E2L/Nutritarians - Super Immunity Index Project

A few months ago, Fuhrman forum member Phil Weinstein, a.k.a. "Alluvial Phil", called for volunteers to put together an index for Dr. Fuhrman's book Super Immunity, because the first edition hard cover doesn't have one. Dr. Fuhrman has assured people the paperback version coming out in April 2013 will have one, but for Phil and others taking Dr. Fuhrman's Nutritional Education Trainer program that was too late, since they need the book is one of the textbooks needed for the course, and textbooks really need an index.

Well, fret no more! Phil and his volunteer staff have the first complete draft copy of the index ready AT THIS LINK.

Thanks, Phil, Tania, and others who have worked hard on this project.

VeganMoFo Day 29 - Simple Foods Today

Not even a recipe in use today. I'm roasting up a few baked potatoes, opening a can of cranberry sauce, warming up some frozen veggies, and for hubby, making up a box of store-bought stuffing mix. He calls this an Unchicken Dinner and has even requested it as his birthday dinner next month. Fine with me! Gives me more time to stare out the window and at the television and obsess over the storm! Right now (8am) it's barely a drizzle with a little breeze blowing.

Today's musical homage to Hurricane Sandy is this little ditty by Dolly Parton called Sandy's Song.

VeganMoFo Day 28 - More Sandy Blatherings

We're as prepared as we're gonna get. Because of the gloomy weather, I'll be making a nice big pot of bean soup today using the Whole Grains and Beans Soup mix from Bob's Red Mill and tossing in oodles of fresh veggies, including some greens. For dinner I'll cook up the remaining curry burgers from last week's batch, mainly because I ran out of freezer room and had to defrost them yesterday. No fries with them this time because hubby said by eating the fries he had no room for the second burger, and he prefers to eat that than potatoes. Okay with me.

We'll be spending the day trying to avoid looking at weather reports and catching up with movies we either bought on DVD, recorded on VHS or want to stream from Netflix. Well, *he* will. I'm in the process of re-reading a cozy mystery series before reading the newest installment that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago.

And for today's "Sandy" video - Travolta!

Sandy (continued)

We have all our flashlights ready and a few dozen fresh replacement batteries ready.

We have a pantry loaded with canned tomatoes, beans, veggies and gallons of water.

The windows AC is out of 2 of the rooms, the other 2 are too close to the houses on either side to worry about. The windows are triple-paned so no danger of them getting blasted out in the storm, even if the winds do go up to 120 as they're predicting for our area.

All that's left is the waiting. While we're doing that, enjoy this "Sandy-themed" video. This one is early-Bruce Springsteen called Sandy (Fourth of July), this particular one recorded in 1975 (!!) when they were still being imitated by bar bands up and down the Jersey Shore. Look at how young they are! Max Weinberg!! And The Big Man before he got too big! And Springsteen singing so clearly you can actually make out the words! Oh, to be that young again! To be back at the Jersey Shore in the 1970's!

But not during a hurricane.

VeganMoFo Day 26 - Like A Hurricane

Hurricane Sandy is on her way up the Eastern seaboard and our area is going to start seeing the rain bands on Sunday and continue into next Thursday. Forecasts like this make me glad I bought Robin Robertson's book Vegan Unplugged when it came out. Here in urban New Jersey we don't usually lose electric due to storms - when we do have a blackout it's either a squirrel chewing through a wire causing a transformer to blow or a major blow-out in the dog days of summer, when everyone is trying to keep cool and the power companies can't keep up and the whole grid goes down.

If we do lose power, I have a full pantry of items that can be easily put together to make a filling and delicious McDougall-friendly meal. It has to be room temperature, though, as propane stoves are illegal for indoor use in our city, and we have no balcony, deck, porch, roof or even yard access with this top floor walk-up apartment. Besides, I've seen the damage even candles do in these old places and forgo all open flames aside from the kitchen stove. And who can use a camp stove during a hurricane or blizzard, anyway?

I did a little grocery shopping today to grab some needed items for next week's dinners, because our usual shopping day, Sunday, the stores will be crazier than they were today. I have my bottled water all ready should we have no water for some reason, but that never goes out unless we have a water main break, not from storms. Paper plates, disposable cutlery & cups, all our flashlights have fresh batteries, and we have plenty of book, cards, and board games to keep us busy if worse comes to worse.

