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

McDougall Webinar - Kid's Lunches

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.

VeganMoFo Day 10 - Reuben Sandwiches

I haven't had a real Reuben sandwich in decades! These were a mainstay every Saint Patrick's Day and yearly at the local Irish Festival every September. Some years we would go to the festival, grab 2 sandwiches, eat while listening to the live bands, then take the light rail trains right back home and be gone less than an hour. This year, for the first time in over 2 decades, no festival. Not enough funds and too big a security risk (The site is less than a mile from Downtown Manhattan).

Corned beef has been relegated to the seitan version for a long time now

 

and Mary McDougall has her own version of a Reuben sandwich that relies on tofu. It's not quite the same, but close enough.

 Reuben Sandwiches 

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  5 minutes
Servings:  variable

sliced rye bread
fat free honey-mustard dressing,
baked tofu or tempeh, thinly sliced
sauerkraut, drained
sliced tomatoes
sliced onions
soy or rice cheese (optional) 

Lay the bread slices out on your work space and spread both sides with a thin layer of the dressing.  Place the tofu or tempeh on one side of the bread.  Next add a thin layer of the sauerkraut, then the tomatoes and onions.  Finish with a small amount of soy cheese, if you wish.  Place another slice of the bread over these ingredients to make a sandwich.  Repeat as many times as necessary to serve everyone.

Heat a non-stick griddle to medium-low.  Place the sandwiches on the griddle, probably 2 at a time.  Grill until browned on one side (about 1 minute) then flip over and grill on the other side.  This usually takes only a very short time.  Remove from griddle, slice in half and serve warm.

Hints:  Baked tofu is sold in packages in most natural food stores, usually in various flavors.  Look for the brands that are lowest in fat content.  Tempeh is made from fermented soybeans, sometimes flavored, sometimes with other ingredients added. To marinate the tempeh before using, place about 1/3 cup of fat-free soy-ginger or teriyaki sauce in a bowl with the tempeh.  Turn several times to coat.  Drain, then briefly sauté in a non-stick frying pan. Slice either the baked tofu or the tempeh rather thinly crosswise, so you are working with larger thin sections rather than thin strips.  Your natural food store should have both of these products available in the refrigerated section.  Water-packed sauerkraut can also be found in the natural food store, usually by the canned vegetables or pickles.  Use any fat-free dressing that you like on the bread, Tofu Island Dressing from the Quick & Easy Cookbook is also a favorite of ours.

Baked tofu doesn't exist in my area - tofu itself barely does - so I just sliced up a pound of store-brand extra firm and fried it up on a non-stick skillet with a few sprays of Bragg's Aminos on each side.

If I had remembered ahead of time I would have made my own rye bread in the bread machine. Instead I had to settle for a package of store-baked rye whose first ingredient was regular white flour. I'll be popping a fresh bag of organic whole grain rye flour in the cart next time I put an Amazon order in to be ready when I need rye bread again.

No-salt added sauerkraut! I haven't seen this in ages so picked up 2 cans. They're both dated 2017 so unless my pantry closet swallows it up (It has a habit of doing that with canned goods that I buy) I now have some for the next time I need sauerkraut.

My husband started to grab this lite honey mustard salad dressing but I pointed out it has oil in it. I used the Esselstyn 3-2-1 Dressing, instead. I always keep a batch of it in the refrigerator at all times because this is our "house" go-to sauce/dressing. Veggies and rice? 3-2-1 dressing. Salads? Ditto. A dry sandwich or some blah soup that needs a little "something" but sriracha sauce doesn't fit the flavors? Bring it on!

I know Dr. Fuhrman says raw onions are healthier, but he doesn't have to live with me after I eat them, so I always cook mine up a bit. It's no trouble to toss a handful on the griddle while frying up the tofu and saves my boys from a lot of fragrant agony in the evening (My guys don't call me "Puumba" for no reason.). 



Here are 2 sandwiches side by side - one already grilled, one not.

Delicious! Messy, because the salad dressing does make the flimsy rye bread quite soggy, but quite tasty, none the less.

I have to remember to make these up more often.

VeganMoFo Day 7 - Sloppy Lentil Joes Sandwiches

This is one of our favorite sandwich fillings. This recipe from Mary McDougall is tasty and easy to put together. I don't remember when it first appeared in print/on-line, but it's been in at least one newsletter and book, probably more than one each.

Sloppy Lentil Joes

This is a quick and easy meal that also reheats well for lunch the next day or two.  Serve this stuffed into a bun and eat with your hands, or ladle it over the buns open-face style and eat with a fork. I like to make fresh bread in my bread machine and ladle the Sloppy Joes over the bread.

