Pasta with Garbanzo Broccoli Sauce

I get tired of making tomato based pasta sauce week after week and made this one for a change. It comes from The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart book.

Garbanzo/Broccoli Sauce
SERVINGS: 4
PREPARATION TIME: 15 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 10 MINUTES

1 medium onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup water
1 bunch fresh broccoli, cut into bite-size florets
2 cups Vegetable Broth
1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed in 1/3 cup cold water

Place the onion and garlic in a pot with the water. Cook and stir until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes.

Add the broccoli, broth, beans, and soy sauce. Cook over low heat about 7 minutes until the broccoli is crisp-tender.

Add the cornstarch mixture, and cook and stir until thickened.

Serve over pasta or potatoes.

From The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart, page 325

As usual, I used the brown rice pasta. For the broccoli, I used a one-pound bag of frozen chopped broccoli.

Sorry about the picture. I was finishing up my bowl when I realized I didn't take a photo. My husband had already finished his first and seconds, emptying the pot. Good thing I had enough first time around and didn't want more myself! 

After all these years I'm still discovering recipes in the old books that are new to me. Makes me wish there were more days in the week to make them all.

My Beef with Meat Spicy Italian Eat Balls

Taking a little break from UWL today to join my husband in his favorite dinner - pasta and sauce. Well, For me, I'll be having my sauce over stir-fried zucchini and yellow squash.

He's hasn't been too happy with all the very veggie-heavy meals lately, even though I make him cornbread to go with Chef AJ's chili recipes and the other meals have plenty of rice or taters, so as a treat I'm making him self seitan-based meatballs to plop in his spaghetti today. Now if one happens to fall onto my plate when serving, well, I can't help but eat it now, right? ;^)

The recipe is by Jane Esselstyn and she developed it for her brother Rip's book My Beef With Meat.

Spicy Italian Eat Balls
Prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes
Makes 20 to 40, epending on sixe of balls

Add these to pasta night and have an absolute ball! You can also serve them with toothpicks as hors d'oerves and watch them disappear. If you like things less spicy, use less Italian seasoning.

¾ cup vegetable broth 
1 tablespoon low-sodium tamari sauce 
1 fresh garlic clove, minced 
1 cup wheat gluten 
1 to 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning 
1 teaspoon dried oregano 
¼ teaspoon garlic salt (optional) 
1 teaspoon onion powder 
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 
1 cup Fast and Fresh Marinara Sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 375º. Line a roasting pan with a layer of foil or parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together the tamari, broth and garlic. In a separate bowl, whisk together the gluten, Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic salt, onion powder and nutritional yeast.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients.  Hand mix and/or knead ingredients until there is an elastic texture to the dough. Using your hands, roll dough into balls the size of grapes, walnuts or golf balls. Place the balls onto the lined pan and baste with the sauce.

Bake 20 minutes. 

Remove from oven, rotate & roll balls around, baste with marinara in the pan. Bake 10 minutes more. 

Remove from oven, serve warm over pasta with sauce.

VWG - I always have vital wheat gluten on hand because I've been using it since the 1970's as a meat substitute. When the shipping price started to exceed the item's price at the store I has used since the beginning, The Mail Order Catalog, I started buying the packages from Bob's Red Mill by the case from Amazon with free Prime shipping. It came out cheaper, and since each pound or so was individually wrapped, it was easier to store and less chance of bugs getting into it.

Tamari - I always use low-sodium soy sauce or coconut aminos since I once had a bad allergic reaction to low sodium tamari.

Garlic - My usual cube of Dorot frozen minced garlic to the rescue. It defrosted nicely in the few minutes sitting in the broth as I got the dry ingredients whisked together.

Italian Seasoning - I used my usual Penzey's blend.

Garlic salt - Never. I used plain old granulated garlic.

Marinara Sauce - I used some leftover Hunts no-salt added tomato sauce for this because it was in the fridge. For dinner I'll be using a jar of Engine 2 sauce from Whole Foods that we bought when on vacation. I'm not sure what flavor yet - my husband will pick when the time comes.

Amount - 20 to 40?? Maybe if these were the size of an aspirin tablet! Mine are about walnut size and I barely eked 12 out of the dough. They didn't change size in cooking.

Before and After cooking shots:

The verdict:

I've been making non-meat balls for almost 40 years using many different recipes as new recipes appeared and my dietary needs changed. I've had them fried in a bit of oil, fried in broth or water, fried in a tomato based sauce, roasted, broiled, steamed, and I remember one recipe from decades ago that was boiled. The texture of these was very close to those long-ago boiled ones. Tasty, but gummy. We have lots of leftovers so we'll see if they firm up more after being in the refrigerator a while. If I ever do make these again, I'll keep them in the oven a lot longer, maybe 45 or more minutes. 

Summer is coming rapidly (Didn't we just wear our winter coats last week? Oh yeah, WE DID!!) and I won't be using the oven all that much until late September now. But if I do decide to surprise my husband with non-meatballs again, I'll go back to these by Sarah Matheny. 

