Everything Old Is New Again - Pioneer Baked Beans

While the UWL FB community is doing a challenge to make the recipes in the 21 DAy Recipe Guide, I decided to do a challenge of my own - to make some of the older recipes that got me started on the McDougall program in the first place. The first one of these is Jan Tz's Pioneer Baked Beans.

I've written about long-time McDougaller Jan Tz before. Her recipes go way back to the VegSource McDougall boards days, before Dr. McDougall even had his own web presence. They were always so easy to make, cooked up fast, and were as tasty as heck. These Pioneer Baked Beans was one of her first recipes I ever made:

PIONEER BAKED BEANS
Peeled and cored apple, cut into big chunks
Onion, sliced thinly and separated into rings
Vegetarian Baked Beans

Combine all ingredients in whatever quantities you need, put into a baking dish, and bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350F.

Fresh out of the oven (See below)

First off, the original Bush Vegetarian Beans that Jan always recommended in her recipes is way too high in sodium for me at this stage of life, so I got the lower sodium ones. Since my husband is a big eater, I got 3 of those 16-ounce cans, the only size the lower sodium ones come in. I should have gotten 4, or used 2 cans of the Bush beans and 2 cans of no-salt added pinto or cannelini beans and added an 8-ounce can of no-salt added tomato sauce. That would have really cut the sodium down without sacrificing taste.

The Vidalia onion I used was gigantic, bigger than one of those bean cans. Like Jan suggested, I sliced it thin and separated the rings. Bad move. When it (finally) cooked down, some of those onion rings were as thin as threads and not too appetizing. Next time I make this I'll take the easier way out and just dump an entire 1-pound bag of frozen diced onions in the bowl.

I used 2 Fuji apples. Apples around here have really been tasteless for years now. Next time I'll add some no-sugar added applesauce along with 2 or 3 apples.

Cooking time. My oven is good - I use an oven thermometer and when I set the oven for 350ºF, by the time the 10 minute pre-heat is done it IS 350ºF. It was 350ºF when I put that bowl into it that night. I either should have used a regular flat casserole dish or lasagna pan or set the heat to 400ºF, because at the end of the 30 minute cooking time the bowl was red hot but the food, even the surface, was barely warm. The photo above was taken at this time. 

By now we were all getting hungry (Our son made his own dinner and was waiting for us so we could eat together) so instead of putting it back in the oven I stuck it in the microwave and popped it on the highest power and turned it on. It took 15 more minutes in the microwave before the onions cooked and the apples softened a bit. Next time it goes right into the microwave for 30 minutes, not the gas oven.

Sorry there's no photo of the final cooked product - we didn't want to wait any more to eat.

Even with all the mis-steps, it tasted delicious! With all that salt in it, how could it not? My husband is looking forward to having this again, but I warned him that if our blood pressure or weight go up form all the extra sodium in our diets, out it goes. He wasn't too happy hearing that, especially because he knows my weight rises just looking at a can of salty stuff. We'll see what the future brings.

Another Jan Tz Gem - Chickpea Gravy

For many years I used only canned gravy. My mom was a bad gravy maker when she made it from scratch, using the grease at the bottom of a roasting pan as the base and adding flour and salt and whisking with a fork until it sort of resembled a liquid. I hated her gravy and never used it and my 2 brothers didn't like it but took a bit of it, but she and my dad would drink it up like a beverage. Gravy like that contributed to her death at age 44 of a massive heart attack and my dad's 20 years battle with a variety of cancers.

I tried a few Mary McDougall gravy recipes, as well as some from Julie Hasson, but the first home-made gravy we ever truly loved came from Isa Chandra Moskowitz from her book Vegan With A Vengeance called Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy. I McDougalled it, of course, by omitting the oil. It was delicious, and our go-to recipe for years.

But I wanted something quicker and with less ingredients. 

Lately I've been looking over a lot of my MWLP recipes cardfile and the 3-ingredient recipes gathered from the McDougall forums over the years, and came across this gem from Jan Tz that she posted to the original McDougall recipe forum on VegSource almost 10 years ago.

CHICKPEA GRAVY

Put into blender jar:
1 can chickpeas, with liquid
dashes (to taste): salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, poultry seasoning
1/2 cup water, more or less, depending on how thick you want it.

Whiz it all up until the chickpeas are pureed, and the whole thing is smooth and thick. Heat it up in a saucepan (you could nuke it), then pour over toasted bread, rice, or spudz.

Man, you can't get much simpler than that! And my husband and I agree that it tastes better than Isa's recipe, too, maybe because of its simplicity.