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  1 hour
Servings:  8-10

3 1/3 cups water
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 ½ cups dried brown lentils
1  15 ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
freshly ground black pepper 

Place 1/3 cup of the water in a large pot.  Add the onions and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally until onions soften slightly, about 5 minutes.  Add the chili powder and mix in well.  

Add the remaining water, the lentils, tomatoes, and the rest of the seasonings.  Mix well, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook over low heat for 55 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Serve on whole wheat buns, or fresh baked bread, with trimmings of your choice.


Unlike Mary, I prefer rolls to bread for this, and luckily I have a source for whole wheat ones made with very little oil. During the cooler weather I do make my own oil-free rolls in my bread machine. 

My usual changes to the recipe? Why, none at all. This is one recipe that's perfect as-is. Sometimes I just use 2 cans of rinsed and drained lentils, but only one store in town sells them and they frequently run out. Freshly made lentils taste better, anyway, and I experiment using different lentils. The recipe may say to use the brown ones but I've made this using red (VERY sloppy!), green, and black lentils.

I had a little problem with my lentils, though. I used some from a 3-pound bag that had been opened a few months ago but are dated 2016. After the first half hour I turned the heat back up to a slow boil. They boiled for an hour and a half after that, and not only were the lentils still hard, there was still a lot of water in the pot.

I gave up after another 15 minutes of boiling and added a 6 ounce can of tomato paste to thicken the sauce. The lentils were still a bit chewy, but at least it was more soupy than watery. I only have about a cup of lentils left in the bag. I'll either toss them in a soup that cooks for hours or maybe pressure cook them for twice the time and see if that helps.

Ignoring the firmness of the lentils, the sandwiches still tasted great.

I tried not to get much sauce in the spoon, and was already soaked into the bread. By the time I picked it up the whole thing collapsed into a soggy mess.

As for the number of servings, this is one recipe that my serving count matches Mary's. I had 2 sandwiches, my husband had three, and I put half the mixture away in the freezer for a quick meal in the future.

Mayonnaise??

With the summer season now upon us, and being this is the first year my husband is going to be home - and healthy - for it, I'm guessing he won't want to eat seitan sandwiches or have soup every day, so decided to look into some McDougall sandwich spreads and salads.

The main part of most of those recipes is the mayonnaise, so I took a look at all of the mayo recipes throughout the years to be associated with the McDougall program, from the earliest mention in a newsletter with a recipe by McDougall cooking instructor Alex Bury in a July 2005 newsletter, to the latest incarnation in the Kid Friendly Snack, Dips and Spreads article with recipes by Heather McDougall in February 2013, which is the same one posted by Mary McDougall back in a 2005 newsletter, which is the same one in the McDougall Made Easy DVD. In fact, Weight Watcher's mayonnaise was even mentioned in one cookbook as a good alternative because, at least at the time, it was egg and oil-free. IDK if this product even exists anymore. I know another alternative, fat-free Nayonnaise, no longer is.

The McDougall recipe is the one I made up. I figured it's been around McDougall circles the longest so it stood the test of time. It must be good, right?

Tofu Mayonnaise

1  12.3 ounce package firm lite silken tofu
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate.

This will keep in the refrigerator for at least 1 week.

The instructions I used said to drain the tofu in a fine sieve first, so I put the package of MoriNu tofu into one of those reusable coffee filters. I never used it for coffee but for straining non-dairy milk. It's really fine. After about 2 hours I got over an ounce of liquid out of it and decided that was enough.

Now to blend everything up in my food processor. It didn't take long to break down and become smooth, I put it all into a pint Mason jar, but before putting it into the refrigerator handed the jar and a spoon to my husband and told him to taste it and tell me what he thinks it is. His guess was unsalted creamy cottage cheese. I said it was supposed to be mayonnaise and he said he would never had guessed that in a million years. I asked his opinion because, as I've said a few times lately, with this cold my taste buds are a bit off, and he's had mayo more recently than I have. It's over a decade since I last had some but only a year or so for him, just a few months before his CABG surgery. I hoped it would acquire some taste overnight in the refrigerator.

It didn't. Hubby suggested adding sugar and paprika so it would taste more like Miracle Whip, a product he always liked more than plain mayo. When asked if he would be the guinea pig and tell me when it got close, he rescinded the suggestion. In fact, he said he no longer wanted me to try make any kind of sandwich salad or spread, that he's lived this long without any tuna or egg salad, real or fake, that he'll be just as happy for the rest of his life continuing to do without them.

I mixed some with ketchup and used it as a spread on a whole wheat roll when I made an onion, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Like that it wasn't bad at all. Maybe tomorrow I'll mix up some more of this concoction and add a little vinegar and water and shake it all up and use it on a bowl of rice and veggies at lunch time.

