Vegan food posts for Starchivores who follow Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Rip Esselstyn, Chef AJ, and others - recipes or links to them and photos when available.
I showed my husband the proposed menu and grocery list for this coming week, and he walked me over to the fridge opened the door, and pointed out containers of leftovers of 3 of Jeff's SNAP meals. He then opened the freezer to show me a few more. In other words, he's sick of SNAP meals.
sigh
Yet he asked me to make a pot of "that delicious tomato soup" today, what he calls Jeff's Longevity Soup.
sigh again
I have no idea what I'm cooking this week. All I know is tonight for dinner I'm eating leftovers of Jeff's Pasta Primavera from Thursday and some soup that's been simmering on the stove all day. As for tomorrow, well, your guess is as good as mine. It could be anything from Mexican Lasagna to Two Bean Mexican Delight to some more leftovers. Stay tuned.
While making up my grocery list for this coming week I was struck by how much more I would be spending to follow those recipes by Mary McDougall compared to the SNAP recipes by Jeff Novick that I've been making these past few months.
Mary uses a lot of little things that I don't usually have on hand, like rice wine vinegar and canned sprouts.
She calls for produce that's deemed exotic in these parts, like bok choy and Napa cabbage. I hit 4 different grocery stores and 2 produce markets yesterday and not one even heard of those last 2 items.
Other times she calls for using items that I've avoided for decades because of their sodium content, like canned red beans and rice (480 mg per 1/2 cup serving) and soy sauce (last time I used the lower sodium stuff my blood pressure shot up to over 200/100 - NOT good!).
Now I remember why I really haven't done many recipes in this book.
So, although I may toss in a recipe or 2 from this book as the month goes on, the main focus of this blog for VeganMoFo will now be Jeff Novick's SNAP recipes. I made out a new grocery list using a handful of those, and it's all available in my main grocery store AND much friendlier to the wallet.It'll still be a fun month, and introduce some of you to a very knowledgeable and funny guy.
I've owned this book since it was first published, buying it the day it was released. I like it, but really haven't used it as much as I would like, thanks to a family that loves repetition and prefers to eat the same meals week after week without deviation.
Well, next month I'm going to shake them up a little! I'm still going to follow our basic menu plan: Sunday - burgers Monday - anything goes (Chili, stew, baked tofu, etc. My choice) Tuesday - rice and veggies Wednesday - potatoes Thursday - pasta Friday - pizza Saturday - pasta
but mix it up a little. On Sundays, instead of a veggie burger or leftovers for me and turkey burgers for them, I'll be making various other sandwiches.
Tuesday's veggies and rice will no longer be accompanied with just soy sauce and the occasional fried tofu or TVP.
Wednesday's hash brown meal for the guys was a spin on Clara Cannuciari's Poorman's Meal.
It's either plain hash browns with nooch or a leftover McDougall meals day for me of. Now I'll do other, healthier, things to the hash browns.
Thursday and Saturday have been pasta days for decades. My picky son always insisted on plain old Ragu sauce on his, so after the pasta cooked I would put his in another pot and add the sauce and to ours I would add McDougall friendly additives. These meals are sometimes accompanied by crusty Italian bread, sometimes made with white or semolina flour from the bakery, sometimes home made with white whole wheat flour and oodles of garlic. Now this tradition will continue!
And every Friday will continue to be pizza day. If you look back to last year's VeganMoFo posts you'll see I always had pizza on Fridays, and it was always the same old whole wheat crust, tomato sauce, and some kind of cheezy topping (real mozzarella on my son's). Luckily Mary McDougall has 4 pizza recipes in this cookbook and my husband says he'll eat anything I put in front of him when it comes to pizza. Let's see if he still feels this way when the pizza contains pineapple! LOL
So, I already have my list of recipes I'll be using and still have to type them all up in MasterCook, because except for one or 2 I haven't tried any of these recipes yet. That's the purpose of this challenge, to try new recipes, right? Besides posting them here in this blog I'll also try get them on my Recipes Used in VeggieSue's Veggie Adventures Blog page, plus on the two McDougall groups on , McDougall 12 Day and McDougall Weight Loss Plans, where we discuss how well (or not) our quest for thinness is going. Why not join us in either of those 2 lists for more McDougall talk when VeganMoFo is over? Or now. We're always looking for fresh blood. :)
The PPK has finally moved to their new home! It's been more than a year since the move was first announced, and finally last week they made the official move. It's a so much nicer format than the old forums, so stop by, re-register, if you belonged to the old forums, and jump right in.
I've been making the large batches of these meals for a number of months now and my husband and I love them. It helps that we both love tomato-based dishes, though, because canned (Or boxed, as in Pomi brand) are the base of every recipe. I kind of stopped making them so often but since the new DVD arrived Friday I've made 3 of the meals already and plan on the Mexican Fiesta for tonight's dinner.
As Jeff promises, these meals are quite tasty, make a lot of food, and are very economical!
