hiding back there! Just when I had given up hope that this tofu would ever reappear in the United States again (It's been sold out everywhere since March), I was blessed with these! Just in time (OK, maybe a little late) for summer salad season! I had no idea exactly what I was going to do with them, but I grabbed them. The expiration date is next month, but I'm sure I can use the other one next week in one of Mary McDougall's recipes, like a potato salad. 

As for Alvah's recipe, since I haven't had ranch dressing in a long, long time, I can't really say how close this came to it, but I do know I'll be making this sauce again. Next time, though, I'll either reduce or skip the salt entirely and use half the curry powder. It is a great tasting sauce, though.

The execution . . .

Well, some mistakes were made.

I made the hummus a bit too thick. By the time I was ready to use it, it was as thick as clay and just as difficult to use. Because of that, I wound up using too much water in the armadillo sauce. Since I had a bag of 40 of those tiny potatoes, I planned on making double the sauce. Two cups of the hummus went into the food processor. I reached for the Cajun seasoning and saw I needed to open a new jar. There were 2 jars in my spice box, 2 different brands, neither the one I just finished. I opened the first and tasted it. It had a weird chemical taste. Opened the other, and it was different, but not at all like the older one.  Oh, well, it’s going to have to do. In that goes into the food processor. My husband walks into the room and offers to help. I hand him the 2 cup measuring cup, tell him to double the amount of water on the paper and pour it into the machine. He does that and the water starts pouring out around the spindle! Instead of at most 1 1/2 cups of water he used 2 cups. He misunderstood what I told him to do.  You would think an 11 cup food processor could hold more than 4 cups, but you’d be wrong. I learned that last year when I tried to make that corn soup.

So, after I blended up the “batter” he cleaned the mess. It looked like hummus soup.

While he cleaned, I started in on cutting all those tiny slits in those 40 tiny potatoes.  My hands were so sore afterwards. The batter got poured into the bowl with the potatoes and I let them soak in it while the oven preheated and I got the parchment paper on the pans.

Using a slotted spoon, 20 potatoes went on each tray, and a bit of the liquified hummus got poured over each. The pans went into the oven, a timer was set for 20 minutes so I could rotate them, hubby helped clean everything up, and away we went into the air conditioned bedroom to watch TV for a few minutes. When the timer dinged I moved the trays around, reset the timer for 25 more minutes.

45 minutes came and went and the potatoes were still hard. How? These were those tiny things! Checked again in 5, then 10, and just took them out after an hour in the oven. Here’s how they looked:

Good enough. If they’re still too hard to eat I’ll nuke them, but as it turned out, most were okay enough. The few we have leftover will be eaten during tomorrow’s lunch and they'll soften up as they get nuked. The 2 pounds of cauliflower were devoured, though, as well as over half the ranch dip/dressing. The saltiness seemed to have died down a bit since I made it in the morning.

The verdict:

My husband loved every morsel of it, including some of the baked on batter that he peeled off the parchment paper. It tasted a bit like cheese crackers our son ate when younger. He liked the tiny slices that made these baby potatoes disguise themselves as Hasselback potatoes. The ranch dip, now as firm as I wish my hummus was, he declared “good” but not “great”. Even so, he already asked when I plan on making this meal again.

As for *my* opinion, if I had my druthers I wouldn’t bother with the slits and I wouldn’t bother with making these in an oven. I wouldn’t even be opposed to skipping the “batter” part, either, but the next time I will make the batter, but all by myself, so I can keep track of how much liquid it needs. Hopefully it comes out right, and the batter adds a lot of flavor, and roasting it in the oven transforms them into something magical. To me, that ranch dressing/dip made the whole meal.

Plant Strong, Right On!

Just skip the "avocado on toast" and kale with breakfast and it's McDougall MWLP.