But I know I won't be wasting any more tofu or garbanzos trying to make a sandwich spread out of it. My husband's mind is made up and tightly closed to the idea. I guess it's back to seitan sandwiches, soup, and the occasional container of leftovers until I can find something else to make. There are loads of non-sandwich spread related salads out there for the trying. Temps already hit 90 degrees here in NJ so it's going to be a long, hot summer, and I really would rather not light the oven every 2 weeks for 90 minutes at a time to make more seitan for him!

Vegan Dad's Corned Beef

Saint Patrick's Day is coming, and with that comes Vegan Dad's Corned Beef sandwiches. Here's the video and link to the recipe for those who missed it when I last posted about it. 


Now all I have to do is find where I put that cheesecloth and that rye bread recipe since the last time I made this.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know, it's not until tomorrow, but I really don't plan on getting near this computer after my guys wake up. There's the parade, there's cooking, there's going for a walk as long as the sun is shining. There are books to be read and movies to be watched when we tire of all that.

And of course, there's always the eating of the lasagna. 

We were never turkey eaters, not since my mom died 37 years ago. She was the only one willing to go all out and "do" Thanksgiving with all the trimmings. My first step-mom didn't, my m-i-l didn't, I usually worked the holiday so I didn't, and by the time my dad married my second step-mom, the good one, they had moved to Florida and we didn't see them on holidays. Well, the year we lived in Florida we were there for Thanksgiving, but my step-mom decided to go visit one of her kids instead of making Thanksgiving dinner for my dad. We were already a McDougalling family (Well, hubby was 75%, I was 100%, and the kid - I swear he has lived on mac and cheese for most of his 30 years on this planet) and there was no way *I* was going to make a turkey and I told that to my dad. "No problem," he said, "We'll go to Cracker Barrel."

Alright. I agreed to go. I had gotten a veggie meal there before by putting together a bunch of side dishes and requesting no-oil, our son could grab his usual mac & cheese and my husband could get whatever he wanted. A great plan, except on Thanksgiving, ALL they served was turkey dinners. No menu, no extra sides, no special orders. Everybody got the same thing. I was so glad to get home that evening after dropping my dad off back at his house. We were all starving! It's a good thing we hit the early-bird special, because we had plenty of time for me to make a pasta meal for the three of us. That was the first and last time we ever ate anywhere but home for any holiday.

I did a lot of cooking today, but the only thing for tomorrow's dinner that I made wasn't even cooked, just put together and refrigerated - tofu ricotta. The rest of my cooking was for lunches for the next week. You see, even though my husband is only back to work for 6 weeks (edited to correct - it's only 4 weeks, not 6), he still had 9 "pool days" left when he went in. One was taken for his cardiologist appointment a few weeks ago, so 8 more to "use or lose" before the end of the year. He had put in for the first week of December way back in January, and although his boss isn't happy about it, she knows he has to take it. The other days he'll take the next 2 Wednesdays then Monday December 30th. Again, she isn't happy, but when he reminded her he could have put in for all three days in a row next to a weekend, she was thankful he did what he's going to do.

So, in my refrigerator right now is a giant container of Split Pea and Yam soup from the Forks Over Knives blog, a ziplock of Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon from the PPK web site, and another ziplock with even more of them, because I doubled the "double batch" recipe, and a plateful of 8 Mexican Burgers from Jeff Novick's Fast Food 2 - Burgers and Fries DVD. I have a loaf of Ezekial bread and a package of Ezekial English muffins on hand for dunking and sandwich making. Dinners are all going to be quick and/or easy, starting with tomorrow's lasagna (A hybrid of Rip's Raise the Roof recipe), pizza on Friday, plain old pasta and spaghetti sauce on Saturday, and I'll decide which of Jeff's SNAP meals to make Sunday, depending on which veggies I have in the freezer at the time. 

And today? My bags of Success Rice are waiting for the water to boil, my peas and carrots are cooking in the microwave, my Soy Curls are soaking, awaiting draining, pressing and a quick crisping in the skillet, something I'll do after my husband gets home and while he's doing his hour of exercise. Toss it all together with a bit of greens and low sodium teriyaki sauce and another simple meal.

Enjoy the holiday, and keep your fingers crossed that the wind isn't so bad they cancel the balloons in the parade.

VeganMoFo Day 24 - Sloppy Joes

Like mac & cheese, everybody has their own favorite version of this family favorite, too.

Here's the one I thought Mary McDougall has in the heart book:

Sloppy Lentil Joes
Prep: 15 minutes | Cook: 1 hour • Serves 8 to 10

1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 cups dried brown lentils
1 can (15 ounces) crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons regular or reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
Whole wheat buns and condiments, for serving

Put 1/3 cup of water into a large saucepan and add the onion and bell pepper. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chili powder.