I think this is now our new go-to gravy recipe. It'll jazz up those instant/frozen potatoes, even make a simple rice and veggie meal into something, well, more!

Thanks again, Jan, for your kitchen wizardry. And stop disappearing from the McDougall forums for such long stretches. :)

Jan Tz - 3-ingredient Genius - Tomato Zucchini Pilaf

Star McDougaller Jan Tz has been developing 3 (4 or 5) ingredient recipes as long as there has been a McDougall presence on-line. She was one of the most prolific posters on the original McDougall forums on VegSource, and for a long time she did the same on the current McDougall forums. Life may take her away from the boards for long stretches of time, but when she comes back, a few new recipes usually herald her return.

A few days ago she made a Christmas appearance and brought this pilaf recipe as her present:

Pilaf with Tomato and Zucchini

2 cups COOKED whole grain, like brown rice or bulgur
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 or 3 small zucchini, thinly sliced
1 can whole tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with juice
1 teaspoon dried or frozen basil
Black pepper, to taste

Cook the vegetables and seasonings in the tomato juice until onion is translucent. Mix in the cooked grain.

My lazy-gal changes:

I used a bit more than 2 cups of rice. I used my cheapo rice cooker and used 2 1/2 of the little plastic cups that came with it, 2 of plain brown rice, and the 1/2 was a multi-grain mix from a local Asian grocery store, just to add a little variety.

I used half a bag of frozen diced onions, and 4 cubes of Dorot frozen minced garlic.

Besides the giant can of whole tomatoes I added an additional 15 oz can of diced.

Used a whole bag of frozen zucchini, because it was already in the freezer from another meal I planned on but never made.

I added almost a tablespoon of dried basil because of the extra rice. I added almost as much black pepper, too.

I popped the grains in the rice cooker, the zuke in the nuker, and after the rice was finished and the cooker clicked to the keep warm setting, started the pot with the onions, garlic, spices and tomato juice. In 5 minutes I added the tomatoes and broke them up into thirds and stirred that around a bit to mix. When all that was warmed, about 5 minutes, I dumped all the rest of the ingredients in and mixed it up, adjusted the spices as mentioned above, and dishes it out.

Another relatively quick and easy winner! The only way this would have been quicker would be to use instant rice, either Success or Minute brands, while the zucchini was cooking and onions and tomatoes were warming. A great meal for a busy weeknight. My husband now wants this on added to the regular rotation of recipes. He's got so many "favorites" I never have to buy a new cookbook for the rest of my life!

Dr. Neal Pinckney - Healing Heart Foundation

Since he's home, my husband's appetite has been poor. Granted, before all this he would rarely eat breakfast - maybe once a month, lunch at work consisted of a white flour potato roll and a slice of yellow American cheese (usually) or a slice of seitan (once in a blue moon) or leftovers on weekends. Dinner was always our big meal for the day and aside from his weekly cheese & pepperoni pizza, would be WFPB, no SOS (Whole Foods Plant Based, no sugar, oil or salt). I think I already mentioned his evening potato chip habit.

None of the old tried and true meals appealed to him this past week, and he's just been picking at everything. He would eat most of his breakfast, but some days skipped lunch and just had some applesauce. At dinner, if he ate about a cup of the meal offered that was it. As a result, the weight is dropping off of him. He's also weak and fatigued probably more than other post-op CABG patients because this is on top of his expected post-op fatigue and anemia. Add to this the effect of being on both a beta blocker and ACE inhibitor so his blood pressure is hovering around 86/50. Unfortunately, I suspect his cardiologist will be happy with the weight loss, even if it does mean he's too weak to even walk around the apartment without feeling like he's about to pass out. My husband's BMI was officially in the overweight category, but he's been at the exact same height and weight since he graduated high school back in the 1960's. The only time he lost was when he had the "Martian Death Flu" back in the early 1970's, before we started dating, when he and his mom were both so sick neither had the energy to get dressed to buy food so they went hungry and slept all day until it was over. As soon as they were both well, the weight came back on within days.

So I went looking through my cardfile for different recipes to make. I looked through Susan V's recipes, Jan Tz's, all the Esselstyn's and McDougall's, the nutritarian ones, Marla's and Sandy's and Jeff's, the EDTV ones, HH and the people she first ripped off, the PPK.