VeganMoFo Day 27 - Puttanesca Sauce

When I make our Saturday pasta meals, I usually just toss on a package of Tinkyada pasta and open a jar of Walnut Acres sauce. 

It's only for VeganMoFo that I've been experimenting with more elaborate home made spaghetti sauces. I had jarred puttanesca sauce once, in my pre-McDougall days, and it was no better or worse than plain sauce with my own veggies tossed in with the cooked pasta. This one is from the September 2009 McDougall newsletter.

Puttanesca Sauce

This flavorful sauce should be cooked for at least an hour before serving.  The longer it simmers the thicker it will get.  Serve over polenta, pasta or gnocchi.

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  60 minutes
Servings:  6-8

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons vegetable broth
3  14.5 ounce cans fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
1  14.5 ounce can fire-roasted chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1  14.5 ounce can hearts of palm, drained, halved, and sliced
½ cup quartered and pitted kalamata olives
½ cup quartered and pitted green olives
2 tablespoons small capers, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Place the garlic and vegetable broth in a large pot.  Cook and stir for about 1 minute until garlic softens slightly.  Add the tomatoes, red pepper flakes, basil and oregano.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients, except the parsley, and simmer for at least another 30 minutes (longer is better).  Stir in the fresh parsley before serving.

My changes:
I couldn't find fire roasted crushed tomatoes, or any crushed tomatoes in smaller cans, so used a 28 ounce can of plain low-sodium crushed and a 15 ounce can of regular fire-roasted petite diced, as well as a can of no-salt added petite diced tomatoes. I debated about putting a capful of liquid smoke into the pot, as Chef AJ had suggested in some video to get the fire-roasted flavor, but decided against it. In the end, it didn't need it.

Hearts of Palm is an ingredient I've never had before. I found this can way up on the top shelf in the canned vegetable aisle mixed in with the cans of artichokes. Although the can says it's pre-cut, those things were in pretty huge chunks, so I cut them up into pieces about the size of the petite diced tomatoes. Because they weren't low sodium I also rinsed them a few times, too.

It looks simply amazing! The photo was snapped after adding the veggies, before the second half hour simmer. When I served it over whole wheat pasta an hour later, the olives and capers kept their size and shape but the hearts of palm kind of disappeared into the sauce. Maybe if I left them in larger pieces that wouldn't have happened. I have no idea.

This was such a full bodied sauce that it didn't even need the pasta to make it into a whole meal! If Ann Esselstyn had written the recipe she probably would suggest serving it over a bed of kale and been done with it, that's how rich this sauce is.

While it does take at least an hour to cook, it only takes a few minutes to actually put together. If I keep making sauces like these, my husband will never let me return to jarred pasta sauce ever again! 

VeganMoFo Day 25 - Cheezy Baked Macaroni

Ah, mac and cheeze! Is there anything better on Earth? This one is one of the favorites of the McDougall family and appeared in the March 2007 newsletter:

Cheezy Baked Macaroni

I have had many requests for a macaroni & cheese substitute, mainly from people with children.  This recipe was developed with the children in mind, but Heather and I really like it, too.

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  30 minutes
Servings:  6-8

12 ounces uncooked macaroni
1 ¼ cups raw cashews
1 ¼ cups water
¼  cup nutritional yeast
2 ½  tablespoons chopped pimientos
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons white miso
1 teaspoon onion powder
¼  teaspoon salt
¼ to 1/3 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place a large pot of water on to boil.  Drop in the pasta and cook until just tender, about 6 minutes, depending on the kind of pasta used.  Drain and set aside in a large bowl.

Meanwhile, place the cashews in a food processor with half of the water.  Process until fairly smooth, then add the remaining ingredients, except the bread crumbs, and process for several minutes until mixture is VERY smooth.   Pour the mixture over the pasta and stir to combine.  Transfer to a covered casserole dish, sprinkle the bread crumbs over the top, cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Hints:  Use any of your family’s favorite tubular pasta in this recipe.  The initial cooking time may have to be adjusted slightly depending on which type of pasta you choose.  Cook until just tender, do not overcook because the pasta will cook again while baking.

This may be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to bake.  Add about 10 minutes to the baking time.


First off, let me say I did not follow the recipe as-written. I had in the far past, but certainly not since my husband's CABG surgery. There was no way I was going to use that many cashews! According to Dr. Esselstyn, he should't be having any nuts at all, but I used about an ounce of soaked cashews to give it a little bit of creaminess. For the 1 1/4 cups of nuts I substituted a can of rinsed and drained cannelini beans. Our coronary arteries thanked us for that change.

I also skipped the miso. I did find some that was lower sodium, but it was still pretty high, and when we taste tested it, neither of us really liked it, so I continue to skip it when a recipe calls for it and use some lower sodium soy sauce or coconut aminos, instead.

