Recently, I got a bug up my butt to rip some of the many WFPB nutrition DVDs that I have using a freeware software called Handbrake. My son fiddled around with various settings and we now have 2 custom settings, one for him and his stuff, and one for mine. His is higher quality to watch on his computer monitor, mine set for a lower quality for mobile viewing because I've been transferring them to my iPad Mini. For weeks I ripped most of my McDougall videos, all of Jeff's lectures and his Fast Food series, the Essesltyn and Fuhrman seminars. OK, I did a few movies, too.
What I did these last few weeks were the VegSource Get Healthy Now DVD sets that I bought a few years ago when they had the bundle sale. Of the 9 years' worth of DVDs, 3 discs to a set, 3 to 5 lectures on each disc, I may have watched 4 talks before this, I'm embarrassed to say. Why? Well, someone else would be using the tv when I had time when I first got them, or life happened and there was no time to watch. Eventually, I just plain old forgot I owned them when they got buried under stuff on the shelf where I had them.
But I recently dug them out and started copying them. Today, I'm working on the last one, 2014's Black case. As I did them all, one lecture at a time, I was amazed at how many great presenters they had at these VegSource Healthy Lifestyle Expos over the years. Dr. McDougall did a number of lectures, as did Jeff Novick and the Esselstyns. Dr. Fuhrman appeared at least twice, and many more.
The one thing each year that attracted my attention, the only ones I've been watching the past few days, are the cooking demonstrations. Each year, Sabrina Nelson would apron up and join 2-4 other people to demonstrate their favorite recipes. Jeff cooked a few times, as his Fast Food series discs were released; Ann and Rip Esselstyn each appeared a few times each, as did Chef Tanya of Native Foods restaurant. But the one whose recipes really caught my eye this time were the ones Sabrina Nelson herself did. She was demonstrating recipes using the pressure cooker years before the Instant Pot came out, back when I had my own stovetop PC. As far as I know, these recipes were never printed anywhere or included in any cookbook. She shared some of her family's recipes on their website, and I plan on making the Semi-Cajun Black Bean Soup (minus the sausages) from that page soon, and Randa's Corn Chowder from that page is already one of our favorites. Some of Sabrina's others made their way into the Twins' Clear Skin Diet book.
In the demo, Sabrina talks about how lima beans have always meant "comfort" to her, as her mom would make lima beans when she was small and in need of comfort, and now that she's a mom, it's her turn to make them, hence this soup.
Lima Bean Comfort Soup
Pre-soak 1 pound Lima beans a few hours.
She said there was no need to soak them overnight. I did a quick soak this morning by bringing the rinsed bag of Rancho Gordo Classic Cassoulet beans I've had since 2015. They're no longer on their web site so I can't link them. These beans look exactly like limas - and when I made them in the past, they tasted exactly like limas, too, so to me, cassoulet beans are lima beans.
Sauté 1 diced onion, some garlic, and a stalk of chopped celery in water.
I diced up a large Vidalia onion, tossed some minced garlic, and about 2-3 tablespoons of the dried celery I bought from Harmony House. While that was cooking up the kitchen smelled so amazing my son actually poked his head out of his room asking what I was cooking. He's been eating a lot more of the WFPB meals I've been making lately, especially Jeff's Fast Food meals. He might even surprise me and ask for a bowl of this for his lunch today.
Add herbs to taste, maybe half teaspoon each of Rosemary, sage, about a teaspoon Muchi curry, garlic pepper.
Sabrina mentioned during the demonstration that she really doesn't do exact measurements, and used her hand and the spice caps to dole out the spices. The amounts written here are her estimates of what she used. As for the curry, she explained how there are many different types of curry out there, and she prefers the Muchi curry for much of her recipes. I looked on Amazon and see it in one pound bags. The smaller jars can be had if you belong to Amazon Pantry or Amazon Fresh. I'll look around elsewhere, like Penzey's or our local health food store (They carry Frontier, the brand Amazon has in bags), and see what I can get. Today, I used the Madras Curry that I used for one of the chili recipes I have. I added some plain old black pepper and plan on grabbing some garlic pepper when I go grocery shopping this weekend.
Add water by tablespoon as needed to prevent sticking.
Add a quart of broth and a cup of water.
In the video she used Pacific no-chicken broth, a product I've never seen. I used the usual Kitchen Basics Unsalted Vegetable Stock that I use for everything.
Add a quarter cup red lentils, a cut up red potato.
No red potatoes so used a Yukon Gold.
Add the lima beans. Cover the pressure cooker and cook at pressure for 9 minutes.
That's the easy part, now that I have an Instant Pot that I can set and forget. After it cooked then cooled for a half hour I released the remaining pressure.
After it's cooked, add some balsamic vinegar.
This part she just said, not showed, so I estimated about a tablespoon of vinegar. It's so little it doesn't add to the flavor.
The final result:
Well, I have to say, it does taste pretty good. The lima beans are nice and soft and taste like beans, not something dry and wood-like. But this is mostly a pot of beans, not really a pot of soup. Most of the broth got absorbed by the beans and lentils (which vanished - I couldn't find a red lentil to save my life!). I wish I could eat bread - what little broth there is in this dish is very tasty.
I still have a few more bags of lima beans, from big limas, baby limas, Christmas limas, as well as more of these big cassoulette beans. With winter rapidly approaching, this will make a nice cold weather lunch.
I wonder how many of the recipes in the Clear Skin Diet book are also Sabrina's and not concoctions tossed together by the girls. I copied a few using the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon or their YouTube channel, but not too many looked all that interesting. I was hoping Jeff Nelson himself would post a few of his wife's creations to his channel. Maybe I'll make that suggestion on his VegSource Facebook page. :)