This guy's videos were included as part of the activities this past weekend on Engine 2's Plant Strong Primer Weekend. Sorry I didn't post about the weekend sooner, but I found out about it late and missed just about all the talks, anyway, and have to wait for the replays. From what little I did see, it was the usual Esselstyn shenanigans - Dr. Esselstyn did his Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease talks, Ann talked about what to eat on the Plant Perfect Esselstyn diet, Rip did his usual talks and meal demos for his 7 Day Diet Rescue version of the Engine 2 diet (Tossing together a bunch of fruit and cereal and call it Rip's Big Bowl, toss together a sweet potato, a bunch of veggies and fruit, and call it Rip's Big Dinner Bowl), Ann and Jane did a few of their fast and sloppy and unintentionally comical food demos (Oatmeal and sandwiches and ??), Adam Sud did his story of pulling himself out of addiction. There was also a talk by Jane's husband Brian Hart (IDK on what) and a talk by Dr. William Bulsiewicz on gut health. There were going to be dance breaks, music breaks, and even yoga. I guess I'll see them all when the replays are available.

The page advertising the weekend is still up on the Plant Strong website. Maybe they're going to sell the replays? I have no idea, but if interested, keep checking that website.

I Can't Resist It - The Plant-Strong Primer Weekend

From the Plant-Strong Primer announcement website:

WHAT IS A PLANT-STRONG PRIMER?

A live expert-guided,
interactive event.

It’s important now more than ever to do all we can to eliminate our risks for chronic disease. As the country emerges from quarantine, let’s strengthen ourselves from the inside out by harnessing the power of whole, plant-based nutrition.

Shelter in Place with the Esselstyns—The First Family of the Plant-Strong Movement.

Along with the Esselstyn family, Adam Sud will be giving his From Pills to Plants talk, Jack Quigley will be playing guitar for the "Dance Breaks" between lectures or cooking demonstrations, and just today I saw someone named Dr. Will Bulsiewicz will be a special guest.

Yes, I know that I, and probably most of you people, have already heard the standard Esselstyn talks; you heard the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease speech by Dr. Esselstyn a number of times, saw Ann & Jane do numerous cooing demonstrations, heard Rip's talk about the Engine 2 Seven Day Diet program a time or 2, but each time these talks are given some new tidbit of info is usually mentioned. Besides, we've all heard Dr. McDougall say the same things multiple times and we still tune in to hear each time, right? :)

If you can't watch "live" be sure to choose one of the 2 packages that give you the recorded streams. The cheapest price is ONLY the live videos - you don't watch as it airs you're out of luck.

Now if only I could buy veggies again. . .

Plant Strong Podcast - Corona Virus

Last week Rip spoke with his brother in law (Jane's husband) Brian Hart in a podcast titled Reflections on Food and Pandemics:

This week he talks with his father, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. He wrote:

Hello Friends, 
Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my dad, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.  I had originally planned to fly to Cleveland to capture this conversation in person, but right now he and my mom are in protective isolation in their home. Thankfully, my sister, Jane, lives next door and checks on them each day. To us, our parents are national treasures and we are taking no chances in exposing them to any of us.
So please forgive the audio—we did the best we could given the technology. But I hope you enjoy this candid Q & A podcast with my dad in which we talk about nitric oxide, iron, cholesterol, and more. We will schedule more of these so keep the questions coming.
I hope you are all staying healthy, staying home, and staying positive.
Peace, Engine 2, Plant-Strong,
Rip Esselstyn
Founder, Plant-Strong by Engine 2

Klunker's Easy Mustard Dressing

Lately, potatoes have really been bothering me, so I've switched from the assortment of soups and plates of potatoes to rice dishes, specifically brown rice (made in my rice cooker), veggies (made in my microwave) and beans (made in my Instant Pot, although sometimes I get lazy and just open a can or 2).

Rice - I have an assortment of brown rices to choose from - par-boiled, instant, basmati, jasmine, short grain, Texmati, and plain old Carolina or other brand of long grain. Every time I go shopping to a new grocery store I check out the rice section and many times come home with another bag of something.