And whenever I make mac and cheese I always add some vegetables to the mix, and this time it was a bag of frozen crinkle cut carrots and a bag of petite peas. I do microwave them a bit first, otherwise the carrots are so hard they hurt my gums, and I'm already nursing a swollen one from some hard broccoli I ate last week.

Lastly, in keeping with the "kid's meal" theme of this recipe, instead of elbows I used Tinkyada's Little Dreams shape for kids, with bunnies, teddy bears, bikes and airplanes. What can I say? I'm still a kid at heart! 

That's such a pretty dish! Tasty and filling, too. We would have preferred it a bit moister, because cooked whole grain pasta soaks up a lot more liquid than semolina pasta does, but it was good enough. I usually use the whole 4 ounce jar of pimientos but this recipe called for only 1 ounce - hardly worth it. 

If you're looking for a recipe for children, as Mary and her daughter Heather were, this is a perfect recipe for them, because kids do require more fat than over-the-hill adults with cardiac disease or obesity do. But I'll be going back to my Mac and Oaty Cheese recipe next time my husband looks for mac and cheese for dinner.

VeganMoFo Day 6 - Creamy Broccoli Pasta

We have pasta at least once a week in this house. My son makes it daily for himself. Before we McDougalled it was the same old semolina pasta that most SAD eaters prefer. 

When I was a kid way back in the 1950's and 1960's, we were able to buy it fresh from some of the local Italian places. My mother and one grandmother even took the time to make their own noodles on occasion. I remember helping them roll out the dough until it was less than an eighth inch thick, letting it dry on the table for a few hours, turning the gigantic rectangle of dough over hourly so it dried evenly, then taking a knife or pizza cutter to to to make long ribbons, then slicing in the other direction to make tiny 1/4 inch square noodles. It was tedious, back-breaking work, but OMG! They tasted so great the work was worth it.

There was no way I was going to go through all that. When pasta makers were available for home use I bought one and used it weekly. I remember making tomato elbows, spinach penne, and my husband's

favorite, garlic spaghetti noodles.

Then I made the switch from white flour/semolina to whole wheat, and the joy of pasta making ended. No matter how much liquid I added to the kneading dough it was still so stiff and hard and impossible to pass through the extruders on the machine. I scrubbed the machine well and packed up the machine and dies. I kept it all these years. It moved with us from NJ to Florida and back 15 years ago. It sits in one of the few kitchen cabinets we have in this apartment taking up precious storage space. I really should get rid of it, but like mothers who hold on to their children's most precious toys, I hold on to an appliance that used to give me so much pleasure. I hold out hope that one of these days I'll find a way to make whole grain pasta in it.

Another thing I spent money on one of those hand-crank flat pasta makers:



hoping that I could make whole wheat pasta. At least there was no motor to burn out, right? Wrong. That motor was my own arm muscles, and after a half hour of turning that crank over and over again my shoulder really hurt! That was the beginning of all my shoulder problems in the right arm that persist to this day, almost 2 decades later! I was told they make motors for these units, but those cost three times what I paid for the cutter, and there's still no guarantee it would work with the heaviness of whole wheat doughs, so this is another item should be donated.

I was so happy the first time I saw boxes of whole wheat pasta in the HFS! Each box cost over $5, but our health was worth it. Now you can get whole wheat pasta for under a buck at any grocery store, although the size shrunk from a pound to as low as 10 ounces, depending on brand. And other whole grain pastas have appeared - brown rice, bean, corn, quinoa. So many choices!

Over the years, our family has gravitated towards Tinkyada Rice Pasta as our preferred type and brand of pasta because it tastes most like old fashioned semolina pasta, but for this recipe I decided to go "old school" and buy a box of whole wheat. That was my first problem with this recipe.

Creamy Broccoli Pasta
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 10 Minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes


  8             ounces  pasta -- your choice
     1/2           cup  water
  2                     leeks -- thinly sliced
  2               cups  broccoli florets -- small
  1                cup  soy milk -- or rice milk
  2          teaspoons  cornstarch
  2          teaspoons  chopped fresh basil
     1/8      teaspoon  Tabasco sauce

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Drop in the pasta and cook according to the package directions. Drain and rinse.

Meanwhile, place the water, leeks, and broccoli in a saucepan. Cook, stirring frequently, for 8 minutes. 

Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Add to the vegetable mixture and cook and stir until thickened. 

Serve over the pasta.

Source:
  "McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook"
page 151

We're not used to the grittiness and heaviness, even the overall taste of whole wheat pasta any more. Even though I cooked it longer than package directions it was still very "al dente" and some pieces still seemed uncooked in spots. It was a big turn-off. The recipe called for only 8 ounces of pasta, but I cooked up the whole 12 ounce box and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly.

Instead of 2 leeks I planned on using three. Yes, I used real live leeks, not freeze-dried ones, for this recipe. Never again! First came the buying - they're only sold in bundles of 2 so I had to buy 4. I figured I always come across recipes that need leeks so I would just stick some in the freezer. But after following the directions in this video on how to clean and cut them:

There really didn't seem to be that much leek left, so I wound up using all 4 for this dish. As it turned out, it could have used twice this much.