Add the lentils, tomatoes, soy sauce, mustard, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper to taste, and 3 cups of water; mix well. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer slowly for 55 minutes, stirring occasionally.

To serve, ladle the mixture over split whole wheat buns.


As it turned out, it wasn't. The heart book one used red lentils, ketchup and honey. That's what I get for taking somebody else's word for it rather than type it out myself. This is still a Mary McDougall recipe, though, but from a newsletter.

But back to the recipe at hand. I made a few changes:
For the onion and green peppers I again used the frozen bag of tiny diced onion and peppers, half a bag, about a cup.

I misread the recipe and thought it said a cup and a half of cooked lentils and that was all I had ready when getting the dish together. Another oops. I still had some Lightlife Smart Ground crumbles in the freezer so took out a ziplock bag of them and defrosted them in the nuker. I know they're no longer McDougall acceptable, but as little as half a cup adds a heck of a punch to a pound of spaghetti. When I buy a box I measure it out to 3, half-cup amounts, double-wrap in freezer bags, and pop them in the freezer for just such occasions. So I added this now defrosted half cup of crumbles to the cup and a half of lentils. It probably still didn't make the entire amount originally called for, but was good enough for us.

For the vinegar, I had rice vinegar, and I had wine vinegar, but no rice wine vinegar. I used the rice vinegar.

My husband and I both checked the shelves in the supermarket and the health food store and there is no such creature as 15 ounce (or smaller) cans of crushed tomatoes. I could find gigantic 28-32 ounce cans, but nothing smaller, and since I had no reason to use the other 15 ounces from the giant sized can and no freezer room left to store it after our shopping trip, I picked up a can of petite diced no-salt added ones. All the other sloppy joe recipes I've used called for tomato sauce, or, as I mentioned above, ketchup.

So, while the crumbles were defrosting I tossed all the rest of the ingredients together in the saucepan, then stirred in the crumbles when they were defrosted enough to break apart. Popped the lid on, sliced up the rolls, cooked a big bag of baby carrots with 1/4 cup of maple syrup in the microwave, and in less than 10 minutes had everything on the table.

I would have had a photo of the plated food, but my husband just grabbed and started eating when I went for the camera. I made his so nice and neat so it would look good, too. Mine I just plopped on and lived up to its name. Oh, well, you'll have to do with this pic of the stuff in the pot.

I don't know if it was because we were so hungry, or because the rolls were as soft as a baby's butt for the first time in a long time, or just the different recipe ingredients, but these sloppy joes tasted much better than others I had made in the past, including Isa's Snobby Joes recipe. I guess this will be my go-to recipe from now on. 

I only have one bag of crumbles left in the freezer, though, and when it's gone, I'll start making up and freezing Engine Two's Coach Ami's crumbles, instead. It took a while but the local HFS finally got the bulgur back so I can make these. Let's see if he can tell the difference. I already had the two types of lentils called for. It'll be nice not to feel guilty about using crumbles again. :)

VeganMoFo Day 8 - "Cheese" Spread

The Original version

I've been making fake cheeses since the late 1970's, when I used a recipe from Doris Bate and Louise Hagler's book, The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (Now known as The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook but still contains the same recipes and hand-drawn illustrations). It tasted weird, but had a lot less calories and was a heck of a lot healthier than "American processed cheese food" that was starting to be sold in grocery stores.


It took a while to convince my husband to eat these cheeses, and to this day he still prefers his greasy dairy versions, one of the main reasons he wound up with the quadruple bypass in July. But now he has no choice. He's finally ready to grasp the goodness of nooch-based cheeses. He's already been eating them on his pizzas and mac and cheese casseroles, but I haven't made a spread to use on sandwiches in a while. As long as I bought that bread for yesterday's sandwiches, I figured we may as well have another sandwich day and use up the rest of the loaf. 

This time, to keep with my VeganMoFo theme of using recipes from 2 specific heart-healthy books, I'm using this recipe from Mary McDougall:

"Cheese" Spread
Servings: Makes 2 cups
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Chilling time: 1-2 hours

15 ounce can Great Northern or navy beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup chopped pimentos
6 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until very smooth.

Refrigerate before serving.

Hint: Use on crackers, sandwiches or baked potatoes. Thin slightly with water, heat gently, and use as a sauce over vegetables or on enchiladas or tortillas. Make into a fondue with some non-alcoholic white wine and dip bread chunks into it.

The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1 
page 304


I didn't bother taking a picture of the stuff whirring around in my Ninja blender. You've seen one blender-full of nooch sauce ingredients spinning around you've seen them all. This is one I nabbed from Google Images.

