McDougall Webinar - Breast Cancer #3

Before I post the webinar link, let me just say Get Well Soon, Debbie!



Once again Mary joins Dr. McD in the beginning to push the Hawaiian trip. This time there's a video of trip highlights, complete with music.

The webinar covers the same information as the others. I paid more attention to the people typing in the comments section of the webinar page than to Dr. McDougall, because he was saying the same old stuff. None of the questions posted on the right were answered, and once again Gustavo asked questions that Dr. McD has answered many times in the past.

At least we have the next webinar to look forward to. It's supposed to be Mary McDougall talking about (and demonstrating??) holiday cooking. There's no registration info yet on the webinar page on the McDougall site. Hopefully it'll appear soon.

Jill McKeever Webinar

Woot! Woot!

A nice talk with Jill about cooking healthy food fast and easy, including her love of the Instant Pot.

Simple Yellow Split Pea Soup

Here's another from Mary McDougall and the McDougall newsletter article Cheap Recipes. It's the Simple Split Pea Soup recipe that I changed ingredients around to make Yellow Split Pea Soup.



Simple Split Pea Soup

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  1 hour
Resting Time:  15 minutes (optional for thickening)
Servings:  10

2 cups green split peas
8 cups water
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 potatoes, chunked
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons parsley flakes
1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Place the peas and water in a large soup pot.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients, mix well and bring to a boil again.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 40 minutes, until vegetables are tender.  Remove from heat and let rest for 15 minutes to thicken before serving, if desired.  Season with a bit of sea salt before serving (optional).

Hints:  This will thicken even more as it cools, and will be very thick if refrigerated until the next day.  This is wonderful in a bowl with some fresh baked bread, or ladle it over baked potatoes or brown rice.

Variation:  For a delicious Curried Split Pea Soup, leave out all of the seasonings in the above recipe and add 2-3 tablespoons curry powder and ¼ cup nutritional yeast.

You will likely have the ingredients for this tasty soup already in your cupboards and pantry, so no need for an extra trip to the market for supplies.

I got the idea from Chef AJ and her own yellow split pea recipe. Just substitute yellow split peas for the green and sweet potatoes for the russets. How simple! And it's a nice change of taste than green split pea soup all the time.

Even quicker than the above directions  - just toss the ingredients into a pressure cooker and cook it up on Manual 10 minutes. It's your choice if you want to let it sit for natural release or release it as soon as it's finished. I usually press the power button when it's done then come back to it about a half hour later.At that point it's cool enough to blend without burning myself if it splashes a bit.

We don't like chunky pea soups around here so I always take an immersion blender to them as soon as they've cooled down a bit. It's also because I'm too lazy/tired/in pain to stand at the counter chopping my veggies into tiny pieces. If it's a toss up between tossing the raw veggies into a food processor to cut or blending the whole soup with an immersion blender so even the peas are blended, the immersion blender wins every time.

Corrections on Pot Pie Soup

Just 2 minor corrections/verifications on the Pot Pie Soup post from the other day.

My husband loved the soup so much he asked me to make it again today, so I paid closer attention to amounts.

Nutritional yeast: It was only a quarter cup, not half cup, that I used for mine. I was about to put in half but it just looked like way too much.

The Pot: My large soup pot is the same size as the Instant Pot "liner" - 6 quarts. I still say it'll be quicker made on the stove, but for those who want to toss it into the pot, set a timer, and leave for work or whatever then come home later to nice hot soup, go right ahead and use the IP - it'll fit just fine.

Conversation with Wendy and AJ

Wendy and AJ talking the basics of Ultimate Weight Loss program and Wendy confessing all.

After the main talk, they demonstrate the sun-dried tomato marinara sauce that I use the most. I still use real pasta in this house, but Wendy demonstrates making zucchini "pasta" with a spiralizer from Inspiralized food blog.

A UWL-safe Parmesan substitute is also demonstrated, but between the bad audio and those blue people icons popping up constantly I never caught what the ingredient was she's using instead of nuts nor the amounts. I *think* it's dry oats, but not sure. Also I didn't catch what was also added besides nutritional yeast. :(

Pasta with Garbanzo Broccoli Sauce

I get tired of making tomato based pasta sauce week after week and made this one for a change. It comes from The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart book.