I used a whole one pound bag of defrosted frozen chopped broccoli, which came out to 4 cups.

I doubled the amount of milk, and it still didn't look like enough, so I added a third cup of almond milk. Even tripling the amount of corn starch the mixture never thickened and I wound up tossing in a heaping teaspoon of Instant Clear Gel. Now it was thickening up a bit!

I put in the rest of the package of basil I had, which came out to a quarter cup of chopped basil. It could have used more.

I even tripled the Tabasco and although I don't like things "hot" felt it needed more.

Notice a running theme here? The whole dish needed something "more."

My husband wound up putting a few ounces of sriracha sauce into his bowl. I used my homemade parmesan (equal parts ground almond meal, nutritional yeast and pinch of salt ground up in a food processor for a few minutes). Doing that made it edible.

We each got one decent sized serving out of it. If I used the 8 ounces of pasta as written only one of us would have eaten. It's like that old joke: This meal tastes so terrible! And they give you such skimpy servings!

Nothing seemed to go right with this meal. In the end, my husband was the first to say I should never make this again, not unless I make some serious changes to up the taste somehow. I agree. 

But if you have a family with little kids or older people who don't like things too flavorful or spicy and prefer the blandest of foods, then this meal is for you! 

Fast Food 4: Marinara Sauce

As time goes on I feel a little more human and want to get back in the kitchen. Only strong enough for pasta the other day, but instead of the jarred sauce my son had been using I wanted something a bit healthier. 

At the beginning of the Fast Food 4: Beyond the Basics video, before the Fast Food Twins come in from their day at the beach, Jeff makes up some basic recipes - vegetable broth, salsa, tahini sauce, and a basic marinara sauce. It's really pretty simple, and again, he says this is a "double batch" of the sauce. From the PDF file:

2 boxes Pomi tomatoes
1 cup diced frozen onions or onion/pepper frozen mix
3 teaspoons Mrs. Dash (or other brand) Italian seasonings
3 teaspoons Mrs. Dash Table Blend
2 teaspoons dried basil 
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1/8 teaspoon oregano (option)

I had some boxes of strained Pomi near their expiration date so used one box of chopped (what Jeff used) and one strained,

I don't remember now if onions were included in the video but think Jeff said they can be an optional addition. I always add onions when making sauce from scratch, either frozen or fresh, and used a bit more than half a bag of frozen onions because that's what I had left in the freezer. In the past, I've even nuked them in the microwave or browned them up in a pan first and then added them to jarred sauce.

In the video Jeff said he doesn't use Italian seasonings blends because he prefers to use the individual spices and herbs for this particular recipe. I have a supply of Penzy Italian herbs and used that. As for the Table Blend, I didn't measure and it may have only been 1 teaspoon. I should have used more.

He used a lot more than 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder in the video and admitted he never measures. I, too, used a lot more garlic, mainly because we love it but also because it's good for what ails you, and I needed some strong healing! I also dropped in 2 cubes of frozen Dorot crushed garlic.

I don't like red pepper flakes so skipped them, and since oregano is in the Italian mix, I didn't add that, either.

Jeff also used a lot of dried basil. He said he prefers fresh
sweet basil but the store he went to didn't have any that looked good, so he was using dried sweet basil. I added a little of this, even though it, too, was included in the Italian mix.

I made one more addition to the sauce and dropped in 2 cups of defrosted and squeezed frozen spinach. I try to get greens into this family every chance I can, and this is one of those easy occasions to do so.

I served this sauce - the whole batch - over a pound of cooked rice pasta. That pasta really soaks up the sauce and even a one-quart jar usually leaves quite a bit of un-sauced pasta, so I figured this would be a great amount, and it was.

Now I've made pasta sauce very similar, maybe even identical, to this for years now, and always have the same reaction - it's too bland and tasteless. Because of my cold and the fact that my son had been using full sodium sauce when he made pasta for us during the week, this tasted even blander yet. My husband said it was fine with him, tasted just as good as any other pasta sauce I've made in the past. Our son, who made his own pot of pasta and used his own sauce on it, sampled a small bit and said he's glad he has his own stuff to eat.

Will I make it again? Probably. When I use jarred pasta sauce I use the Walnut Acres Tomato Basil lower sodium jarred sauce @ $4.99 to $5.49 a jar. It's only 25.5 ounces, so I have to add to it to make enough fluid for the pasta. Add a can of tomatoes @ $1 a can; sometimes a can of paste @ 33 cents a can; hearty amounts of dried herbs and spices; vegetables, cost depending on how many and what types I add. Sometimes I just use an entire second jar of sauce. Now add a loaf of bread. Maybe some homemade crumbles, meatballs, or sausages or packaged Soy Curls. A "simple and cheap" pasta meal can sometimes cost over $20! For us, that's a lot. 

