Jill McKeever's Soy Curls Noodle Soup

Soy Curls - those lovely little chunks of dried and stretched soybeans that, like tofu, are basically tasteless on their own but taste great when cooked with other things. But because soybeans are one of the fattiest beans I don't use them as often as I would like to.

As many people know, here on the East coast we've been having really cold temperatures, as low as single digits with wind chills in the negative teens at times. You know - SOUP WEATHER!! Since many of my favorite soups I now have penciled in for future dinners, I wanted to try something different for lunch, and this recipe cried out - "Choose me!!"

I wrote about this soup in the past, when Jill's Winter Soups video first appeared on YouTube, but for some reason never made it again, I guess because the only Soy Curls I had at the time were outdated and it took a long time to buy more. In fact, the ones I used when I made it this time were dated November 2017 but I figured what the heck, they've been refrigerated all this time and still smell okay, so why waste them, right?

This time around:
Soy Curls - What a difference they made! Better than the Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup I used to eat as a kid! I loved that stuff and would sometimes just open a can and eat it cold for a really quick lunch. Those days are long gone.

Veggies - Once again, I used one of the pint containers of mirepoix I had in the freezer and a can of no-salt added mushroom stems & pieces. Why mess with the classics? But this time I did have fresh baby spinach that I chopped up and tossed in.

Noodles - Instead of using the baked rice ramen, because I forgot I had some, I used half a package of Tinkyada rice fettucini noodles broken into small pieces. This makes it more of a traditional noodle soup than ramen, but either would fit this dish.

Vegetable Broth - The written directions in the PDF file say to use 8 cups of vegetable broth, so I used 2 boxes of Pacific no-salt added broth. 

Picture - Yes, this time I remembered, but not until I ladled out a second bowl.

Now I have the recipe all printed out and sitting in a file folder right in the kitchen with my weekly menu recipes, so I should remember to make it more often. It really is a great tasting noodle soup.

Dr. McDougall Says: "Eat"

Jill McKeever does a quickie interview with Dr. McDougall before the Health Fest in Marshall, Texas this weekend. She said Mary McDougall will be interviewed today, so I'll keep my eyes out for that one, too.

30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes

A little while back I wrote a post with a link to Jill McKeever's list in PDF format of 30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes. I just discovered she also did a video and a whole write up of it back in 2014! Now how did I miss that?

Be prepared - Jill is up to her usual shenanigans as she reads off the list, using a different hat, costume or camera filter as she read off each one.

And as always, there are many more recommendations in the comments below the video on YouTube, so be sure to check those out, too.

Quickie Advice from Dr. Doug Lisle

Jill McKeever and AJ Cook-Along - Slow Cooked Pasta Free Lasagna (aka

Gee, it only took AJ 2 months to post this video. She told us about doing it way back in November and we've been waiting for it ever since.

The recipe is in Jill's book, O M Gee! Good, which is based on the McDougall Pizza Potatoes recipe from various newsletters, the McDougall mobile cookbook app, and more recently in the Starch Solution book. She had previously done a video using the original recipe.

So, here AJ is calling this side-by-side video by the name of her former Foody TV web show, Healthy Living with Chef AJ, but it's nothing but a self-recorded YouTube video and the self-produced show series seems to be dead now.

On with the show:

Soy Curls Noodle Soup

Well, what's Christmas in our house without someone being sick, and this year all 3 of us were. It's this darn bug my son picked up his first week of work in September, and it just gets passed around, over and over again. On Christmas day, it was day 5 of my husband's second go-round, day 1 of my son's 4th bout and day 2 for me and my second battle with it (or is it third?). My husband kept sneezing, my son kept coughing, and I had the sore throat and ear ache. Today I have the runny nose and cough on top of that. Sometimes it hurts to even breathe!

Needless to say, nobody felt like eating, much less cooking, yesterday. Luckily there were plenty of my son's leftovers in the fridge so he helped himself to some of that for his lunch, and he popped a frozen pizza on for his dinner. This isn't the first time he had pizza for Christmas dinner, so it was a good thing to him. He told me weeks ago he wanted pizza, anyway, that's why I had one. My husband insisted on his usual sandwiches for lunch and refused my offer to make him something else. I really needed soup of some kind and found this video by Jill McKeever while roaming the Internet while son fought with his computer and hubby dozed:


This soup is the first one she does in the video, and the written recipe is available for free on her web site in PDF format. You have to go to the store, choose the Winter Soups file, go through the whole paying info page (use a fictitious name and numbers if you want), and then download the file.

Jill's Soy Curls Noodle Soup 

After you make this the first time, you'll want to keep lo mein noodles on hand all the time. For soy curls fans, this soup is perfect for those soy curls crumbs you have waiting in the freezer.

