Longevity Soup

A SNAP recipe (Simple Nutritious Affordable and (Darn, I can't remember what the "P" stood for!) from Jeff Novick, Dr. McDougall's nutritionist.

Dish 4 - Longevity Soup

1) 1 can whole tomatoes, 1 can pureed

2) Your favorite beans (I use kidney or garbanzo)

3) 1.5- 2 lbs of Your favorite frozen veggies plus 1 lb of frozen collards

4) Your favorite starch (potato, sweet potato rice, barley) cooked separate then added

5) your favorite seasoning (I use fresh ginger, garlic)

Place tomatoes in large pot. Add in 2 28 oz cans of water. Then add in all other ingredients. Bring to a boil and then simmer 15 minutes. Enjoy!

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VeganMoFo Day 31 - Clara's Couscous

Clara Cannuciari is 94 years old now and s till doing Great Depression Cooking videos. Her newest one, Couscous Stew, was just uploaded this week and looks like it's already McDougall-friendly, as long as you use vegetable broth and omit the butter after steaming the couscous. I think when I try making this dish, though, I would cook the couscous the more traditional way, with boiling water. With my luck I would burn the cheesecloth just placing it on the colander!

And now she also has a book out:


I don't own it yet, but it is in my Amazon shopping cart.


So, this wraps up another year of VeganMoFo. Sorry I wasn't as "into" it as last year, but next year will be better, I promise.

VeganMoFo Day 27 - More Apologies

Sorry for being such a bad MoFo'er, but this has been one of our craziest weeks ever (again). The elderly relative with Alzheimer's we care for from afar got lost coming home from church on Sunday, so now we're hustling to make sure she's safe. She's still refusing live-in help, refusing to allow a homemaker for more than a few 3 times a week, and in fact wants us to stop her visits entirely, still crying she wants us to move in with her, something we told her years ago will never happen because there's no way my husband can commute via public transportation to work (Only 1 bus, runs hourly, takes twice as long as his commute now, and doesn't run well in inclement weather and is canceled altogether when it snows because the trip goes down dangerous steep hills). We're making appointments for interviews at various assisted living facilities and nursing homes with Alzheimer's units in the area because we weren't too thrilled with the place she was in earlier this year, and so far either the people we have to talk to aren't in this week or won't even bother talking to us because there are no openings and long waiting lists.

I've also been arguing with one of the nurses from rehab. Because I'm not losing scads of weight even though I'm doing 60 minutes of cardio in front of official witnesses three times a week and another 45 to 60 minutes 3 more times at home in front of only my son, this nurse feels I just must be eating too much or eating the wrong foods. When I described the McDougall program to her she did nothing but bad-mouth it for a half hour, telling me it's not healthy to eliminate entire food groups, that I'm eating too few calories, need those "healthy" fats in my diet. Remember folks, this is a cardiac care nurse with not just her BSN and state nursing license but has multiple certifications in advanced nursing care, including critical cardiac care! I told her that my doctor, the cardiologist that runs the entire cardio-vascular unit, the guy the hospital BUILT the unit FOR a few years back, not only had heard of the McDougall program (As well as Dr. Esselstyn, Ornish and Barnard and C. Collin Campbell) but was very happy and said he wished he could get ALL his cardiac patients to follow the program. She didn't care - she still claimed it wasn't healthy. She said I should be going to a place like her 400+ pound sister is going to, one that makes an individualized food plan for each patient (her sister eats 3000 calories a day, minimum, about 1/3 each in fat, protein and carbs). No thanks. I'll stick with McDougall. It was because of McDougall my coronary arteries were clear as can be, with no cholesterol plaques or deposits, no blockages, when the cardiac cath was done. I doubt they would still be clear if I ate 1000 calories of fat every day. Maybe she just wanted to make sure I would *stay* a customer of the cardiac unit?

Food - Yesterday was . . . I really have to think what the heck we ate! Oh, my husband and I had a chili I tossed together (just canned beans, canned no-salt-added petite diced tomatoes, frozen corn kernels, and 2 packets of lower salt fajita mix), a dump and heat meal. Today is brown rice and veggies; tomorrow is potatoes and veggies (That Poorman's Meal I mentioned in the past). Thursday will be spaghetti and whatever (sausages, not-meat balls, or just some veggies tossed into the sauce - who knows?). Friday will be our traditional whole wheat, cheeseless pizza.

Saturday, Halloween, we have no idea what we're doing. We may be bringing that relative into a nursing home, rehab or even a hospital, or just at her house clearing out & painting a room in preparation for a live-in companion. I usually make a stew on Halloween and call it Witches' Brew, but I have a feeling that this year we'll eat something even more horrendous - leftovers!

ACK! My husband just got home and I guess he'll want his dinner. Hopefully I'll be checking in again tomorrow with a slightly better MoFo post.

VeganMoFo Day 22 - Stew pic and McDougall Info

I finally got the photo of my own stew posted to this other blog post. Enjoy.