Frozen veggies - it all depends on what the store has that week. It's usually cauliflower, green beans, broccoli, peas, corn, carrots, either 3 pounds of each or mix and match. Peas and carrots is good, as well as peas and corn, even peas and baby onions. Brussels sprouts are reserved for the days it's just my husband and myself eating because our son hates them. I also toss a bit of greens into each batch, maybe a quarter pound, unless, of course, it's already a veg that passes as an Esselstyn "green".

Beans - I'm embarrassed to say I still have bags of beans from when I belonged to the Rancho Gordo Bean Club, and I dropped out of it (for the third time) over a year ago. Do you think that stopped me from buying an 8 pound bag of pintos when I saw them for the first time Walmart a few weeks ago? Or from ordering one 10 pound bag each of organic black, cannelini and dark red kidney beans from Food for Life from Amazon last week, as well as another 5 pound bag of Palouse garbanzos? (Well, I do go through those garbanzos pretty fast and buy a new bag about every 3 months.)  I made a vow to start eating more beans, especially after hearing Ann Esselstyn say you can't eat too many beans, that beans are great (As opposed to Dr. McDougall's guideline to eat no more than an average of 1 cup per day). I rearranged my kitchen appliances so now the toaster oven is back in storage and the big Crock Pot is now in its former home. Remember those attempts at making Mary's Bean Stew a few years back, when I vowed then to make a batch of that every week? I make and break a lot of vows when it comes to food, don't I? 

Anyway, a funny thing happened - the more beans we ate, the more weight we lost. While I'm ecstatic to lose a pound or even just a half pound a week, but my husband isn't. At 6' he was maintaining his weight at around 170 since he lost that big amount post-op CABG surgery in 2013, but since we started eating first potatoes and veg, then soups, and now rice, beans & veg, his weight had dipped down as low as 151 and he looked at least 10 years older and frail. He put a few pounds back on by eating 2 loaded hummus sandwiches on weekdays for lunch and 3 sandwiches plus a snack on weekends. Oh, how I wish I could lose weight as easy as he does!

Toppings - There's the usual lower sodium soy sauce and teriyaki sauce, Bone Sucking Sauce, sriracha sauce, but there's also the Jane Esselstyn 3-2-1 Dressing and Sweet Fire Dressing, and lately the peanut butter based Dragon Sauce that my son loves, as well as Chef AJ's assorted dressings and sauces and Jeff Novick's tahini sauce. My husband has said not to make things like Ann Esselstyn's beet based sauce In the Pink or Chef AJ's Barefoot Dressing because although he originally loved them, he says they're now too sweet for his tastes. He wants more savory, as well as more filling, toppers for our meals.

So, now I'm on a quest for savory, filling sauces and dressings. Later next week I plan on one meal using Michael Klunker's Crock Pot Mushrooms and Ann Esselstyn's Sweet Corn Sauce, and this morning I made a batch of Creamy Easy Mustard Dressing from Michael Klunker that I'll serve with tonight's rice with peas & carrots and garbanzo beans. I could post a photo of my batch in an old salad dressing bottle, but it doesn't look any different than the dressing in Michael's photo in the link. His recipe:

Klunker's easy mustard dressing

Ingredients notes - don't overreact to any of the ingredients, this is dressing, a condiment, so you are going to get a lot of of this. 
You can adjust the ingredients to make as much or as little as you want.  This is for a big batch.  It lasts a long time in the fridge.  You will use it all before it would ever go bad.  It can be used for dip too.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup rice vinegar (you can use other vinegar's to change the flavor a bit, like white wine, red wine, apple cider, or white balsamic)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (you can add more if you want, I sometimes do, start with 1/4 cup (quarter of a cup) and go from there.
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of pepper

Blend together well.  Put in a jar of your choice, and store in the fridge.  This travels very well.  Use on anything.  I dip potatoes into it, fries, on salads....the list goes on.  I hope you enjoy.