Good luck, fellow East Coasters, and hopefully we'll all be fine and on-line with little or no interruptions. In the meantime, enjoy some classic Neil Young:

VeganMoFo Day 25 - Kasha Varniskes

It seems as if every Jewish vegan chef has their own version of this traditional recipe. Isa has one in her book Appetite for Reduction, and Jeff Novick has one, too, on his Facebook page. He says it's going to appear on the fourth Fast Food DVD later this year. It was bound to happen, especially after his tale of how his mother makes him a special batch of the dish every time he goes home to visit her on the Fast Foods 2: Burgers and Fries DVD.

I've always loved kasha myself, even though I'm not Jewish, and always had a box of it in my pantry. It has an earthy, nutty flavor that just smells like winter to me, sort of like those chestnuts roasting on an open fire. :) I used to do almost all my grocery shopping at the local A&P, but the store closed earlier this year after only 13 years, a casualty of the bad economy. I always bought Wolff's brand kasha, medium grind. When the A&P closed I just assumed I could grab it at the store I was now going to shop in, Stop and Shop. I was wrong. They had no kasha with the ethnic foods, no kasha in the pasta aisle, no kasha in the grain aisle, and not in the health foods aisle. None of any brand! I tried another grocery store, then another, and neither had kasha or buckwheat, it's other name. I gave up and assumed when my last box was gone I would have to add it to the growing list of food items I would have to order from on-line. Last week I had to get some stuff at the health food store and noticed they were having a sale on bags of organic quinoa and reached for one. Lo and behold, right next to the quinoa was a bag of organic buckwheat from Eden Foods! Alright, so it cost more than doubled the price of the Wolff's I'd been buying for decades but at this point I was desperate and grabbed it. I'll probably still wind up buying it by the case from Amazon before this bag is gone. I'll be using it in both kasha varniskes and Jeff's kasha burgers so plan on going through a lot of it in the future.


Kasha Varnishes

1 Box - Whole Wheat Bow Tie Noodles (Hodgson Mill)
2 Cups Roasted Kasha (Buckwheat)
2 Onions, diced and Steam Sauteed & Browned
Carrots, Cauliflower and Broccoli

Season with lots of garlic and some pepper.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *
That's it. Jeff really doesn't give any directions on this one, so of course I assumed you cook the pasta in one pot, 2 cups dry kasha in another, steam up the veggies in another, and fry up the onions in a skillet. When everything is done you put the fried veggies, kasha and pasta all together in a large pot, mix well, then serve over the steamed veggies, as Jeff does it in his photo. Me? I'm lazy, so I mix everything together in one big pot after each cooked then served.

I use a store brand whole wheat pasta and an extra onion because we love onions. I also tossed in some sliced mushrooms with the onions, because that makes it more traditional. And a load of minced garlic from a jar, a few heaping tablespoons - over an ounce - of it. 

Instead of a bag of California Mix frozen veggies I use one bag each of the three veggies because I like chopped broccoli, not the bigger chunks in the mix bags. Jeff writes that he sometimes adds peas to his, so I did that, too.

Mistakes were made.

First off, I forgot to toast the kasha in a dry pan. It took quite a while to rinse it until the water was clear and by the time that was done, I forgot all about that step. Whether it was the brand of buckwheat or the fact that it wasn't toasted, this kasha wasn't as flavorful as the Wolff's I always used in the past. During the meal my husband asked me twice what the grain was, because it had no taste, not even a smell, at all. 

Oops. While looking for the package graphic for this post I found the official web page for this product and read that they know it's not as strong as regular, toasted, kasha. Now why didn't the package itself tell me that? It would have reminded me to toast it first. Oh, well.

Because this dish took a number of pots to make it, and my son wanted to use the stove to make his own dinner, I made the kasha up earlier than the rest of the meal by just a few minutes so he could have use of 2 burners on the stove. Big mistake! The buckwheat/kasha glopped up worse than barley! That'll teach me!

And the 2 cups dry make up a heck of a lot of that kasha, too. I have a feeling Jeff meant 2 cups of cooked kasha, not start with 2 cups dry. When the meal was over I wound up putting away as leftovers more than what we ate for dinner. A LOT of food, even for big eaters like us!