Garbanzo/Broccoli Sauce
SERVINGS: 4
PREPARATION TIME: 15 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 10 MINUTES

1 medium onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup water
1 bunch fresh broccoli, cut into bite-size florets
2 cups Vegetable Broth
1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed in 1/3 cup cold water

Place the onion and garlic in a pot with the water. Cook and stir until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes.

Add the broccoli, broth, beans, and soy sauce. Cook over low heat about 7 minutes until the broccoli is crisp-tender.

Add the cornstarch mixture, and cook and stir until thickened.

Serve over pasta or potatoes.

From The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart, page 325

As usual, I used the brown rice pasta. For the broccoli, I used a one-pound bag of frozen chopped broccoli.

Sorry about the picture. I was finishing up my bowl when I realized I didn't take a photo. My husband had already finished his first and seconds, emptying the pot. Good thing I had enough first time around and didn't want more myself! 

After all these years I'm still discovering recipes in the old books that are new to me. Makes me wish there were more days in the week to make them all.

Webinar of Oct 22, 2015

The topic of this webinar was once again on obesity but it was barely mentioned. Dr. McDougall took a lot of time talking about the new book to be published in about 8 months. He didn't mention the title, but did say he insisted to Harper One publisher that it contain his Color Picture Book, so that is going to be inserted into the center of the book in full color. The rest of the book, aside from Mary's portion, is going to be all newsletter articles, things already published on-line on his web site and available for free. He said he told the publisher that he will not take them down, either, that they will remain on-line for free.

As for Mary McDougall's part in the new book, she's going to have 24 full color recipe photos and I think Dr. McD said there will be another 24 recipes, I assume without photos. It was hard to understand at times, because first one or the other's computer would buffer, then when it came back the sound was out of synch with the video, then Dr. McDougall lost his internet connection completely for about 5-10 minutes and Gustavo kept going off-line trying to get him back. Eventually Dr. McD did get back, answered 2-3 more questions, spoke with a woman named Deb who was able to connect and become part of the webinar video from her hospital (?) bed (I couldn't understand most of what she said. At that point all the audio was echoing. I hope the replay things are cleaned up.), and then it was over.

Maybe next week he'll be on topic and get to answer more questions.

Pot Pie Soup

Nina and Randa Nelson, daughters of the VegSource owners, occasionally make up their own recipes. It's Jeff Novick's influence on them! You're not going to appear in his Fast Food videos and not enjoy making up your own recipes. :)

I had already written about Randa's Corn Chowder in the past. Well, today I discovered they recently worked together to make a soup I'll call Pot Pie Soup, since near the end they say it tastes like pot pie.




The ingredients, as my old, crumbling ears heard them:

1 quart low-sodium, no-fat vegetable broth
2 15 ounce cans black beans (3 cups) drained and rinsed (She held a double-sized can of beans)
1 15-ounce can (1 1/2 cups) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 pound bag frozen mixed vegetables (with lima beans is okay)
1 pound chopped frozen kale
2 pre-cooked russet potatoes, cut up
nutritional yeast
onion powder
garlic powder
no-salt seasoning

Like all of Jeff Novick's Fast Food recipes, you just dump everything into a pot, season to taste, heat for 10 minutes or so, then eat.

I like nutritional yeast so used about half a cup.

I prefer my mixed vegetables without lima beans because the beans in my local store's blend are always hard as rocks, but the girls, and usually Jeff, use a blend that has them. Makes no difference. No kale in my freezer at the present time so a bag of spinach was tossed in.

I had Yukon Gold and white potatoes already cooked up so used them instead of russets.

Onion and garlic powders I sprinkled in about a half teaspoon or more each. I didn't measure, just shook.

Mrs. Dash Table Blend is the seasoning I used, and I tossed about a teaspoon. The twins used a salt-free blend from Costco, and I'm sure the brand many McDougallers use, Benson's Table Tasty, would work fine, too, as would any Mrs. Dash or McCormick blend.

This practically filled my soup pot! When I first added the ingredients I thought I would need to add more broth or water, but as the veggies cooked they released some water of their own, so it was plenty.

As for the taste? Well, not exactly like pot pies I remember as a kid, but delicious on its own merits.

A keeper for sure.