Creamy version:
Add the above ingredients, add 1c of cooked (canned), drained chickpeas.  Put in a good blender and blend until very smooth.
It will be thick, you can eat as is, or thin out with more vinegar.  I like it thick. :)
Enjoy!!

I did add the cup of canned no-salt added garbanzos and it is pretty thick and creamy. It's also very salty, and I didn't even add the 1/2 teaspoon salt that's in the recipe and used a no-salt/no-sugar rice vinegar! But is also is very tasty! I'll have a wee bit of it over my broccoli and the leftover half cup of canned garbanzos for lunch and tonight we'll have it with our rice. I think I found my new favorite dressing. 

Let's see what else I can put over rice. We're not a fan of all those flavored balsamic vinegars, and since I'm trying to keep my triglycerides down I use the minimum on my greens when I do use some. I'll be looking over the old Potato Toppings List to see what else might catch my eye to use in the coming weeks.

Mom, Make Meals That Are Less Complicated

Or, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

In my case, a bigger food processor, but I'll get to that later in this post.

A few weeks ago Ann and Jane Esselstyn demonstrated this recipe for Oberlin Corn and Shallot Chowder from the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook (page 89), except they called it Summer Corn Chowder in the video.



The other day I decided to give it a shot, and even bought the twice-as-expensive Pacific lower sodium vegetable broth as suggested. I also mistakenly bought leeks instead of shallots, not realizing my mistake until I was half-way checked out at the register, when the clerk asked me what those things were and I replied: "It was supposed to be shallots but grabbed leeks by mistake. Aw, crap!" I knew I had a container of freeze-dried shallots at home and decided to just use those instead of finishing my order, putting all the bags in the car and going back into the grocery store to grab 2 shallots. I'll find some other use for those leeks, even if it's just cleaning and chopping them and sticking them in a bag in the freezer.

Time came to start the soup, and I took the rehydrated shallots, celery, and broth on to cook as directed. While that was bubbling along I dragged out my food processor and got ready.

Here's where things started to go off the rails.

Instead of putting the veggies and broth into the food processor container first I put the defrosted corn and then started to pour the broth in. I get it only half poured when I notice puddles forming under my food processor! 

ACK!!

I quickly grab some paper towels and start sopping the area of the puddle that wants to pour over the edge of the cabinet. Then I quickly get the top of the food processor off and start pouring what's left in it into the pot and toss that in the sink, then continue grabbing paper towels to clean the still growing mess up.

Yes, those are pencils in my sink. They were on the counter near the pad where I write my shopping lists. The pad went right into the garbage. Those were just a handful of towels I used before getting the food processor opened and food dumped into the pot. There was a heck of a lot more paper towels on the counter, sopping, while I ran to grab the iPad so I could snap this shot. Right after this I poured everything into the pot and put it back on the stove while I washed out the food processor container, the food processor itself, the counter, and everything the broth touched on the counter, like the electric tea kettle, a bunch of spice bottles, and those poor pencils. Hey, they had erasers that worked - I wasn't going to toss them our just because they got a bit of broth on them!

After all the clean-up was done, I tried again, this time only putting a few scoops of soup into the food processor, whirring that up, pouring it into a different pot, then repeating until it was all done. Now I finished up the recipe by heating it all up again before dishing it out.

By now, the lacinato kale that I also bought was finished in the Instant Pot. It was the first time in a few years our store had this and not the curly kale. It tasted so delicious even plain! I did what the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue book says to do and made half my bowl full of greens, then ladled the soup into it.

A bunch of black pepper got added on top of this.

Now for the taste test.

Well, the kale is delicious. The soup? As Ann says at the end of the video, needs more pepper. It needed something - otherwise it tasted not all that different than a can of no-salt added creamed corn.