Oodles of onions!

Even though I used 3 big onions and a ton of garlic, this dish needed more. Lots more. I even added onion and garlic powders to the pot. When cooking without oil sometimes tastes disappear upon cooking, and these onions did that. Maybe it was the bag of onions I used, maybe it's because this recipe in general made enough to feed an army and the onions and garlic just got lost in the crowd. who knows? Next time, more.

Because of the heaviness of the whole wheat pasta and the (probably way too much) kasha, this was a very heavy dish. At least the veggies lightened it up a bit, but it was still a starch lover's dream. It was so thick I needed to bring out the heavy duty mixing spoon to stir it all together, and it wasn't so much that I scooped up the mixture to plate it but sliced out a chunk of it, and when put into the bowl it held its shape. I probably could have put this stuff out on a platter, shaped it, and called it a loaf and just served it in slices.

We'll be eating this again tonight, but I'm making a gravy to go with it, probably this mushroom gravy from Anne Esselstyn. It's either that or use a heavy hand on the salt and pepper, because although quite filling, it was also quite tasteless. Again, I blame myself for that. Next time I'll do this a bit differently and maybe have Wolff's brand kasha in my possession again.

VeganMoFo Day 24 - Jeff Novick's Moroccan Tagine

Yes, another Jeff Novick recipe. 

This one appeared on his Facebook page back in January with no fanfare or even a mention on the McDougall forums. I know he's working on 2 new DVDs, so maybe today's is from it? The third video is going to be about shopping, the fourth is more complex meals called Beyond the Basics, with a dozen more recipes, some with no tomatoes, which will be welcomed by those who said they don't go near SNAP meals because they can't eat or are sick of all those tomatoes.

Unfortunately for them, today's recipe does still contain tomatoes. In fact, it has double the tomatoes of Jeff's usual SNAP meals.

The recipe:


Moroccan Chickpea, Cauliflower and Carrot Tagine 

2 Boxes POMI chopped tomatoes
1 14-oz Can Unsalted Chickpeas
1 lb Frozen Cauliflower
1 lb Frozen Slices Carrots
1/2 lb frozen Onions
2 cooked sweet potatoes diced
1/2 cup blanched toasted almonds
1/2 cup sliced dried apricots

1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp red chili flakes

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan, Bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes and serve over Quinoa
~ * ~ * ~ *

In the pot, waiting for spices

My interpretations:
Instead of 2 boxes of Pomi, I used one box and 2 cans of no-salt added diced tomatoes. Why? Because they were on sale last week and I bought plenty of extra. No other reason. 

Two cans instead of one of the garbanzos, because we love garbanzo beans.

I used a bit more onions, both frozen and some fresh onions I had already diced that were sitting in the fridge.

Only one sweet potato, because I forgot I needed some for this meal and used up all but one on those fries the other day. Oops!

I cut each dried apricot in quarters, because I don't like large pieces of dried fruit in my food. I do the same when a recipe calls for sun-dried tomatoes.

And I tossed in about a quarter cup of frozen collards, because Jeff tosses greens in just about everything he makes, even though he doesn't always write it down in the recipes.

And instead of quinoa I'm serving it over reheated rice, because I had a lot left over from another meal.

Here's how it all looked as it was cooking:

Another afternoon of a delicious-smelling apartment! It's a great mixture of sweet and spicy. This tasted great! The cinnamon really made the other flavors popped. I know, an over-used term lately, but there's no other way to describe it. The apricots added a hint of sweetness but weren't over powering. The almond slivers softened just a wee bit for a little crunch amidst the texture of softer vegetables. This recipe, like almost all of Jeff's others, is a keeper for sure! 

VeganMoFo Day 23 - Jeff Novick Again

No recipe today. I'm having an exam at the opthamologist, and between the drops that make me look look like and see like Mr. Burns in the X-Files episode of The Simpsons
minus the green glow, of course, and the humungous eye pain and headache I always have afterwards from all the poking and bright lights in the eyes. On eye doctor days, my son or husband take over dinner duties and we always have plain old spaghetti with jarred pasta sauce.