Serves 4 to 6

3 celery stalks, chopped
8 button mushrooms, sliced
1 large carrot, diced
1 1/2 cups dry soy curls, broken into small pieces
8 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons curry
1 teaspoon ground mustard
2 cups fresh spinach
1 package lo mein noodles, broken into fourths

Water sauté celery stalks, mushrooms, and carrot until tender. Add soy curls, vegetable broth, soy sauce, curry, ground mustard, soy sauce. Bring to a boil. Stir in spinach and lo mein noodles Turn off heat; partially cover with lid for 5 minutes. Dinner is on!

Now for my changes. Because I didn't plan on making this soup, especially on a day when all the grocery stores are closed, I didn't have all the listed ingredients, but Jill says in the video even *she* didn't have all the ingredients when she made it and improvised.

Celery and carrots - I always try keep a few containers of mirepoix on hand in the freezer, so even though this soup didn't call for onions, I just tossed the whole frozen lump of veggies in the IPot. My store carries one pint sized containers.

Mushrooms - Tossed in an 8 ounce can of no salt added stems and pieces, complete with the water. This way I didn't have to add any water to saute the veggies.

Veggie broth - in the video she uses only 1 quart of broth, but at the end she plays around and adds some plant milk to make it into a creamy noodle soup. I stuck with the one box.

Soy curls - Even though they're allowed in small quantities on the McDougall program, I keep forgetting I have some in the fridge. When I dug down and crawled to the back of the bottom shelf where I still had a bag and a half of them I saw they were both dated 11/2015. Oops. No Soy Curls for the soup. That's okay. With this throat, they probably would have hurt going down, anyway.

Noodles - Ever since I read Dr. McD advising those with auto-immune diseases, especially RA, to go gluten free, I've been avoiding wheat, so no lo mein noodles for me. Luckily, a few weeks ago we made a trip to Target and I found these rice ramen noodles. So I tossed the "flavor pack", broke up the noodles in the bag, and used these. Not perfect, but better than opening up a pound bag of Tinkyada spaghetti. Our local Stop and Shop is phasing out Tinyada products (NO!!!!!!!!!!) so only has 3 or 4 different shapes, and fettuccine isn't one of them. That would have been perfect.

Spinach - Frozen, of course.

I'm sorry, no picture. I ate all but about a cup of it, and that's packed away in a container in the fridge. Jill's video has better graphics than my soup in a container.

It tasted delicious! The curry was what my sinuses needed and it may have even relieved the ear ache for a while. By the time I got down to that last little bit, my throat was saying "Enough!" and my tummy reluctantly agreed. I'll probably finish it off as a mid-morning snack today. It's not even enough to pour over some rice and call it lunch.

Will I make it again? Definitely! I already tossed some Soy Curls in my cart in Amazon so I can have them on hand again. I just have to remember I have them and use them. As written, this would make a nice, filling soup for dinner for the 2 of us and I look forward to having it again. 

Now to find a nice soothing soup for today's lunch. I had already planned last week to have Mary McDougall's Curried Split Pea Soup (subbing turnips for the taters) for tonight's dinner. Maybe the blended up Quick Black Bean Soup? Oh, wait. I already planned on Potatohead's Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup for Wednesday. Maybe Jeff Novick's grand-cousin's Pinto Bean Soup but without the rice and veggies. It's hard to find something spur-of-the-moment to make when avoiding gluten and nightshades! In the past, I would have just made some mashed potatoes and be done with it! I'll figure something out between now and noon. Maybe I'll even make this soup again. :)

30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes, Revisited

Jill McKeever has updated her free booklet, 30 Ways to Eat Sweet Potatoes:

Jill McKeever's LIVE Thanksgiving Palooza Announcement

27 Recipes being prepared in her LIVE broadcasts in early November (Schedule below). In the video above she says all the recipes will be available in PDF and even Kindle format before the holiday, but didn't specify when, but in one of the comments to the video says this:

I'm hoping the Kindle will be ready for download by the following Tuesday (Nov 8th) Amazon takes 24 hours to approve ebooks. And I'm planning to photograph every finished recipe as I go and have it included in the ebook. Can't have a cookbook without photos. It's just wrong. ;D

JILL'S LIVE THANKSGIVING PALOOZA SCHEDULE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2016
(CENTRAL TIME)
11:00AM 
MAKE AHEAD RECIPES
Baked Eggy Tofu
Jill's Trusty Cornbread
Fresh Cranberry-Chia Jam
Cultured Cashew Cheese, Part 1
Buttermilk Bread Rolls, Part 1
Jill's Trusty Pie Crust 


FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2016
11:00AM 
PIES & SNACKING 
Max's Fancy Apple Pie


11:45AM 
Charlie's Pecan Pie
Maggie's Pumpkin Pie
Jill's Sweet Potatoes


1:00PM 
PARTY FOOD
Cultured Cashew Cheese, Part 2
Ranch & Onion Cheeseball
Party, Party Cheese Log
Hot Veggie Dip


SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2016
9:15AM 
THE BIG DAY
Cornbread Dressing
Savory Spinach Muffins


10:15AM
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Buttermilk Bread Rolls, Part 2


11:00AM
Cream Gravy
Steamed Broccoli


11:30AM THANKSGIVING MUKBANG! 