Then I came across a row of recipes that had been neglected for a while, those from Dr. Neal Pinckney's Healing Heart Foundation web site and his book, The Healthy Heart Handbook (available in its entirety at the web site). As I looked over the recipes I realized I hadn't made some of these in ages, that maybe that's what hubby needs to whet his appetite. I went back to the web site's recipe page to see what else is there, and was pleasantly surprised at how many I had passed up in the past that now look appealing! I spent over an hour just copy/pasting recipes, and will most likely spend even more time there later gathering more.

So now I have a list of meals I'm going to be trying as the weeks go on. For this week, hubby already warned me not to make anything fancy, in fact, not to plan on making anything at all, that he has no idea what he'll feel like until the time comes to eat. Really makes it hard to shop and prepare, you know! I do have a container of Jeff's Longevity Soup in the fridge we've been working on, and my freezer is full of veggies and the pantry filled with a variety of grains and pastas, as well as several forms of tomatoes, so most meals I can make up with no notice. For instance, today I hope to make Ann Esselstyn's Potato, Pea and Couscous Hash for dinner, but I won't know until it's time to start cooking if that's what I wind up making. But by next week his appetite should be back and I plan on making a menu to stick to, and I know a number of Dr. Pinckney's recipes will be included on it, like Lima Linguini Diablo and maybe even Okonomiyaki if I feel adventurous. Well, if the doctor eases up some of the sodium restrictions, that is. I'm sure that sauce is pretty high in it, even if I do use only the lower-sodium version. If I do wind up making some new dishes, I'll be sure to pop fresh batteries in the camera and take photos and notes on them.