And there's lots of drama going on around this house again, thanks to hubby's 91 year old aunt with Alzheimer's Disease and now his cousin from out of state who thinks she can tell my husband what to do and how to do it when it comes to the aunt's care but really doesn't want the responsibility, herself. She is insisting on live-in help although the aunt is adamantly opposed to it and is going to hire the person herself, BUT is leaving it up to us to tell the aunt and get the room ready for her, and all that jazz. All I can say is: Oy vey!

So, leftovers again today because I've been running around all day. Instead of a recipe I'll leave you this video from Dr. McDougall about the McDougall Program.

McDougall 10-Day Program from John McDougall on Vimeo.

VeganMoFo Day 20 - White Bean and Garlic Stew

Over the weekend it got COLD, and instead of salad for lunch I decided to make a quickie White Bean and Garlic stew that I found on Susan V's Fat Free Vegan blog. Here it is with the changes I made in red:

White Bean and Garlic Stew

2 15-ounce cans cannellini or great northern beans (about 3 cups),(I had small white beans in the pantry) rinsed and drained
1 head garlic (the whole bulb--15-20 cloves)(We love garlic so I used 2 heads)
2 tablespoons water
3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped(I used a small bag of organic baby carrots, left whole)
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes (I always use unsalted tomato products)
2 bay leaves (Skipped this - I don't like the taste)
1 cup water (Not enough - I used 4 cups)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)(Skipped this, obviously, on my low salt diet)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon lemon juice (Skipped this, too)

Break the garlic bulb into cloves and peel off the skin. If you'd like, chop one of the cloves, but leave the others whole. If some of the cloves are very large, you may cut them in half lengthwise.

Spray a large, non-stick pan lightly with olive oil (Used water). Add the onion and sauté until it turns a rich, medium-brown, about 5 minutes (Took more like 15 before it gave any hint of color or translucence). Add the garlic and carrots and sauté for 1 more minute.

Add the beans, tomatoes, bay leaves, and water. Cover the pot and simmer for about an hour, adding water if it gets too thick.

Stir in the salt and pepper. If you're serving the stew right away, add all the parsley and the lemon juice. If you're serving it later or at room temperature, add the parsley and lemon juice right before serving.

Serve over brown rice. (Served as-is)

Makes 6 servings. Each contains: 246 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (3%
calories from fat); 15g Protein; 47g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol;
385mg Sodium; 15g Fiber (Of course, these are different for my version)


I took a photo but my camera's messing up. It does look just like Susan's on her blog, and her pics are always much nicer than mine:


Susan Voisin's Photo

As soon as I figure out why the computer isn't recognizing my camera and fix it (I hope) I'll also pop my photo up there for comparison.

ETA 10/22/2009
It took a few days and me tearing out quite few handfulls of hair, but I finally got the pic of my version of the stew uploaded.



As tasty as it was good-looking!

VeganMoFo Day 16 - Mindful Eating

After everything that went wrong yesterday, at least I did one thing right - I was mindful of everything I ate. I ate with peace, without killing, without violence. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a nice essay on Mindful Eating. Enjoy.

VeganMoFo Day 15 - It's My Birthday and I'll Cry If I Want To

So I lied yesterday. There will be no recipe today as all I'm making for my birthday dinner is a pot of spaghetti with a jar or no salt added spaghetti sauce. At least I'm making some Italian bread to go with it to jazz it up a bit. No cake, not even a cupcake or bran muffin.

Bad day yesterday. By the end of the day I was sitting here with high blood pressure and chest pains again and debating whether or not to go to the ER (thanks to that crooked contractor, my idiot husband, and a $1500 check) but as the evening wore on the pains subsided. Today started off with the blood pressure high but some meditation and a Richard Simmons DVD workout helped bring it down to normal levels again. Thank goodness no chest pains, and to keep it that way that's why no dietary cheats today. No biggie - I never had a cake for my childhood birthdays, either, because my doc always had me on a low calorie diet. I didn't have my first birthday cake until I was out of nursing school working full time and my co-workers threw a party for me during our lunch break. It may have been my 21st birthday. Maybe next year, but I doubt it.


ETA:
Great! I grabbed a jar of sauce and it opened with a loud POP instead of a soft "pip" noise and the sauce is almost solid. Luckily I had another jar of that scarce no-salt added, vegan elixir and . . .

. . . the same thing happened. A loud POP and possibly a hiss this time. That jar went into the garbage, too. So I opened a can of tomato puree, dumped that into the frying veggies (onions, red & green peppers, mushrooms, garlic - lots and lots of garlic) then added a can of tomato paste for more intense flavor, then dumped it all in with the cooked pasta. Right now I don't give a crap what it tastes like - I just want to get this meal over with. Because of the rain my husband phoned to say he's been delayed, that the trains are about a half hour behind. What next??

VeganMoFo Day 14 - Rice Diet Video

Kitty Rosati, the co-owner and co-director of the Rice House in Durham, NC, has released a video to YouTube. Because the embedding has been disabled for that video (Who knows why) you'll have to click on THIS LINK to see it. Just remember that when she talks about people "on the program" she's referring to those who are attending the Rice Diet program in person, eating at the most restricted level of foods, what's known as "detox" in the at-home version. The daily calorie level on that phase is usually under 1000 cal a day.