I really wish sodium didn't affect my blood pressure and I could grab a jar of cheaper, all veg no-oil added pasta sauce!

Sorry there's no photo. I forgot to take it when I made the meal, and I was going to grab a shot when I reheated the container of leftovers but my husband grabbed it and ate it before I knew what happened. He did say it tasted better the second time around, though. 

Roasted Red Pepper/Pizza Mac and Cheese Update

The flash on the camera washed out the color. It's a deep, dark orange, almost like pumpkin.

Here is yesterday's cheese sauce in the blender after I doubled the recipe. I blended and blended and blended and even after 15 minutes it still had a bit of grit to it. Maybe if I had the Breville Isa used or the VitaMix others swear by instead of my Ninja, but I've used this for cashew-based sauces before and they didn't seem as gritty as this one when done. I soaked the cashews for 2 hours, as the recipe directed, even started with boiling water, adding more boiling water as the nuts swelled above the level of the water. It's possible this happened because the nuts were old. They were purchased back in June and kept in the freezer. Remember, I hadn't used any of them since the week before my husband's surgery in July.

At this point, the sauce is very watery in texture, more so than all the other non-cheese sauces I've made this past year.

And here it is in the pot. This is a 2-quart non-stick pan, and you can see some of the grittiness clinging to the sides of it at the top.

Because of the non-stick nature of the pot, I didn't raise the heat about medium-high, and with nearly constant stirring it took close to a half hour before the sauce thickened. And it did thicken up nice and clingy, just as Isa showed in the video.

Because it made so much when I doubled it, I first poured about 2 cups of it into a wide-mouthed Mason jar to use on my lunchtime rice and veggies or tonight's roasted taters and veggies meal. I only made so much because Isa used only half a pound of pasta with her recipe and I wanted to make a whole pound. Man, does this make a LOT of sauce! 

When I first combined my cooked pasta and this sauce there was a lot of sauce sloshing around in the pot. Then my husband decided he would do his workout on Monday instead of Tuesday this week. Cardiac rehab class may be over and he's back to work, but he still has to get in his hour three times a week. If he had told me on the phone, or even as soon as he walked in the door before I combined the two, it would have been fine, because even if the sauce got cold I can always reheat it. But no, he waited until I started to dish it out to tell me. Back into the pot his bowlful went. When he was ready to sit down to dinner close to 90 minutes later, not only was the meal cold, but solidified. All the sauce had been absorbed by the pasta so it was a solid pile of gooey cheesy elbow macaroni that had to be sliced out, put into the bowls, then reheated in the microwave. 

All that affected the texture but not the taste. It was still gritty, and to be honest, a bit underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, it tasted good, but I think I still prefer the Mac and Oaty Cheese recipe. That one may not be as rich and creamy as this one from Isa, but the sauce has a little more bite to it from the lemon juice and because it has no nuts, not even a trace of grittiness.

Will I ever make this recipe again? Well, maybe, when I need the freezer room and have to get rid of the last of the cashews, but not before that, I'm afraid.

Roasted Red Pepper/Pizza Mac & Cheese

My husband wants me to make the same meals week after week, and mac and cheese is one of them. You probably got that when I posted 3 (?) mac and cheese recipes during VeganMoFo this past year.

Prior to my husband's CABG in July, I was making my mac and cheese with recipes from either Mary McDougall or Rip Esselstyn that included cashews, but since then I dropped all nuts and usually used the Mac and Oaty Cheese recipe. During my husband's last cardiologist visit a few weeks ago I asked about certain foods, what he can and can't have, and he seems to side with Dr. Fuhrman that nuts are good for heart patients, not detrimental as per Dr. Esselstyn. I still hadn't used any since then, but did leap for joy when I found those recipes from Isa yesterday, especially the Roasted Red Pepper Mac and Cheese one.


So this is what I'll be making tonight. Of course, I'll saute the onions and garlic in water instead of oil, and I plan on doubling this and use and a whole pound of Tinkyada elbows because we love leftovers in this family.

I did buy a bag of Brussel sprouts to go with this, but may opt to finish the half bag of Bird's Eye Normandy Vegetables that's been taking up a big chunk of freezer space the past few weeks.

This recipe uses cooked onion and garlic instead of the powdered versions, less nutritional yeast but adds turmeric for color, broth instead of water, and a few other small changes. But the sauce in this video? OMG, that looks fantastically creamy! I hope it tastes as good as it looks!

VeganMoFo Day 28 - Bachelor's Bounty

I haven't used as many recipes from Dr. Pinckney as I originally planned and hope this one makes up for it. It's another quick, dump, heat and eat one, at least after the pasta is cooked.

Bachelors' Bounty
Amazingly simple and easy one dish dinner for people who don't cook 

1 1/2 C whole wheat macaroni
1 can beans in tomato sauce
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 T ketchup
1/4 C BBQ sauce
1 T taco seasoning
crushed chili peppers or hot sauce to taste

Cook macaroni, drain. Add everything else. Stir and simmer a few minutes.