Jill McKeever Reads The Healthiest Diet on the Planet

She goes through the book giving her opinions page by page. Very entertaining!

Because of the way the camera and the chat program work together, all the text is backwards. I've seen this on Chef AJ's live videos on FaceBook, too, and have no idea why that happens.

New Contest by Jill McKeever

Still don't have an Instant Pot or a copy of Jill's book, OMGee Good! Instant Pot Meals?

Lucky for you, Jill McKeever is currently running a contest with these items as the prizes in honor of hitting 17,000 subscribers.

Limited to residents of the USA and Canada only, she says, due to shipping costs.

It's a nice trivia contest and all the answers are in her previous YouTube videos. She even tells you which videos the answers are in, so it's super simple. She didn't say how many winners there will be, though. Winners will be announced Saturday July 30th.

Good luck, everyone.

And, "Woot! Woot!"

Instant Pot IP-Duo60 Under $100 - Today Only on Amazon

If you need an Instant Pot and have Amazon Prime, today's the day to grab it - it's one of their Prime Day specials!

Jill Reacts! Woot! Woot!

Dr. John and Mary McDougall Q&A

Jill McKeever Webinar

Woot! Woot!

A nice talk with Jill about cooking healthy food fast and easy, including her love of the Instant Pot.

Barbecue Cabbage Sandwiches

There was a good sale on cabbage this week so I grabbed 2 heads. These cabbage looked better and fresher than they did in March for Saint Patrick's Day sales!

My husband, who usually works from home, had to go into the office this week for a few days and I could stink up the apartment as much as I liked, so this was a good time to cook them up. 

First, Jill McKeever's Barbecue Cabbage Sandwich recipe from her YouTube channel:



The recipe she demonstrates is slightly different than what is in her new book O M Gee Good! Instant Pot Meals Plant Based and Oil Free.

In the video she uses part of a head of cabbage, in the book it's a whole medium sized head. She does thin slices in the video but says "slice into chunks" in the book. She says she adds some maple syrup in the video, but it's not in the book version.

Oh, and in the book she cooks all this up in the Instant Pot on saute mode. Well, it is an Instant Pot book, after all (Woot! Woot!).

I cut my cabbage in thin strips, as she did in the video, tossed them into the Instant Pot with a bit of water as she does in the book, and even when I turned the heat up to High it still took almost a half hour before my cabbage was soft enough so it still had some bite but wasn't all limp and over-cooked, and I still ran across some really hard pieces.

I had to go through my pantry to find the BBQ sauce. I still had an opened jar of Annie's in the refrigerator, but that brand contains oil, so I don't dare use it on any foods my husband may eat. I really should throw it away - it's probably way past the "use by" date by now. Over the weekend I bought a fresh jar of Weber BBQ sauce, Sweet and Thick flavor. This is a wee bit too spicy for me, but my husband loves it. Next time I'll probably use the Bone Sucking Sauce.

Here's the sandwich I made from the cabbage:

I had to miss the annual Irish Festival that was held nearby this past weekend because the light rail trains were off-line for some maintenance and they had buses running in their place. We tried those in the past and it took hours to make the 15 minute trip, because each bus hold about 30, each train (double cars) around 100. That, plus they were only running them once every half hour instead of the usual weekend train schedule of every 10 minutes. Anyway, we no longer eat the corned beef and cabbage sandwiches they have at the festival, so eating my cabbage sandwich this way instead brought a big smile. Next time I'll serve them on rye bread instead of the Ezekial bread.

Now that my husband is more closely following Dr. Esselstyn's protocol of eating greens 6 times a day I need to keep coming up with new ways to cook 'em so he's not bored with them. When he's bored with a food, it doesn't matter if I have a fridge full of it, he just won't eat it. I don't think he'll get bored with this stuff any time soon.

If You Love the Simple Daily Recipes Site . . .

Jill McKeever, of Simple Daily Recipes blog and YouTube Channel, has another cookbook out!

O M Gee Good! Instant Pot® Recipes, Plant-Based and Oil-free

This mouthwatering cookbook was written solely for Instant Pot® owners. Inside you'll find over 30 plant-based and oil-free meals your family will ask for again, and again. The cooking directions are written so even the newest Instant Pot® owner can whip up a delicious meal with ease.  Each recipe comes with a color photo and is formatted to be easy to read and easy to print.

I just downloaded it, and it's 84 pages with loads of full page, full color pictures of Jill's delicious, easy recipes! I have a feeling I'm taking this to Staples to be printed and bound, because as much as I like my computer and Kindle, I love the feel of paper in my hands, especially when it comes to cookbooks. LOL

The recipes are all McDougall/Starch Solution safe and many are UWL-safe, too.