I do still follow the McDougall food plan, but even Dr. McDougall himself recommended the Rice Diet for those of us who have a tough time losing weight on his food plan, mainly because the Rice Diet is so restricted in variety of foods and especially calories. I like reading the web site and message boards to look for salt-free vegan recipes. I could never eat that little ever day - many days only 1000 calories! Look around the forums - you'll see so many tales of people who came and left the food plan and very few who are sticking it out. There are more tales of not losing weight on that food plan than there are on the McDougall forums. Can you say "Starvation Mode" everybody?

I promise tomorrow I'll post at least one recipe and probably a picture, too. Sorry I haven't been a good VeganMoFo blogger.

VeganMoFo Day 13 - Sorry Again

Sorry, but no recipe again today as I've been too busy pulling my hair out dealing with a demented old lady (age 91 and has Alzheimer's) and the contractor she hired. She chased him off her property, even though *she* is the one who hired him 10 days ago when she saw him in the church parking lot with his truck - without telling us and for a job that was already done in May. This guy phones me, as it turned out a half hour before he even got to her house, to tell me she needs a whole new foundation (Huh? He's supposed to be laying tar in her driveway in the space between her driveway and the house because he said she complained that the water seeps into the house when it rains), then after he gets there she threatens to call the police on him because he won't leave her property and he tells me she won't let him do the job. I told him since *she* is the one who hired him and *she* is the homeowner (We had a fight with him over the weekend and even stopped payment on checks she gave him last Thursday), if she doesn't want him to do the work to just leave and not do it. He insisted my husband call him ASAP. When I called her back 10 minutes later she tells me he did put the tar down even before he called me. She stopped him when he tried do something to the foundation itself. She still has no memory of meeting him in church, hiring him, or even him being at her house last week putting down the driveway sealant (for the third time in 18 months. He's the third guy she hired on her own to do this job because she doesn't like having puddles in the driveway.) and her giving him 2 checks.

Isn't Alzheimer's Disease wonderful - NOT!

When my husband finally got out of his meeting at work and phoned the guy himself, he first denied calling me at all, then admitted he called once, then finally twice, but denied telling me she needed a new foundation, says he completed the job with no problem and only waved to the old lady, didn't even talk to her (Gee, then why did he call me from her kitchen phone and I heard her screaming at him to get out of her house in the background and he then handed the phone to her so I can talk to her to try calm her down?).

Now my husband has to meet this guy in a (well lit) drug store parking lot after work to pay him, instead of the guy mailing us the bill and us paying him back by mail, like they decided on when they spoke Saturday night. Our son (age 25 and a towering 6'1") is going with him, just to make sure things go quickly and legitimately and they get out of there as fast as possible.

And my cardiologist told me to avoid stressful situations. I don't even want to know what my blood pressure is about now.

When my guys get back from their rendezvous later we'll have rice and veggies for dinner with some cut up seitan.

As for last night's breast of tofu, the texture didn't feel much different from when I pressed it with my cast iron pans, so next time I'll let it press a bit longer. That rice flour coating does taste delicious, so texture didn't matter much.

VeganMoFo Day 12 - New Toy

A few weeks ago I was making a tofu dish and was doing my usual pressing of the 'fu with paper towels, shallow plates, and a cast iron skillet. As usual, I had to keep returning to the kitchen because the "CLANG" as the pan slipped off the tofu and landed on the floor could be heard clear across the apartment. On that particular day my husband was home and was getting annoyed at the interruptions to his television watching (We both love grade Z horror and sci-movies and I don't begrudge him his brain candy on days off work - he deserves them) and asked if there's a better way to do the task.

"Well, yeah!" I replied, "but it's gonna cost ya about $40 with shipping," and I showed him the TofuXpress web site.

I've drooled over this handy dandy gadget the first time it was mentioned on the PPK during the summer but could never justify the cost. Come on! The shipping cost almost as much as the item itself!

He told me to go ahead and order it, that it'll be worth the price to not have to hear that cast iron pan fall onto the floor any more. So I did, and it arrived last week. Unfortunately, I had no tofu meals scheduled for last week. But luckily I did have one for today, Bryanna Clark Grogan's Breast of Tofu. Bryanna had done a blog post on this gadget a few weeks ago so I figured she probably used it for this recipe, so what better thing to try it out on, right?

Just like all those graphics above, after about an hour and a half there was as much liquid pressed out, volume-wise, as there was tofu. Cool! I sliced up the 'fu then whipped up the marinade and started to pour it into the same container the tofu was pressed in and realized it's not going to work - the marinade will fit but not the tofu slices. So, off the concoction went into the same Corningware I usually use when marinating tofu.

Tonight for dinner I'll do the breading as written in the recipe but bake instead of grill my 'fu. I already have a pot of veggie soup on (just a few spoons of Bryanna's non-chicken broth powder, a sautéed onion and garlic, and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables simmered for a few hours), and I'll toss some potatoes in to bake, make up a batch of stuffing and open a can of cranberry sauce. If I'm really energetic I might even toss a loaf of bread into the bread machine.