2 huge servings, each 584 calories:  3% from fat (2.34 g), 82% from carbohydrates (129.1g), 15% from protein (24.0 g). Sodium 365* mg, Fiber 22 g.   *when made with no salt added beans and tomatoes

Healing Heart Hints:
Adding shredded fat-free soy cheddar and/or soy parmesan cheese when cooking gives this dish a TexMex flavor.

Any diced vegetables can be added, but they should be steamed or microwaved for a few minutes before mixing them in.

Cooking pasta requires plenty of water, at least three cups for each cup of pasta. Bring water to a full boil and slowly add pasta, stirring at first to prevent it from sticking together or to the pot. Most white pastas take about 6 to 9 minutes to cook, whole wheat pasta a minute or two longer. No oil or salt needs to be added. Check to see how well done it is by taking out a piece and biting into it. When done, rinse immediately in cool water to stop it from cooking more. Overcooked pasta can be gruesome. Pasta can be warmed just before serving by rinsing in warm water. If you make more than you can eat, put it into a baggie and freeze it; a few minutes of microwaving will have it as good as new. 

©2001 Dr. Neal Pinckney / Healing Heart Foundation
When the web site's servers are fixed, it'll be found here again, but for now you can grab it from Susan V's Fat Free Vegan page for it.

I make mine a little bit different than this, because although this says it makes 2 servings, we want a little more so we can have some leftovers, too.

I use a whole box/bag of pasta. For this I'm using Tinkyada's Fusilli.

I need low/no salt added products, so I'm using 2 cans of mild Health Valley no-salt chili purchased from VitaCost instead of beans in tomato sauce. Doing that also eliminates the need for taco seasoning.

I would have tossed some spinach or kale into the pasta water, but after yesterday's problem with the soup my hubby requesting NOTHING GREEN for today. I can't say that I blame him. The rehab nurse even called the house before she left for the day to make sure he was feeling alright again, so I wonder how bad be looked when all that was happening.

You know at the beginning of every episode of Futurama there's always a billboard for Bachelor Chow? This is the stuff they had in mind. But it's not a perfect bachelor food - there are too many ingredients. The pasta and 2 cans of the tomato-y beans/chili would have been enough. I've lived with bachelors, my husband was one and we used to visit his friends' places before we all got married. To them, a meal is tomato soup made with hot water and ketchup. This is way too fancy for the bachelors I have known, including my own son. He said it was too spicy, too many flavors in one bowl.

My husband declared it almost as good as our usual Friday night pizza. Almost. He still prefers to keep up our family traditions, so next week it's back to pizza again for Friday's dinner.

VeganMoFo Day 26 - Winner, Winner Mac & Cheese Dinner

I'm not sure if it's the veggies I chose, the fact that I tripled one of the ingredients, or the one ingredient that made this recipe for mac & cheese different from all the other mac & cheese recipes out there, but this was the best of all the mac & cheese dinners I've made.

Macaroni and Oaty Cheese
SERVINGS: 8
PREPARATION TIME: 15 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 30 MINUTES

2 cups water
1/2 cup quick-cooking oatmeal flakes
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 4-ounce jar diced pimientos
1 pound uncooked elbow macaroni

Place all ingredients, except the macaroni, in a blender jar and process
for several minutes until very smooth and well blended. Pour into a saucepan,
cook, and stir until thickened.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cook the macaroni until just tender, then drain. Place the macaroni in
a covered baking dish, pour the cheese sauce over the top, and mix thoroughly.

Bake, covered, for 30 minutes.

The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1 
page 349

I had to buy some quick oats. I had plenty of old fashioned, even 2 different packages of steel-cut, but no quick around the house. So now I do, for this recipe and some of the fruity dessert recipes.

I'm using a nutritional yeast brand that I'm not happy with right now. I ran out of the nooch I used to get from The Mail Order Catalog a while ago, and rather than pay as much in shipping as I did for the nooch itself, I bought some Bob's Red Mill yeast. When that local source dried up, I ordered what I thought were yeast "mini-flakes" from VitaCost, but turned out to be Frontier brand nutritional yeast powder. Not one flake in the whole bag. I used it once or twice at breakfast (grits and a tofu scramble) and it didn't taste all that great, so I decided I needed my tried and true Red Star yeast back. The local HFS recently started selling this, but in tiny 1-cup plastic shell-packs. Not only was the price too high but think of all that plastic! The last time I bought it from The Mail Order Catalog I saw that they just slapped their own sticker on the sealed bag over the Bulk Foods label, so this time I went directly to Bulk Foods, where the price was the same but shipping costs way less. Within 24 hours my 5-pound bag of nooch was on the way via UPS and is now in my food storage pantry, waiting for me to finish the other nooch I have before opening this big bag of golden flakes. Ah, the comfortable feeling of knowing I have enough nooch to last the upcoming winter months!