Will I ever make this again? No. Not that it's bad - it's just blah. My husband took a taste and grabbed his ever-present bottle of sriracha and added so much his soup was almost pink. Not a good sign. He also told me I can have all the leftovers for myself. Gee, thanks. I had a bit yesterday, and will probably finish it up at lunch today. If I go a bit heavy-handed with the salt shaker it's not too bland.

When my son heard this story (He was at work when it all happened. Hubby wasn't home at the time I did the above, either), he turned to look at me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said the title of this blog post: "Mom, make meals that are less complicated." Will do. 

Either that, or buy a bigger food processor. Mine is the 11 cup model, and in all the years I've had this, I never made a mess as big as this one was. I looked up the one I think Jane has and discovered it's most likely the 16 cup capacity. So word of warning - if you try this soup yourself, either use a larger food processor, a fairly large capacity blender, or an immersion blender. Consider yourself warned!

As for those "less complicated" meals, since 3 days a week I make rice and frozen veggies, 2 days a week some kind of pasta with a very simple sauce, and either a McDougall soup, a SNAP meal, or potatoes and frozen veggies the other 2 days, what I usually make isn't complicated at all. I just wanted something different! That'll teach me!

Speaking of Rip, Plantstock 2019 Videos Now Available

Register at the Engine 2 Plant Strong Academy page, just like last year. And it's also the same price as then, $149. 

There are many returning speakers, like the Esselstyn family (Duh!), Adam Sud, the Drs. Sherzai, and John Mackey, but others include the McDougall Program's own Dr. Anthony Lim, the diabetes experts Dr. Cyrus Khambata and Robby Barabro, Melissa Pampanin (She plays an integral role running MUSE School, the first school in the country that is 100% solar powered, zero waste, and serves a 100% organic, plant-based lunch program.), and a few others I never heard of before, but their topics sound interesting.

I can't wait to dive into them! I still keep a few that I downloaded last year on my iPad to watch when away from home and away from an Internet connection. I can never get too much of Dr. Esselstyn or his wife Ann!

Plant Strong Podcast - Rip Esselstyn

A few months ago, Rip Esselstyn started his own podcast series called The Plant Strong Podcast. I listened to a few episodes, then forgot about it, because, well, I don't usually do podcasts and rarely open the podcast app on my iPad Mini, and unless someone gives me a poke and says "Listen to this!" I just don't do it. It's also available on-line, so no app necessary, only a browser that can play audio files, but I have the same problem. With my hearing disorder, listening to things is sometimes hard, so I always miss out on so much.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Rip (or someone in his organization) has put these podcasts up on YouTube! And they enabled the closed caption feature, too! OK, YouTube captions are voice capture, not a human looking at a transcript and typing the captions in like the best TV shows and movies do, but it's better than nothing.

So far I only got through the first 2 episodes - one with his dad and one with his mom as special guests - but I've enjoyed them. With this heat wave we're having, we're spending a lot of time indoors. While my husband watches things like The Cape Canaveral Monster and The Unknown Terror on the TV, I can pop my earbuds in and listen to a few more of these gems.

Here's the page with the Plant Strong Podcast Playlist, and here's the first episode, where Rip introduces Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn as well as Firefighter Joe Inga, whose story Rip will be following in these episodes.

Ann & Jane - Mommy's Mushroom Gravy

Ann & Jane - Kickin' Corn Muffins

Kickin' Corn Muffins
makes 12 muffins

1 cup water
3 tablespoons flaxseed meal
1 1/4 cups oat flour
1 1/4 cups corn flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup 100% pure maple syrup

Book Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine the water and flaxseed meal in a small bowl and let sit for at least 5 minutes, until it starts to gel. (This is not the usual flaxseed-to-water ration used in baking: We are saving steps by using all the water for the muffins with the flaxseed meal).

In a mixing bowl, combine the oat flour, corn flour, and baking soda. Add the flaxseed mixture and maple syrup and mix until well combined.