VeganMoFo Day (whatever) - Chili/Cheeze/Potato Casserole

This is what I planned on making the day after the hurricane hit, but with no electric I couldn't run the blender to make the sauce or use the defrosted formerly-frozen hash brown potatoes from the freezer. It's still worth sharing the post, even if I didn't make the dish last week.
~~~~~~~~~
An oldie but goodie. I never saved the url from the original post, but way back on the old VegSource boards, Seedy posted this casserole, made with canned chili and a batch of bean-based cheeze sauce. You can spice it up as much or as little as you want. It's become a favorite in this family.

Seedy's Chili/Cheeze/Potato Casserole

Bottom layer:

3 cans vegetarian chili, or

1 can chili beans in sauce, 1 can kidney beans (rinsed), 1 can black beans (rinsed)

Middle layer:

Golden Cheeze Sauce

1 1/2 cups Great Northern beans, cooked (or one 15.5 can)

6 T nutritional yeast

1/4 cup pimiento pieces (or roasted red peppers)

juice from one freshly squeezed lemon

1 T low-salt shoyu (soy sauce) or tamari

1 t onion powder

1/2 t any type of prepared mustard

1/2 t salt

Blend all until smooth. Refrigerator any leftovers in sealed container.

Top Layer:

1 bag hash brown potatoes sprinkled with chili powder.

Bake uncovered at 400 degrees until potatoes brown and cheeze sauce is bubbly (30-45 min.)

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Depending on how may cans of chili I have in the house at the time, I use either 3 cans  of it or as many as I have plus canned kidney beans.

Because I'm sodium-sensitive I usually omit the soy sauce in the cheeze sauce and nobody even notices.

WHen I make this dish I also usually pop on a batch of cornbread, either this one from Lori or the one in this recipe from Jan Tz.

And speaking of oldies but goodies, today's Hurricane Sandy ditty is Sandy, from Ronny and the Daytonas. "Sandy, you laugh and run away. You just don't care." Yeah, sounds like our hurricane!

VeganMoFo day 16 - Quickbread by Jan Tz

I've written about Jan's quickbreads a number of times. They're not sweet, fancy or even pretty looking, but they do fulfill the dictionary definition of a cake, and I make one up for each of our birthdays. Here's the one I made for my own birthday this month - Raspberry Cocoa Quickbread.

We added a few candles, my guys sang the birthday song to me with the kiddie lyrics (the one with ". . .you belong in a zoo" ), and a good time was had by all.

Thanks again, Jan Tz, wherever you are, for a memorable day with a memorable recipe.

  

Raspberry Cocoa Quick Bread

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray an 8 x 8" square or 8" round cake pan with non-stick spray.

Combine the dry ingredients and mix well:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda

Combine liquid ingredients separately:
1 and 1/4 cups hot water (tap water hot, not boiling)
1 Tbs. + 1 tsp. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Have ready:
1 (10 ounce) jar Polaner All-Fruit, in Raspberry flavor

When the oven reaches temp., add the liquid ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix quickly with a spoon, and do not over-mix. Put half the batter into the pan; spread evenly. Spoon about 3/4 of the jar of Polaner Raspberry fruit spread onto the batter. Put it on evenly, but don't try to spread it around. Put the rest of the batter on top of the fruit and spread gently and evenly to cover. Bake 25 minutes -- toothpick test for doneness. Leave the bread in the pan and put the pan on a rack to cool. Remove the last 1/4 jar of fruit spread, put in a bowl, and microwave 30 seconds or so to melt. Pour this melted spread over the warm bread to glaze. Let the bread cool completely before cutting. 

Recipe by Jan Tzinski

Note from Jan: A couple of changes that apply to all the recipes:

(1)Bake at 350 F.

(2)liquid can be lukewarm soymilk, ricemilk, juice, or water

(3)Just add the vinegar to the liquid; no need to "sour" anything. 

VeganMoFo Day 15 - Minnesota Hot Dish

Casserole weather is here! When the leaves start turning it's time to relight the oven in the un-air-conditioned kitchen, and the second most-requested casserole to toss in that hot oven is Jan Tz's classic Minnesota Hot Dish. The most requested is Isa's Chickpea Broccoli Casserole, McDougallized, of course, by omitting the oil and breadcrumbs and dumping the other ingredients together with a bag of hash browns, like this recipe. 

Jan first posted this recipe way back in October 2003 in the original McDougall forums at VegSource. That particular forum was replaced by the Fat Free forum for a while and eventually disappeared completely from any menu, but the old messages are still there in hiding, just like those of the McDougall forum. You can find a lot of Jan's original recipes over there - she only reposted a handful to the "new" (6 years old) official McDougall forums.

Subject: Recipe: Minnesota Hot Dish
Date: October 21, 2003 at 4:36 pm PST

From the Land of 10,000 Lakes (and 100,000 swamps), where the mosquito vies with the loon for State Bird, I bring you...

Minnesota Hot Dish, that staple of church socials and funerals everywhere:

2 Boca Burgers, original vegan
2 good-sized potatoes, peeled and sliced
handful of chopped onion
1 can (about 1.5 cups) condensed vegetable soup (I used Vegetarian Vegetable) or any vegetable soup/broth

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease or spray a small casserole dish.
Nuke the Bocas with the onion for a couple of minutes, until they are mostly cooked. Put the potato slices in the bottom of your casserole. Put the burger/onions on top. Then pour the soup over all. This is not a particularly "liquid-y" dish. Cover and bake for 45 min. Uncover and bake another 15 minutes.


This dish is really really filling and meaty. Very much comfort food for me in East Central MN. 
* ~ * ~ * ~ *

This recipe was written back when Dr. McDougall still allowed things like Boca Burgers and Gimmelean meat substitutes. Many of us old-timers had packages of burgers and chubs of both "beef" and "sausage" Gimmelean in our freezers and used them in a few different meals each week. I still keep some Gimmelean and Lightlife Smart Ground in the freezer and when I see they've been in there for around 6 months, defrost a pack and use it in one of the old tried-and-true recipes. I was never a fan of Boca Burgers, especially when they stay in the freezers of our local grocery stores so long they're freezer-burnt before I even purchase them.

Instead of a few whole potatoes I used a bag of frozen Southern-style (diced) hash brown potatoes.

Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup is the soup of choice for this recipe, and just last week I grabbed some at Walmart at the price of 3/$1. I used 2 cans and swished about half a can back and forth between them to rinse out all the little bits of soup, alphabet pasta and veggies that stayed behind when I poured the soup out. They're a bit higher in sodium than Jeff Novick allows, but there's such a small amount in each serving, I can live with it and just drink extra water the next day.

A few shakes of Frontier brand dried onion pieces finished off the ingredients. I always buy these in bulk bags from the company so they're always on hand, even when my newly bought fresh onions magically turned moldy on the trip home from the grocery store.



I use my largest Pyrex mixing/casserole bowl, stir everything up until it's well mixed, then cover with parchment then foil and pop it all into the oven. Jan says her isn't a particularly "liquid-y" dish, but with the bit of added water and the good mixing, all the stuff gets nicely distributed and nothing is dry. There's just no watery sauce or gravy so no need for bread for sopping any excess up. 

Because of the soup and the crumbles, this isn't a meal I make on a steady basis any more. In fact, this one is the first I'm making in over a year. It's a surprise for my husband, who had complained about all the very veggie meals I'd been making lately. Because this is the mid-point in VeganMoFo with a lot more very veggie SNAP meals to come, I figured he needed a good dose of starchiness and salt, real comfort food, for me to get back in his good graces.