In the meantime, enjoy these videos of Jeff Novick and Rip Esselstyn and their handstand challenge:

Jeff Novick and Rip Esselstyn - ROUND 1, LA 2010

 Jeff Novick and Rip Esselstyn - ROUND 2, Austin 2010

 Jeff Novick and Rip Esselstyn - ROUND 3 - The Tiebreaker October 2010

 Jeff Novick and Rip Esselstyn - Last Showdown - Austin 02-2011

VeganMoFo Day 22 - Jeff's Fast Food Curry Sweet Potato Burgers

Are you people sick of hearing about Jeff Novick's meals yet? No? Good, because today I'm posting about his Curry Sweet Potato Burgers, one of the specialty burgers taken from his Fast Food: Volume 2: Burgers and Fries DVD. The recipe for this particular burgers in on the PDF file on the disc and is posted on this site.


This is the first time I'm making this particular version of his burgers. I got the DVD when it was initially released earlier this year, but it was during the months when I was sick with the flu. Yes, months. I started the week after Christmas 2011 and was sick for 6 weeks, well for about 2 weeks then started all over again, sick another 6 weeks, better again for just a few weeks then my husband and I were both sick with it. He was so bad he had to call in sick from work for a whole week, something he's only done once before in our 35 years of marriage.

Anyway, I only made Jeff's burgers about 3 times, the first with his original recipe, which is slightly different. The next 2 from his Basic Recipe from the video. Don't get me wrong - the burgers are delicious, but hand-squishing those beans when one has cervical neuritis in the neck and degenerative disc disease up and down the spine was a chore. It was so much easier - but not healthier - to just buy a package of McDougall-approved frozen burgers (and sometimes a brand that wasn't on the approved list) those rare times we had a burger dinner.

Penzey Spices Curry Selection

 


While looking for another of Jeff's videos the other day I rediscovered the Burgers and Fries one and realized I never saw it with a clear head, so popped it into the machine. Of course looking at those gorgeous burgers made me yearn for one again, so I decided to pop an Aleve and make up a batch of the Curry Sweet Potato ones. I already had some leftover mashed sweet potatoes in the freezer in those tiny 1-cup storage containers, so took one out to defrost. I have a supply of curry powder I got from Penzey Spices already on hand, and always have a load of canned beans in the pantry in my Cansolidator.

The finished product. Well, shaped but uncooked. They'll stay in the refrigerator for a while, then get popped on the Calaphon non-stick griddle for a few minutes, then flipped. I have lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and whole wheat Kaiser rolls for hubby, Ezekiel English muffins for me. I was going to get whole wheat pita or naan bread but the store had neither when I went, only white flour versions. 

I also made up some spiced up steak fries from the DVD, too. I know the photo isn't that great but I had to be quick as my husband was already grabbing some out of the bowl. On the russets I used garlic powder on half of them, curry powder on the other, and for the sweet potatoes, half had curry powder, half had pumpkin pie spice. These were as big a hit as the burgers! The only problem we had was that the burgers were SO filling! Next time I'll plan on just one burger each, and hubby already requested we use these burgers without rolls just served on a plate with the fries and some veggies. He likes Jeff's SNAP curry recipes and says this is a pleasant change of pace.

Next week, maybe the Southwest version. I already got some hints on what to serve them on in this thread on the McDougall forums. I already have the spice, a nice Southwest mix from Penzey's.

VeganMoFo Day 20 - Foxtrot Comics

Foxtrot has been one of my favorite newspaper comic strips since the first day. Although the strip is now only showing new comics on Sundays, a few on-line sites are airing reruns of the years of strips.

One premise is that younger son Jason is a nerdy geek. He had an Apple computer for decades, 

read The Hobbit and all the Lord of the Ring books years before the movies, 

and has all three of the good Star Wars movies memorized (and pretends the newest three don't exist). 

The writer of the strip is also a math geek, so Jason is, too. My son is very much like Jason Fox, and every time there's a math strip with all these weird equations I have to save them and have him explain them to me. Some are a bit obvious, like:

Others leave me scratching my head and take a few minutes to figure out:

Another premise of the strip is that Mrs. Fox (Mom) loves to tinker with healthy vegan cooking, and a number of panels over the  years have included things like tofu, "yeast cheese" and other "scary" foods. And of course, being the typical SAD family, Dad and the boys are always finding ways to get out of eating the foods Andy (Mom) makes.