Scoop the batter into the cups of a 12-cup non-stick muffin pan. Bake for 18 minutes, until lightly browned. These are best when served warm with salsa or hot sauce.


The Engine 2 Cookbook
page 111

Video instructions:

Do NOT mix the water and flaxseed together. Add the dry flax meal to the flours in the bowl.
Use any grind cornmeal.
If 1/2 cup maple syrup is too much, use less syrup and increase the water.

Ann & Jane - Chocolate Filled and Lime Kissed Strawberries

Ann says that mini food processor is a Cuisinart, but it looks more like the Chop 'n Prep Chef portion from the Power Chef system from Tupperware that Chef AJ has been pushing for a few years. You can also see it in action in this Tupperware party done by drag queen Aunt Cassie Rolle (a.k.a. Kurt Kohler). No matter where in the country you live, you can order anything from Tupperware through his Tupperware page. People who have ordered through him have nothing but praise for the personal attention - and speedy shipment - to their orders. He even leaves his phone number in case you have any questions about any of the products.

2 Pictures of Esselstyn Recipes

Well, I said the other day that I bought a cauliflower to make those Cauliflower Steaks. Here's the proof:

I finally made them up yesterday, using the Pizza Hummus. They took 40 minutes in the oven to get them to where I liked the texture. Is it so bad that I ate the entire thing by myself for lunch? I guess not, because I was still hungry after eating it all (it made this full tray and half of another) so I had a sweet potato afterwards.

And since it's been such gloomy, rainy, and sometimes chili weather here in NJ the past week, I decided instead of my usual old-fashioned oats with a banana and spinach for breakfast I would make Ann Esselstyn's version of steel cut oats, as she made them in this video. I've made steel cut oats before, but usually with fruit. I've made savory old fashioned oats before, too. But somehow this particular combo - the steel cut savory, made with kale and nutritional yeast (I forgot the mushrooms. Oops!) - is so tasty and hearty, it just warmed me up and gave me hope that we'll eventually see the sun again.

Another good thing about this meal - I followed the directions on the package of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Steel Cut Oats and used 3 cups of water to 1 cup of oats, so besides this bowl, I also have Mason jars of breakfast for the next 2 days in the refrigerator now.

More recipe photos as I make them. As mentioned a few times already, I haven't really been cooking anything new, but with the weather changing, I hope to switch some of my current weekly meals to hearty soups. I have a few hundred soup recipes I haven't tried yet and hope to do at least one new one per week. Keep your fingers crossed I don't back out and just stick with the super simple tried-and-true meals I've been doing all summer. 

Ann & Jane - Plant-Based Sandwich Contest

Um, not a contest, by any means. Jane makes a cucumber sandwich from the cookbook, Ann makes a cucumber sandwich with ingredients her son Ted had on a sandwich recently. Both ladies use hummus, cucumber, and greens but Jane's also uses mustard, scallions, and lemon pepper seasoning, and Ann's has radishes and an apple slice.

To be honest, I wouldn't - couldn't - eat either of them. I can't find an oil-free, whole grain gluten free bread, even if I wanted to eat any flour products. And I have no idea how people can eat Mestemacher bread even without double toasting it. Jane laughs because her daughter calls it a shingle, it's so hard. How is that enjoyable to eat?? And I, personally, do not like cucumbers or radishes. I'm sure there are many of you out there who, like Ann and Jane, do, so go ahead and enjoy these sandwiches with no fear I'm going to be jealous or try to steal it from you. LOL

Plant-Stock Available for Everyone Now!

Hello, all you lovers of all things Esselstyn!

Couldn't get to Plant-Stock last weekend? Wish you had been able to see 2 1/2 days' worth of whole food plant based speakers? Missed Ann and Jane's antics?

Fret no more!

For the first time ever, all the Plant-Stock lectures were professionally recorded and are available for streaming! Yes, you have to pay for it (unlike last year when someone used their cell phone then put them all up on FaceBook), but it costs a bit less than one of the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend series and contains many more hours than those!