But for this recipe, I used the Frontier brand powder, and I used the full 1/4 cup the recipe called for, although I once read that if you use powder instead of flakes, use half the amount. Since I usually use a half cup in cheese sauce recipes anyway, I stuck with the quarter cup as written.

Onion powder is the ingredient I accidentally used three times as much of, but that's another ingredient I usually use more of than a recipe calls for and didn't think much of the mistake.

Again, instead of a wasteful 4-ounce jar of pimientos I used a half cup of roasted red peppers from a large jar.

For the pasta, once again it was store brand whole wheat, but twists this time.

While the pasta was cooking, I microwaved up some frozen veggies I picked up in Walmart last week. It's Bird's Eye Normandy Blend and comes in this gigantic 72 ounce bag. I used some last week when I bought it, but the rest of this bag was taking up about a third of my total freezer space, so I cooked up the rest of the bag, about 3/4 or more of the total amount on the label, which filled my 8-cup Pyrex. When cooked, it really shrunk down to a bit less than 4 cups. 

When the pasta was cooked & drained, veggies were nuked,  and the cheese sauce was blended, I mixed everything together in the pasta pot for a good mixing, then dumped it all into my glass roasting pan, shook some whole wheat bread crumbs on top, covered it with the non-stick foil, and popped it in the oven for the 30 minutes. I didn't bother to pre-cook the sauce as directed.

before the breadcrumbs

It looks just like every other pan full of mac & cheese I've ever made, but the difference was at the table, on the fork, in our mouths. It may be the choice of veggies - this mix has not just cauliflower, carrots and broccoli, some pieces up to 6 inches long, but also both zucchini and yellow squash. It may be the triple onion powder. Could it really be the oats instead of the usual white beans, tofu, potato or even cashews? It had a nice little hint of sweetness to it, yet the taste of each vegetable still stood out on its own.

I'm going to have to make this again using different vegetables to know for sure if it's the sauce or the veggies, or even which brand of nooch I used. I'm hoping it's the oats, though, because they're more convenient and cheaper than all the other thickeners I've used in these trial recipes, and something I always have on hand. Now that my husband's appetite is back to normal he'll be wanting his mac & cheese weekly again, so I'll find out soon.

VeganMoFo Day 19 - Mac & Tato Cheese

One thing my husband has been hankering for since his appetite returned was mac and cheese. Before his heart thing, I had recently been using various recipes for faux cheese sauces made with cashews instead of my older favorites that used tofu or white beans. While they all tasted delicious, those nuts alone probably contributed to my increasing weight gain and possibly his artery blockages accelerating. That first night he told me about his chest pains I vowed no more nuts in this house, hence the search for another cheese sauce.

This time I'm going to experiment and use another mac and cheese recipe from Mary McDougall:

Mac & Tato Cheese
Servings: 8
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

2 cups water
1 cup cooked potatoes
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4-ounce jar pimientos
1 pound uncooked elbow macaroni

Place all the ingredients except the pasta in the blender jar and process for several minutes until mixture is smooth and well blended. Pour into a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until thickened.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Cook the macaroni until just tender and drain.

Pour the macaroni into a baking dish, pour the cheese sauce over the top and mix thoroughly, then cover and bake for 30 minutes.

The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1 
page 349


I already have some cooked potatoes in the fridge but I'm pulling the peels off before tossing into the Ninja blender.

My pasta of choice is a whole wheat tri-color penne, store brand.

Instead of using the jar of pimientos Mary calls for, I just grabbed the appropriate amount of roasted red peppers out of a jar. I use roasted red peppers so often there's always an open jar in the fridge, especially with my husband home and making pepper sandwiches for lunch a lot of the time. I can pay $2.99 for a quart-sized jar of the roasted red peppers, as opposed to $2.49 (on sale) for a 4-ounce jar of chopped pimientos.

I'm adding veggies to this, like I always do for my mac & cheese recipes. Today it was a bag of Bird's Eye mixed veg and 2 cups of frozen kale.

Most mac & cheese recipes call for some breadcrumbs over the top - it's traditional - so I'm carrying on that tradition and put a layer of whole wheat panko crumbs on.

For the cover, I usually go with Mary McDougall's suggestion of putting a layer of parchment paper then aluminum foil, so the foil doesn't touch the food. The other day in the grocery store I found a new (to me) product - non-stick foil. The company's web site for this product doesn't say exactly what the coating is, just that it's a proprietary formula and food-safe. It's much heavier than regular foil wrap. None of the pasta stuck to the foil, but then again, even on those days I forgot to put parchment under the foil, the most that stuck was 3-4 elbows. If I didn't have a coupon and the store had a sale price on it, I would never had bought this stuff, and I can say right now I probably never will again.

I had a few different tastes with this casserole than with other noochy mac & cheese recipes. At the first bite, I tasted the potato, but it was gone by the second. Also on my tongue was the peppers, which I never really tasted in other recipes, even though this one called for the same amount. The other taste that hit me, but this one stayed for most of the bowl, was the lemon juice. This recipe called for twice as much as all my other nooch sauce ones. Next time I'll cut it down to one spoonful.