Just like MY guys! Some of these are word for word what goes on in my own home.

Here's the strip that re-ran October 18th:

And some others from the past:

Yes, I frequently tell my son to just "put ketchup on it" when there's a dish he doesn't like.

VeganMoFo Day 19 - Rainbow Skillet Medley

We love hash browns in this family. For around 6 months now, not counting MoFo weeks, every Thursday I would make up 2 skillets of hash browns. One of them would contain a dish known as Poorman's Meal, based on Clara Cannucciari's dish from the Depression Cooking YouTube site.

This is the dish I make my son. He doesn't follow the McDougall - or ANY plant strong - program. Yes, I put those little pink globules known as sliced hot dogs in it, too.

But I don't make this for hubby and myself. I've never found a vegan hot dog I like, so just don't bother trying to replicate this for us. I usually make some other version of a hash brown meal each week, and as long-time McDougallers know, Mary McDougall loves using those bags of hash browns in recipes so I have plenty to choose from! I only buy the Ore-Ida Southern Style if it's on sale. I usually buy the store brand whose only ingredients are potatoes and some brands have a preservative.

This meal we had is Rainbow Skillet Medley and comes from the Quick and Easy cookbook. 

Still tossing stuff into the skillet

Instead of boiling the taters as Mary directs, I just take them out of the freezer in the morning and they're defrosted when it's time to start cooking. 

Not only did I use frozen corn as directed, but also used frozen broccoli and jarred fire-roasted red pepper. The green pepper was fresh, although I do keep some sliced up in the freezer that I usually use. The green onions were from the bag of dehydrated ones I keep in the pantry from the mail order place Spices, Etc. I use this so infrequently, and many times the bunches at the store look wimpy, so I found keeping a supply of the dried stuff works out nicely. I keep some other dried veggies in the pantry, too, like diced red pepper, green pepper, and a combo of both (I know - silly but an impulse purchase at the time). I tried the tomato bits, thinking they would be like the sun-dried tomatoes, but even when boiled in water for a few minutes they stayed hard as rocks. I forget what happened to them. If they're still buried in the pantry I might try grinding them down into powder and add to some of Bryanna's broth powder for a cheap but quick instant tomato soup. Carrots are another one I keep on hand, tossing a handful into soups or stews if they need just a touch of "something."

I did have one problem with this meal - I burnt it. One of the hazards of cooking without oil is that things don't brown, the stick unless you toss them about every 5 minutes or so. I got distracted and it was almost 15 minutes before I got to the pan, and although it was on the lowest flame, the entire bottom layer burnt onto the bottom of my 6-month old non-stick almost $100 Calaphon skillet. Damn! So with about a third less food to eat (It's a big skillet so even a small amount takes up a lot of volume) I knew we would still be hungry so I opened up a box of McDougall Right Foods Lentil Soup. They may be out of stock at the factory store, so I'm glad I stock up when the local grocery store has them on sale.

And the skillet washed up beautifully. Things may still stick while cooking, but with a little soap and water the burnt on mess swished right out of there.

VeganMoFo Day 18 - Potatoes in Children's Television

Yes, I'm 59 years old and still watch Sesame Street! Ironically, when my almost-30 year old son was young, he hated the show! Still does. But that never stopped me from watching it and laughing  - and singing along.






My new favorite. This is only a still from the bit, not a video, for Eye of the Potato. You'll have to hum "Eye of the Tiger" to yourself as you look at it until a video appears somewhere.

VeganMoFo Day 17 - Lesser Known McDougall Recipe Sites

Everyone knows Susan Voisin's Fat Free Vegan site, and the blogroll on the left hand side of this page here brings up a number of active bloggers who follow the McDougall program, but what about the lesser known sites, like:

The McDougall Plan Community on LiveJournal

The McDougall Community on SparkPeople

McDougall Talk (lots of older memberships were removed and they're not allowing new registrations)

Marla's Marvelous Meals - from down-home comfort food to exotic feasts

Livin' La Vida McDougall - Wiki of McDougall recipes and links

Bob and Farley's Place (no longer taking new registrations - is closing the end of November) - a blend of McDougall, Fuhrman and Jeff Novick food plans

And there are a few active McDougall-based Yahoogroups, too:

McDougall Chat - weight loss talk is discouraged because many people follow the program for health, not weight, reasons

McDougall Weight Loss Programs - for all McD plans, not just MWLP


If you know of any other McDougall-related site, please tell us about it in the Reply section. Thanks.