We spread the cheese sauce on the bread, topped it with a slice of yesterday's marinated red peppers and some baby spinach leaves, then put them on the griddle to brown.

Sloppy, but YUM! This didn't solidify but stayed in a near liquid state, better suited for a sauce, not a spread. It's a good thing this is the end of the bread, because I could probably eat 2 or 3 more sandwiches of this stuff, it's that good! But I don't so I can't. 

Would I use this again? It was the same as most other nutritional yeast based sauces I already use, so I won't seek it out, but if it pops up when I'm looking for a sauce recipe I'll use it. Next time i want a cheese spread or even slicing cheese for a sandwich I'll peruse Jo Stepaniak's Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook and choose one of those, like this one:

But because right now I'm only cooking the heart-healthiest foods, and that recipe has both cashews AND tahini, it's going to wait a long time to be made again.

The rest of the spread is going to be used for tomorrow's lunch, so stay tuned.

VeganMoFo Day 7 - Roasted & Rustic Red Pepper Sandwiches

First, a rant. Those who have read my posts on Yahoogroups have known for years that the produce where I live sucks. I've tried big chain groceries, small chains, mom and pop stores, ethnic grocers, but it's all the same. Many of the items are rotten right on the store shelves - peppers are liquidy in the bags, potatoes are as neon green as the bananas, onions have black mold between the layers, etc. This is one of the reasons I fell in love with Jeff Novick's SNAP meals - all the produce came from the freezer and was always, 100% of the time, edible, so not a wasted penny!

A few weeks ago, the main grocery store I go to redesigned the produce section. There are more refrigerated cases; delicate and easily bruised fruit and veggies are now in their own baskets; there's a wider variety of produce items; there's a smaller amount of veggies stacked up on top of themselves so the bottom items are less prone to getting crushed, etc. That's one of the main reasons I chose so many Esselstyn recipes for this past week, and when I finally bought everything that was on my list for those meals, I was over-budget, which was a bad thing, especially with hubby home on disability pay right now.

So you can imagine how angry I was when I reached for a potato for lunch yesterday and found not just soft, rotten potatoes, but half the bag of Yukon Golds and most of the bag of fingerlings were liquified, drippy, and smelled so bad if a cadaver dog was around he would have howled, sat, or whatever he was trained to do when a dead body was detected. Out went all my potatoes to the garbage can in the yard immediately. I didn't want that stink in the apartment!

Then today I went to grab the red peppers to start roasting them for today's lunch, and whatever wasn't black-molded was liquifying. Out went 2 bags of red peppers with a dozen peppers total that was supposed to be today's lunch and part of tomorrow's dinner.

I went through the rest of the produce - the carrots grew hairy roots and the remaining celery stalks from the head I used just the day before were yellow. Luckily, I had no onions left. 2 of the remaining apples were full of soft spots and bruises. All this produce was just bought only 5 days before!

The temp in the 2-year old refrigerator is fine; the potatoes were kept in a dark, cool room because I have no more room in the refrigerator. The apples were in the same old fruit bowl in the kitchen where they always are since we moved in here 13 years ago.

And people wonder why I don't even want to think about being a "nutritarian" and prefer to be a "starchivore!"

It was close to lunch time and we had already been to 2 grocery stores earlier, so I just resorted to the jar of roasted red peppers (water packed, only 20 mg sodium) and started the recipe from there. I don't think I'll be doing too many veggie-heavy recipes again in the near future unless they can come from the freezer.

 Roasted and Rustic Sweet Peppers

6 red peppers sliced 1/4 inch thick
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar or balsamic
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp dried marjoram
1/4 tsp dried oregano

Roast peppers on cookie sheet until blackened then turn until all sides are black. Peel in running water, slice, then combine peppers and all ingredients and marinate for at least 30 minutes.
Comments:  Ann uses a teaspoon of all the herbs (rather than a 1/4 tsp). These are fabulous just plain, on toast, in a sandwich, in a salad, or blended into salad dressing. If you save the juice from the peppers as you roast them, it adds a feel of oil in salad dressings.

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
page 180
Caldwell Esselstyn, MD and Ann Crile Esselstyn

Instead of slicing the peppers I left them in the half-pepper size they each came out of the jar in. I out them all into the glass Pyrex storage container, poured in the vinegar, then mixed the herbs and spices in a small bowl and shook some over each layer of peppers, put the lid on, and popped it into the refrigerator, where it sat for about 90 minutes. I took Ann's hint and used a full teaspoon of each spice. I had been playing on the computer and lost track of time, and before I knew it, out walked my husband looking at me with his sad puppy dog eyes asking when will lunch be ready. Oops! It's ready now, sorry.