Is there a chance it can be made in an Instant Pot pressure cooker? Maybe not. There are so many ingredients and makes a large volume of soup, it's probably too much. Besides, this will be ready on the stove in 10 or so minutes. It'll take longer than that to reach pressure and start cooking in the IP, so why bother?

Short Chef AJ Interview

A Quickie About Jeff Novick's Fast Food Meals

Last year, one of the Star McDougallers had a slight disagreement with me regarding something Jeff Novick said. I said that he mentioned in Fast Food 4: Beyond the Basics that he defrosted his vegetables before cooking them, that's why things are ready in 10 minutes. She insisted he said no such thing.

This afternoon I'm reviewing the DVD for the recipe for Quinoa, Greens and Lentils to try catch what brand those canned black lentils are that he used, and AHA! Right there at the 4 minute 42 second mark he says:

"I don't use my frozen vegetables straight out of the freezer. I usually thaw them, this way they're real quick to cook."

I'm vindicated!

Now to see if my local HFS sells those Westbrae Black Lentils. If not, I'll have to find a store that sells dry black lentils and make some up before Sunday, the day I planed on making this dish. If I can't find either, I guess it'll be made with either 2 cans of plain old Goya lentils (If I can even find those!) or one can Goya, then a cup and a half of cooked tiny mixed lentils from Whole Foods' bulk bin that I bought a few months back.

It's Soup and Stew Weather

The season is finally changing from summer to autumn around here, and this week some days are darn near winter-like! Time for making even more soups and stews than I have been.

The people over at Forks Over Knives must feel the same, because they now have a page with links to 54 soup and stew recipes. I wonder how many of these I've already made in the past and which I may make in the future. It's a guarantee anything by Mary or Heather McDougall I've made and probably wrote about here already. If not, I most likely will soon.

McDougall Webinar with Gustavo - October 15, 2015

I missed watching it live - busy getting a new graphics card installed on my PC. Yikes!

Mary joins them in the beginning of this one, talking about their recent trip to Hawaii setting up their McDougall Adventures trip there in January.




The rest I haven't had a chance to watch yet. I hope he answers the question about beans I sent in back in September.

More McDougall Webinars - Register Now

Details of the next 3 webinars have been posted on Dr. McDougall's webinar page.

Scheduled Webinars

October 15th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time

Register Now

Title: Ask Dr. McDougall, MD: Live Q&A Webinar, Session 2

Description: Spend 30 minutes in a live webinar with Dr. John McDougall, MD, as he answers those burning questions you have been wanting to ask!

Questions: Send questions ahead of time to webinar@drmcdougall.com. Please keep questions to one per person and please keep it as concise as possible!

October 22nd at 11:00 AM Pacific Time

Register Now

Title: Dr. McDougall, MD: Treating Obesity with a Low Fat, Starch Based Diet

Description: Dr. John McDougall discusses how to treat obesity with a low-fat, starch-based diet and then takes questions from the audience.

Questions: Send questions ahead of time to webinar@drmcdougall.com. Please keep questions related to the topic of the webinar and please keep questions as concise as possible!

October 29th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time

Register Now

Title: Dr. McDougall: Breast Cancer and The Secret that the Health Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.

Description: What Dr. McDougall has been teaching for 40 years has been the topic of the cover of the new Time magazine (October 2015) : Overtreatment of cancer and what more and more physicians are shockingly prescribing.

Questions: Send questions ahead of time to webinar@drmcdougall.com. Please keep questions related to the topic of the webinar and please keep questions as concise as possible!

McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program

Too many people, especially some Star McDougallers, tell newbies that to lose weight they have to eat less starch and eat more green and yellow vegetables, as much as 3/4 of your plate as vegetables. This is the opposite of what Dr. McDougall teaches. No more than half your plate should be these very low calorie foods, otherwise you're doing a "diet" instead of a lifestyle change, you'll be hungry, and hungry people on diets always fall off the wagon and go back to their bad habits.

Eat your starches!

Webinar - Dr. Gustavo Toloso and Chef AJ

A totally unplanned webinar, done spur-of-the-moment. I didn't even get an email about this one, just saw it mentioned on Facebook.

Webinar: Pregnancy, Sperm Count and Q&A

Another McDougall Interview: Reverse Disease With Starches and Carbs