From their intro page, where a promo video is available:

Preserve your Plant-Stock Memories (or see what you missed!)This series includes professional video and sound recordings of each speaker that took the stage at the 2018 Camp Plant-Stock event in Black Mountain, North Carolina. We've published this video series like an online course, with lectures and supporting documents. Watch the series at your leisure and refer to it as often as needed, strengthening your arsenal of plant-strong information.

So, why not invest in your health and sign up today? 

Kale in the Komics

I have admitted a few times in the past that I read the daily comics on-line. Remember the one about The Starch Solution? I wrote about that before Dr. McDougall did.

For the past few days, a strip called "Betty" on GoComics has been doing a thread about a visiting relative, the male lead's brother. He had been a "bad boy" most of his life, even spent time in jail, but has recently cleaned up his act, and that includes (most of) his eating habits. The past few days were strips about his love of kale and its health benefits.

Unfortunately, GoComics won't allow me to show the actual strips, so just follow the link. Here's the first kale strip. After this, just click the forward arrow on each day's strip to get to the next.

Ann and Jane Make Zucchini Bread

Looks so yummy I just HAD to try it!

Labor Day Zucchini Bread
makes 1 loaf or 12 muffins or 12 donuts

2 cups whole grain flour (Jane uses 1 cup oat flour, 1 cup whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 3/4 cups shredded zucchini, pressed dry between paper towels
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
In a bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
In a large bowl, combine zucchini, maple syrup, and vanilla and stir to mix.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
Pour the batter into the lined loaf pan (or non-stick muffin or donut pan) and bake for 30 minutes (or 15 to 18 minutes) until golden brown on top. Serve warm.

Engine 2 Cookbook
page 255

Since I'm forced to stay gluten-free or else my fingers swell up in the joints and get hot and inflamed (Don't ask how I know, especially this past week), I'm using the Bob's Red Mill 1:1 flour mix that Mary McDougall had advised in one of her bread recipes along with the oat flour. Maybe next time I'll use all oat flour, but I'm afraid it'll be a bit too gummy (or as Ann says, "wetter").

Zucchini - Because I saw this after we did our weekly order, I asked my husband to pick up some zucchini when he went out for the Sunday papers, specifying that I ONLY need enough to make 1 3/4 cups of zucchini, so maybe 2 small ones or one medium size. He brings home 3 zukes that, while not as big as a baseball bat as Jane jokes, but could pass for toddler sized t-ball bats. YIKES!! Each one might make enough for 3 or more cups of shredded zucchini! I guess I'll be tossing zucchini in my meals for the rest of the week.

Checked the dates on the baking powder and baking soda, since I haven't used either for a while. OK, still good. The vanilla? Well, the standard brand, with alcohol, was outdated by a few years, but the alcohol-free one is fine. Whew! In this heat I didn't think my husband would want to walk back to the store again.

Maple syrup - Well, we try to follow Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse protocols, but I do use maple syrup now and then, like in the 3-2-1 Dressing (aka Jane's Dancing dressing) or mixed with mustard as a dip for Brussels sprouts. But to use 2/3 of a cup for 8 slices of zucchini bread would be overkill. Luckily, one of the commentators on YouTube wrote she used only 1/3 cup and it tasted great.

Oops. I better go dig out a loaf pan. Now where did I put them all? There's one corner cabinet in the kitchen that's so inconvenient to find things in because it goes back about 3 feet - These cabinets were NOT professionally designed or installed decades ago when the house's last owner changed the attic into an apartment for his daughter and her kids, the apartment we now reside in - so it took me quite a while to empty things out one by one until I got far enough back in the archaeological dig to find the pans. Aha! I found the one silicone pan I own and one of the 3 non-stick metal ones! But - Ew! - they both need a good scrubbing after being down there for so long. I filled them with soapy water and will let them soak for a few hours. My husband will scrub them both up later. He's an expert at getting all the stuff off silicone bakeware, even if it takes 2 or 3 tries, because as soon as water touches the flour crud it disappears from view until it dries again. After we have cornbread we now soak the silicone pan for a while before even attempting to wash it.