We used a whole grain seeded bread made without oil from the local grocery store. We each had a layer of peppers and some onions on top, me with steamed ones and he with raw. My husband added mustard to his sandwich, and it looked so good that when I was ready for my second half, I smeared some on mine, too. 

I had enough peppers left over to slice one up to add to the pizza we had for dinner, and the rest will be used for part of  today's lunch (see tomorrow's VeganMoFo post).

If you've never roasted peppers before, here are a few ways to do it:

Turkey Seitan In A Bread Machine

I love seitan. I've been making this stuff since I saw my first package of gluten mix from Harvest Direct, then found vital wheat gluten in bulk in The Mail Order Catalog and have been ordering it from there ever since.

 I have so many recipes for the stuff in all sorts of flavors, but for decades I made it the plain, semi-chicken flavor simmered in a pot of water, because recipes that claimed to make your seitan taste like corned beef, roast beef, even kielbasy, well, didn't. Then I discovered Bryanna Clark Grogan's chickenish cutlets. And Julie Hasson's Italian sausages. And Chef Brian McCarthy's turkey roast (encrouton, of course, for the holidays).


But the main problem with all of those recipes is that they took time to make after the dough is mixed. Cutting and shaping and wrapping and steaming/baking/frying. I wanted something as simple as old fashioned simmered seitan that was even easier to put together on days when I feel sluggish (like now, after almost 2 months of passing the flu back and forth).

Enter this recipe from Lazy Dave! I first read about it in a post on the PPK forums, where the people who tried it loved it. I filed it away to try in the future, a time that never came until the other day. Life has been hectic around here, between the flu and the impending death of the elderly relative I've mentioned in previous posts. She's been hospitalized twice in the past month, and the other day she was sent back to the nursing home in kidney failure and now receiving hospice/palliative care. Since my husband and I are about the only family she has left and we're the ones who have been responsible for her care the past 5 years, we're also the ones who will take care of her burial and estate when she's gone. My husband's job has been crazy the past few months (Remember me mentioning mandatory overtime? That's now going to go on indefinitely.) so we're trying to get as much prepared ahead of time as we can, so that means trips to banks, phone calls to various agencies and departments, and even a trip to the funeral director to finalize the arrangements. The funeral parlor is owned by the aunt's best friend, too, so we spent a lot of time talking with her reminiscing about the fun she and the aunt had over the years. All this while I'm sitting there with a box of tissues and a bottle of hand sanitizer coughing my head off. I'm still not allowed to see the aunt because of this flu but at least yesterday the nursing supervisor on duty deemed my husband non-contagious and allowed him to spend some time with her while I was relegated to a corner of the lobby.

Anyway, I needed to make something to have on hand for quick meals grabbed and eaten on the run, and seitan sandwiches was my former go-to meal, but I didn't have any in the freezer at the moment, and since I really needed to take a nap the other day (I'm still only getting a few hours sleep each night, thanks to this cough) I wasn't able to make traditional seitan because I knew I would fall asleep with it on the stove, and that's not good. Then I remembered the seitan in the ABM recipe I had and dug it up.

My changes:
Wet stuff - there was no way I was going to use an entire half cup of soy sauce! Even the lower sodium stuff has way too much sodium, so I watered it down to half strength, so 1/4 cup soy sauce and increased the water to 1 3/4 cup.
Dry stuff - And I skipped the added salt.

Those were the only changes to the ingredients.

I first started putting the ingredients into my Mini-Zoji bread machine and then thought this may be too much dough for the machine and dragged out my old full-sized Oster ABM. Next time I think I *will* use the Zoji, because the seitan loaf really wasn't that high at all, maybe 2-3 inches, sort of like a slab of over-cooked corned beef on Saint Patrick's Day. Here's a photo of half the log with some chunks I couldn't slice any thinner. The chunks will get chopped up smaller and tossed into a pasta meal later in the week.

One more change I'll make next time I make this recipe (And I WILL make it again) is to use the Light setting on the ABM. Dave used the Medium setting so I did, too, but fresh out of the pan the crust was so hard my sharpest bread knife had a hard time cracking through it. After spending a night in a ziplock bag it softened a bit, but it would be much better with a softer crust to start with.

As far as taste goes, my husband loves it and made himself three sandwiches. He said if I didn't tell him it was seitan he would have thought it real turkey. I didn't think it tasted anything like turkey because all I could taste was the soy sauce. I think that was all in my head, so to speak, knowing how much of that stuff was in there. In fact, I was reminded of it all afternoon and all night, as I'm so bloated my wedding ring and shoes are all tight on me this morning and my mouth has been so dry that glass after glass of water still hasn't quenched my thirst. But of course, some of that may be because of the flu and my constant coughing and frequent sneezes, and another part could be that we did a lot of running around yesterday and the only time I drank anything was when I took my medications in the morning. I wasn't going to be stuck in a car an hour from home and no clean restrooms in sight with a full bladder!