VeganMoFo day 16 - Quickbread by Jan Tz

I've written about Jan's quickbreads a number of times. They're not sweet, fancy or even pretty looking, but they do fulfill the dictionary definition of a cake, and I make one up for each of our birthdays. Here's the one I made for my own birthday this month - Raspberry Cocoa Quickbread.

We added a few candles, my guys sang the birthday song to me with the kiddie lyrics (the one with ". . .you belong in a zoo" ), and a good time was had by all.

Thanks again, Jan Tz, wherever you are, for a memorable day with a memorable recipe.

  

Raspberry Cocoa Quick Bread

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray an 8 x 8" square or 8" round cake pan with non-stick spray.

Combine the dry ingredients and mix well:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda

Combine liquid ingredients separately:
1 and 1/4 cups hot water (tap water hot, not boiling)
1 Tbs. + 1 tsp. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Have ready:
1 (10 ounce) jar Polaner All-Fruit, in Raspberry flavor

When the oven reaches temp., add the liquid ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix quickly with a spoon, and do not over-mix. Put half the batter into the pan; spread evenly. Spoon about 3/4 of the jar of Polaner Raspberry fruit spread onto the batter. Put it on evenly, but don't try to spread it around. Put the rest of the batter on top of the fruit and spread gently and evenly to cover. Bake 25 minutes -- toothpick test for doneness. Leave the bread in the pan and put the pan on a rack to cool. Remove the last 1/4 jar of fruit spread, put in a bowl, and microwave 30 seconds or so to melt. Pour this melted spread over the warm bread to glaze. Let the bread cool completely before cutting. 

Recipe by Jan Tzinski

Note from Jan: A couple of changes that apply to all the recipes:

(1)Bake at 350 F.

(2)liquid can be lukewarm soymilk, ricemilk, juice, or water

(3)Just add the vinegar to the liquid; no need to "sour" anything. 

Thin Lines Comic for 10/15/2012

The strip is called Thin Lines and is only published on Mondays.

What this doc says is nearly word-for-word what my own doctor has been saying to me for almost 30 years now. He is so anti-food that not only does he want me on 1000 calories or less, he suggested I should even try skipping a meal now and then to reduce food consumption by a third. He knows my metabolic rate is so slow that I gained weight on anything more than 1000 calories back when I was an active 11 year old, and now that I'm an almost-60 year old post-menopausal, arthritic old lady with hypothyroid and chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia issues, he also knows it's impossible for me to lose without starving myself, yet he still insists I try. The closest I get to it would be the few times I tried the hasty approach to the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program. Anything more than 1/3 starches on my plate and I no longer lose, and half a plate or more I start to regain. Funny, a lot of the Star McDougallers have the same problem, but they managed to lose a bunch of weight first. I never could, and maintain a morbidly obese BMI range even while eating apx. 1200 - 1600 calories a day most days. I love starches too much to eat any less than this. At least all my lab work is fantastic and my doc says he wishes all his patients had numbers as good as mine.

VeganMoFo Day 15 - Minnesota Hot Dish

Casserole weather is here! When the leaves start turning it's time to relight the oven in the un-air-conditioned kitchen, and the second most-requested casserole to toss in that hot oven is Jan Tz's classic Minnesota Hot Dish. The most requested is Isa's Chickpea Broccoli Casserole, McDougallized, of course, by omitting the oil and breadcrumbs and dumping the other ingredients together with a bag of hash browns, like this recipe. 

Jan first posted this recipe way back in October 2003 in the original McDougall forums at VegSource. That particular forum was replaced by the Fat Free forum for a while and eventually disappeared completely from any menu, but the old messages are still there in hiding, just like those of the McDougall forum. You can find a lot of Jan's original recipes over there - she only reposted a handful to the "new" (6 years old) official McDougall forums.