Anyway, if this comes out good I'll go back into the cabinet and search for the donut pan that I bought and used maybe twice. I already found my silicone muffin pan (regular size), non-stick Texas-sized muffins pan, and my non-stick mini-muffin pans. I have enough zucchini right now to make a batch for each pan! 

So, these loaf pans aren't getting washed until after lunch. By then the temps will be hovering near 90 again, so no lighting of the oven. This zucchini bread will have to wait until tomorrow morning after I do the laundry, or the day after if it gets too hot early. There are definite disadvantages to living in a third floor walk-up with a flat roof overhead and no air conditioning in the kitchen. At least in summer it's a disadvantage - In winter we keep the radiator in most of our rooms turned off because it gets way too hot, while the landlord's apartment on the first floor is freezing.

So, to be continued!

(Monday)

Alright. Only 72 outside this morning so the oven is lit, the batter is in the pan, the pan is in the oven.

To update the above:
Zucchini - one of those large zucchinis made a full 2 cups of shredded. I figured I would save myself the hassle of finding the shredder disc and the washing of the food processor so I grabbed my box shredder. Big mistake! Zucchini bits flying everywhere! How the heck did that one get in my hair, of all places?? Next time, the Cuisinart, for sure!

Maple syrup - I did use only 1/3 cup, but as I started mixing the wet and dry together realized it was now a bit too dry, so added a bit less than a third cup of water to the mix. Now it looks okay and mixed up beautifully.

Loaf pan - Well, after an overnight soak I see what was in the non-stick pan wasn't food crud that wasn't properly washed but about a quarter of the coating had been worn away and those were bits of rust. I used this pan, anyway, because the parchment paper prevents the food from touching the area. To be safe, I put a piece of foil on the bottom to cover up that spot. I wanted to use the metal pan like in the video for the first time making this. I'll be sure to use the silicone pan next time. With 2 more big zucchini in the refrigerator (I used the smallest of the 3 today) I'm hoping it tastes good and I'll make more as zuke season goes on.

Here it is in the pan, ready for the oven.

and here it is, fresh out of the oven and out of the pan onto the cooling rack. The toothpick test works on this bread, BTW.

My husband is about to take his lunch break, and it'll be cool enough to cut by the time he finishes. Let's see if it passes the taste test.

(An hour later)

Uh, oh! I'm in trouble! This stuff is delicious!!

First off, ignore what I said about the toothpick test - it may have come out clean, but the bread is still a bit on the gummy side. You can even see it in the photo. Is it because of the oat flour, the added water, or is it slightly undercooked? I'm leaning toward the oats, because the crust on the outside is firm and dry, top a bit crackly, like all good quickbreads should be. 

I cut it into 8 decent sized slices, and my husband immediately grabbed for a second slice after his first. He cut a piece off for me to taste, and all those little pleasure circuits in my brain started firing off. I know they did for him, too, because for the first time in forever he told me to wrap it up, get it out of his sight, or he'll eat the whole thing in one sitting. He said he'll have another slice after dinner, then limit himself to only one slice a night until it's gone. I reminded him that he bought three of those zucchini, to expect 2 more of these loaves in the near future. He said he won't mind. Yeah, but *I* will, having this delicious off-plan food hanging around the house where I can see it each time I go into the freezer!

So, I'll probably be making the second and possibly third loaf before the week is out. I'll cut them up and wrap each slice individually and stick them all in the freezer, so after dinner each night he can take one out, and by the time Jeopardy is over it'll be defrosted. All three loaves will be gone before the end of his vacation in 2 weeks, so we can return to our normal eating patterns after that.

But man, that's a tasty loaf of zucchini bread!