Saint Patrick's Day is fast approaching. Maybe instead of the cabbage dish I have planned I'll tackle Brian's corned beef seitan again. It's another one of those simmering seitan recipes, so I hope I have some degree of health back by then!

Black Bean Sloppy Joes

Sandwiches for dinner on Monday. We had a busy afternoon, finally having enough energy to take down the Christmas tree and put all the decorations away. After that we both dozed off while watching an old Vincent Price/Agnes Moorehead movie. Good thing I already planned for this quickie meal, because I really didn't feel like cooking up a big dinner. 

The recipe is by Mary McDougall and comes from a number of published sources, most recently in the McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook.

Black Bean Sloppy Joes
Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

  1                     onion -- chopped
  1                     green bell pepper -- diced
     1/3           cup  water
  15            ounces  canned black beans -- drained and rinsed
  8             ounces  tomato sauce
     1/4           cup  rolled oats -- quick-cooking
  1         tablespoon  soy sauce
     1/2    tablespoon  prepared mustard
  1           teaspoon  honey
  1           teaspoon  chili powder
  6                     whole wheat buns -- *see Note

Place the onion and bell pepper in a saucepan with the water. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables soften, about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, mash the beans with a bean or potato masher (do not use a food processor). Add the beans and remaining ingredients, except the buns. Cook over low heat until heated through, about 5 minutes.
Serve on the buns with your choice of accompaniments, such as onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard, and ketchup.

Recipe Hint: Try this over toast, potatoes, or grains. Canned pinto beans also work well in this recipe.
McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook
page 134

Oatmeal? Sounds like a weird ingredient to put into sloppy joes. Also, only 1 can of beans and such a small amount of sauce. This will never be enough for 6 sandwiches, right?

In a medium sized saucepan

Wrong. The oatmeal made this a thick mixture, not a watery, sloppy, one, and added a bit of volume, too. With regular sloppy joes, you have a lot of sauce with the little bits (veggies, lentils, etc.) swimming around in it. To get enough bits onto your sandwich you had to ladle on a pretty large amount. With this mixture, everything is in a nice neat package so one smaller scoop is all you need.

On Kaiser rolls

I had to quickly take the photo. My husband already started eating one of his sandwiches while my back was turned (upper left corner). Since he ate my whole wheat Kaiser roll for his breakfast earlier in the day, I wound up having mine on the same whole grain panini bread I raved on about in previous posts. Look at how nice and neat it sits there on the bread!

Piled around a half inch high

Another comment I can make about this sloppy joe recipe is that the flavor is a bit bland. Kids, and other people who don't go for highly spiced food (like me), will love it! My husband liked the texture but wanted it spicier (especially after eating leftover Lazy Sunday Stew for lunch) so shook on some sriracha sauce, but I loved it just the way it was. 

We got 5 hearty sandwiches out of it. It's hard to see in these photos but those babies were piled up high! My husband ate 3 on kaiser rolls, I had one on the bread, and I have another sandwich already made in the refrigerator for today's lunch. I really scooped a lot on each one, so this could easily make 6 or more sandwiches with less on each one. So much for one can of beans not being enough.

Maple Glazed Tofu Ham

I found this recipe while roaming the Internet. Someone said ti resembles ham and made great "ham" sandwiches, so decided to try it today.

Maple Glazed Tofu
Submitted By: doll
Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ready In: 15 Minutes
Servings: 2
"A vegetarian alternative for ham."

Ingredients:
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 teaspoon soy sauce (optional)
2 tablespoons brown mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (8 ounce) container firm tofu, drained and cubed
1 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
1. Whisk together maple syrup, pineapple juice, soy sauce, and mustard in a small bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and stir in the tofu. Cook and stir until the tofu is evenly browned. Stir in syrup mixture and continue to cook until the glaze has reduced. Top with sesame seeds.
Printed from Allrecipes.com 4/13/2012

My changes:
First off, I pressed a 14 ounce package of Naysoya Extra Firm tofu for about an hour.

Instead of cutting it into cubes, I cut the pressed 'fu into 8 slices.

I dry-fried them until browned in a non-stick skillet and omitted the oil.

The marinade:
I just realized I forgot the mustard. Oops! Would have made a great addition, too.

I never have pineapple juice around but just this morning bought a package of 4,1/2 cup servings of pineapple chinks with a 50 cent off coupon. It took the liquid of 2 of those cups to make 1/2 cup of pineapple juice. I tossed all the fruit bits in, too, because pineapple goes great with ham.