Subject: Recipe: Minnesota Hot Dish
Date: October 21, 2003 at 4:36 pm PST

From the Land of 10,000 Lakes (and 100,000 swamps), where the mosquito vies with the loon for State Bird, I bring you...

Minnesota Hot Dish, that staple of church socials and funerals everywhere:

2 Boca Burgers, original vegan
2 good-sized potatoes, peeled and sliced
handful of chopped onion
1 can (about 1.5 cups) condensed vegetable soup (I used Vegetarian Vegetable) or any vegetable soup/broth

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease or spray a small casserole dish.
Nuke the Bocas with the onion for a couple of minutes, until they are mostly cooked. Put the potato slices in the bottom of your casserole. Put the burger/onions on top. Then pour the soup over all. This is not a particularly "liquid-y" dish. Cover and bake for 45 min. Uncover and bake another 15 minutes.


This dish is really really filling and meaty. Very much comfort food for me in East Central MN. 
* ~ * ~ * ~ *

This recipe was written back when Dr. McDougall still allowed things like Boca Burgers and Gimmelean meat substitutes. Many of us old-timers had packages of burgers and chubs of both "beef" and "sausage" Gimmelean in our freezers and used them in a few different meals each week. I still keep some Gimmelean and Lightlife Smart Ground in the freezer and when I see they've been in there for around 6 months, defrost a pack and use it in one of the old tried-and-true recipes. I was never a fan of Boca Burgers, especially when they stay in the freezers of our local grocery stores so long they're freezer-burnt before I even purchase them.

Instead of a few whole potatoes I used a bag of frozen Southern-style (diced) hash brown potatoes.

Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup is the soup of choice for this recipe, and just last week I grabbed some at Walmart at the price of 3/$1. I used 2 cans and swished about half a can back and forth between them to rinse out all the little bits of soup, alphabet pasta and veggies that stayed behind when I poured the soup out. They're a bit higher in sodium than Jeff Novick allows, but there's such a small amount in each serving, I can live with it and just drink extra water the next day.

A few shakes of Frontier brand dried onion pieces finished off the ingredients. I always buy these in bulk bags from the company so they're always on hand, even when my newly bought fresh onions magically turned moldy on the trip home from the grocery store.



I use my largest Pyrex mixing/casserole bowl, stir everything up until it's well mixed, then cover with parchment then foil and pop it all into the oven. Jan says her isn't a particularly "liquid-y" dish, but with the bit of added water and the good mixing, all the stuff gets nicely distributed and nothing is dry. There's just no watery sauce or gravy so no need for bread for sopping any excess up. 

Because of the soup and the crumbles, this isn't a meal I make on a steady basis any more. In fact, this one is the first I'm making in over a year. It's a surprise for my husband, who had complained about all the very veggie meals I'd been making lately. Because this is the mid-point in VeganMoFo with a lot more very veggie SNAP meals to come, I figured he needed a good dose of starchiness and salt, real comfort food, for me to get back in his good graces.

VeganMoFo Day 12 - My Flickr Food Photos/Pizza

veg foods, a set on Flickr.

Of course, this is only what I had on Flickr. I just discovered the code to post this grouping today.

Notice that 2 of these are for pizza. This is an old photos, taken a number of years ago when Mary  McDougall was still occasionally calling for vegan cheese in her recipes. The crust was made with whole wheat flour, not even the white whole wheat that's available today.

Nowadays there's a healthier alternative to store-bought vegan cheese or even vegan pizzas. Mark Sutton released a book this year called the Heart Healthy Pizza Cookbook. On his website for the book and its accompanying blog he's shared many of the recipes for the crust, base sauce, toppings and even health versions of vegan cheese.

His book - and pizzas - have been endorsed by the McDougalls, the Esselstyns, and even the Mad Cowboy, Howard Lyman, the man who caused Oprah to get death threats after he appeared on her show and she vowed to cut back on red meat.

Anyway, the recipes in Mark's book are excellent and perfect for McDougallers, nutritarians, Engine 2 followers, plain old vegans, and anyone who wants to have their cake pizza and eat it, too.

Now if only he would put out a DVD of him cooking, like Jeff Novick and Mary McDougall have.