My husband is like a dog, he'll eat anything put in front of him, and he said he couldn't tell the difference between this and all the other mac and cheese recipes I've made.

Out of the blender, thanks to the 2 cups of water, this was a very liquidy sauce, but by the time the dish came out of the oven it was all absorbed by the pasta.

All in all, aside from the lemon, I liked it. This one if definitely in the running to replace the cashew-based sauce from Rip Esselstyn that I used for almost a year.

VeganMoFo Day 5 - Kelly's Manicotti

Finally, a McDougall recipe from his The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart. 

My husband's gut is over-reacting to all the veggies he's been eating lately and he asked for a nice, safe pasta meal, so I moved this one up in the queue.

Here's the three recipes associated with this meal:

Kelly's Manicotti
servings - 8
prep time - 25 minutes
cooking time - 1 hour

1 box of 12 manicotti shells
2 cups Creamy Mashed Potatoes (page 361)
1 jar no-oil added pasta sauce
1 tablespoon Italian herb seasoning


Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.

Spread some of the sauce onto the bottom of a 12 x 9 inch baking dish.

Mix the potatoes, 1/4 cup of the pasta sauce, and the Italian seasoning together. Stuff the potato mixture into the manicotti shells and place side by side in the baking dish.

Pour the remaining sauce over the shells.

Cover with parchment paper and a sheet of foil. Bake for 60 minutes.

Variation: Stir 1 cup of finely chopped spinach into the potato mixture before stuffing the manicotti.


John McDougal, MD and Mary McDougall
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 331

*~*~*

Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Servings - 6 - 8
Prep time - 20 minutes
Cooking time - 45 minutes

10 medium potatoes, peeled
salt (optional)
black pepper (optional)

Cut the potatoes in half and cover them with water in a large pot.

Cover and cook under low heat until the potatoes are very tender, about 45 minutes.

Drain the potatoes, reserving the cooking water.

Beat the potatoes with an electric mixer, ading small amounts of the cooking water while beating to get the consistency you want. Beat until smooth and creamy.

Season with a small amount of salt and pepper, if desired.

Hint: To make the potatoes even creamier, replace some or all of the reserved water with a non-dairy milk. Add to the potatoes while mashing.

To make garlic mashed potatoes, add several cloves of roasted garlic (page 306) while mashing.


John McDougall, MD and Mary McDougall, RN
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 361

*~*~*
Caramelized Roasted Garlic

5 heads garlic
3/4 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons lower sodium soy sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 300ºF.

Peel some of the loose, papery skin off the garlic heads, leaving the whole head intact. Slice a thin strip off the top of each head so that most of the cloves are exposed.

Place the heads, sliced side up, in a baking dish. Drizzle 1/2 cup of the broth over the heads, making sure each one is coated with the broth.

Using a pastry brush, baste each head with half of the soy sauce.

Cover and bake for about 2 1/2 hours, or until the cloves are very soft. Test by piercing with a fork. Uncover and check several times during the baking process to make sure there is still some broth at the bottom of the baking dish. Drizzle the remaining 1/4 cup of the broth over the garlic heads. Brush the garlic with the remaining soy sauce about half-way through the baking time. When the baking is complete, there shou at the bottom of the baking dish, only a brown film. this is the process that caramelizes the garlic, givng it an absolutely wonderful, mild flavor.

Squeeze the garlic cloves out of the head and spread it on crackers or bread, or just eat them plain.

Hint: The roasted garlic makes a wonderful addition to mashed potatoes, soups and stews, salad dressings, and many main dishes. Spread it also on pancakes or french toast.

John McDougall, MD and Mary McDougall, RN
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 306

*~*~*

First off, I've never seen manicotti shells in a whole grain version, so these are made with plain old Ronzoni shells.

And of course, I used my trusty old Wear-Ever cookie gun that I inherited from my mom to squirt those taters into the shells:

Same item, same approximate year, but my box is blue

For the sauce I used Walnut Acres Low Sodium Tomato and Basil, the one one of that brand that's sold around here that doesn't have oil as an ingredient.

For the mashed potatoes I used plain old russets. I made them with the full 10 potatoes called for because I love having extra mashed potatoes for lunch and snacks.

I already had some roasted garlic in the freezer and just defrosted a few and tossed them in. I don't make them the way Mary says here - I just roast them up plain in my terra cotta garlic roaster in the toaster oven.

As I've been trying to do with all my meals lately, I did toss in the optional handful of fresh chopped up baby spinach.

After all the squirting, arranging and pouring of the sauce, I shook a bit of McDougall parmesan on it.

Finished product, cooling so we can eat it

This is one meal that is always a hit, even with my picky son. He's not crazy about the spinach, but has learned to live with it. I cooked up a big bag of cauliflower to go with it and have very little left over for someone's lunch tomorrow, unless my son grabs it for a midnight snack tonight.