Everything whipped up in a very short time. The tofu took about 10 minutes to brown on both sides, then I tossed in the liquid and fruit and let it boil away for about another 10 to 15 minutes. There was still a bit of liquid left, but by then my husband was drooling at the sight of it so went ahead and served the tofu and fruit onto whole wheat Kaiser rolls then took a spoon and poured a bit of the liquid over the tofu on each sandwich. Oops, I also forgot the sesame seeds. And I had them out on the counter, too.

Sorry, no photos, because we devoured these before I remembered I wanted a shot.

We moaned with delight at the taste of them, but after the first bite or 2 both of us were doing Tigger (from Winnie the Pooh) quotes about icky, sticky stuff that's only fit for heffalumps and woozles. The mustard would have helped cut the sweetness.

Another great meal that we will do again, but next time with all the ingredients.

Revised Chickpea Cutlets

A recipe that used to be a staple around this house was Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Chickpea Cutlets. There was always at least a half dozen in the freezer at any given time for quick sandwiches or a complete dinner with all the fixings.

Then I stopped making them. I wanted to be a good little McDougaller and avoid all processed foods that these fell by the wayside, as did Julie Hasson's sausages. I started to follow Jeff Novick's advice and just add extra vegetables and greens to a lot of dishes, like our weekly pasta meal. Yes, all those extra veggies did add bulk, but not satiation or even much flavor. About 2 hours after a veggie-heavy dinner we were both hungry again. My husband, being a non-McDougaller who's the same weight at age 62 that he was when he graduated high school, reached for the cookies and potato chips and I would either white-knuckle it and eat nothing (and be awake half the night with hunger pangs), eat some fruit or more veggies (and be awake half the night running in and out of the bathroom), or make the occasional on-plan quickbread (which didn't keep me awake but gave me weird dreams).

Then I used some crumbles in a VeganMoFo recipe in October and it almost brought tears to my husband's eyes having "real food" back again. I then used some more the other day in a tater tot casserole recipe and got the same response.

He also wanted more to our pasta then just veggies and so I made a batch of Julie's sausages. We used 2 of them for the three of us (plus leftovers) and the rest are in the freezer for future meals.

During the blackout after Sandy we had to toss all the perishables from the refrigerator and freezer, leaving only things that really didn't need to be refrigerated but we kept them in there anyway:

Yes, my refrigerator is this small-the left wall is right after those water bottles - you can see a few molecules of it in the upper left hand size of the photo. If I raise that top shelf up one notch the bottles and milk container hit the top. The freezer is only about as large as that second shelf, the one with the nooch. 

The rice milk is unopened, the lettuce was only 2 days old and is un-refrigerated in the store so we decided it would be fine in there for the 2 more days it would take to eat it; our son doesn't mind warm soda, and the many times the stores display the dairy cheese (American cheese-like food product) in un-refrigerated cardboard displays so our son said to keep those, too. Surprisingly, the temp in there never rose above 50, probably because that was the room temperature most days, too.

One of the things tossed was my husband's beloved hot dogs. Every day off work he would eat 2 sandwiches with 3 dogs total for lunch. It took 20 years to get him to stop putting a slice of cheese on each sandwich but he would never give up the dogs, nor would he eat veg dogs like Smart Dogs or any of the other brands I tried. But after we got our power back and we started to restock the fridge and freezer he told me not to buy any more hot dogs, that he would eat "something else" for lunch on those days. For the past 2 weeks we were lucky and I had "planned-overs" ready for him, but this week - nothing. There isn't a leftover in the house and I know there won't be any after today or tomorrow's dinners.

First I made up another batch of Jeff's burgers, the Southwest this time, but he usually complains they're too much for lunch, that he'll want something lighter.

Chickpea cutlets to the rescue! I found the recipe in my AZZ Cardfile program and made a double double-batch of them and used the tomato paste instead of olive oil option and cooked them like I always did, in the oven. Here's how they came out:

As you can see by these cooled ones, they do have an orangy tinge to them in places. The quadruple recipe made over 20 cutlets (I used my ice cream scoop to get uniform sizes, just perfect for a burger roll) plus a few tester meatball sized pieces. This is the first time I used tomato paste instead of oil (Gasp! Yes, I used oil in the past!) and contrary to some of the commentors comments, you do taste the tomato and they are a bit drier. I'll see if he notices the difference this weekend. I placed this entire batch into the freezer with circles of plastic cut from container lids between them so they don't stick together. When we're ready to eat them we just remove a few, place on a plate and nuke for less than a minute. Always perfect for a quick sandwich.

Next week I plan on making Bryanna's chickenless cutlets (no recipe, just a photo - sorry) and soon maybe dabble in regular seitan loaves again.