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.
Labor Day Zucchini Bread makes 1 loaf or 12 muffins or 12 donuts
2 cups whole grain flour (Jane uses 1 cup oat flour, 1 cup whole wheat) 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 3/4 cups shredded zucchini, pressed dry between paper towels 2/3 cup maple syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper. In a bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. In a large bowl, combine zucchini, maple syrup, and vanilla and stir to mix. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Pour the batter into the lined loaf pan (or non-stick muffin or donut pan) and bake for 30 minutes (or 15 to 18 minutes) until golden brown on top. Serve warm.
Engine 2 Cookbook page 255
Since I'm forced to stay gluten-free or else my fingers swell up in the joints and get hot and inflamed (Don't ask how I know, especially this past week), I'm using the Bob's Red Mill 1:1 flour mix that Mary McDougall had advised in one of her bread recipes along with the oat flour. Maybe next time I'll use all oat flour, but I'm afraid it'll be a bit too gummy (or as Ann says, "wetter"). Zucchini - Because I saw this after we did our weekly order, I asked my husband to pick up some zucchini when he went out for the Sunday papers, specifying that I ONLY need enough to make 1 3/4 cups of zucchini, so maybe 2 small ones or one medium size. He brings home 3 zukes that, while not as big as a baseball bat as Jane jokes, but could pass for toddler sized t-ball bats. YIKES!! Each one might make enough for 3 or more cups of shredded zucchini! I guess I'll be tossing zucchini in my meals for the rest of the week. Checked the dates on the baking powder and baking soda, since I haven't used either for a while. OK, still good. The vanilla? Well, the standard brand, with alcohol, was outdated by a few years, but the alcohol-free one is fine. Whew! In this heat I didn't think my husband would want to walk back to the store again. Maple syrup - Well, we try to follow Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse protocols, but I do use maple syrup now and then, like in the 3-2-1 Dressing (aka Jane's Dancing dressing) or mixed with mustard as a dip for Brussels sprouts. But to use 2/3 of a cup for 8 slices of zucchini bread would be overkill. Luckily, one of the commentators on YouTube wrote she used only 1/3 cup and it tasted great. Oops. I better go dig out a loaf pan. Now where did I put them all? There's one corner cabinet in the kitchen that's so inconvenient to find things in because it goes back about 3 feet - These cabinets were NOT professionally designed or installed decades ago when the house's last owner changed the attic into an apartment for his daughter and her kids, the apartment we now reside in - so it took me quite a while to empty things out one by one until I got far enough back in the archaeological dig to find the pans. Aha! I found the one silicone pan I own and one of the 3 non-stick metal ones! But - Ew! - they both need a good scrubbing after being down there for so long. I filled them with soapy water and will let them soak for a few hours. My husband will scrub them both up later. He's an expert at getting all the stuff off silicone bakeware, even if it takes 2 or 3 tries, because as soon as water touches the flour crud it disappears from view until it dries again. After we have cornbread we now soak the silicone pan for a while before even attempting to wash it. Anyway, if this comes out good I'll go back into the cabinet and search for the donut pan that I bought and used maybe twice. I already found my silicone muffin pan (regular size), non-stick Texas-sized muffins pan, and my non-stick mini-muffin pans. I have enough zucchini right now to make a batch for each pan! So, these loaf pans aren't getting washed until after lunch. By then the temps will be hovering near 90 again, so no lighting of the oven. This zucchini bread will have to wait until tomorrow morning after I do the laundry, or the day after if it gets too hot early. There are definite disadvantages to living in a third floor walk-up with a flat roof overhead and no air conditioning in the kitchen. At least in summer it's a disadvantage - In winter we keep the radiator in most of our rooms turned off because it gets way too hot, while the landlord's apartment on the first floor is freezing. So, to be continued! (Monday) Alright. Only 72 outside this morning so the oven is lit, the batter is in the pan, the pan is in the oven. To update the above: Zucchini - one of those large zucchinis made a full 2 cups of shredded. I figured I would save myself the hassle of finding the shredder disc and the washing of the food processor so I grabbed my box shredder. Big mistake! Zucchini bits flying everywhere! How the heck did that one get in my hair, of all places?? Next time, the Cuisinart, for sure! Maple syrup - I did use only 1/3 cup, but as I started mixing the wet and dry together realized it was now a bit too dry, so added a bit less than a third cup of water to the mix. Now it looks okay and mixed up beautifully. Loaf pan - Well, after an overnight soak I see what was in the non-stick pan wasn't food crud that wasn't properly washed but about a quarter of the coating had been worn away and those were bits of rust. I used this pan, anyway, because the parchment paper prevents the food from touching the area. To be safe, I put a piece of foil on the bottom to cover up that spot. I wanted to use the metal pan like in the video for the first time making this. I'll be sure to use the silicone pan next time. With 2 more big zucchini in the refrigerator (I used the smallest of the 3 today) I'm hoping it tastes good and I'll make more as zuke season goes on. Here it is in the pan, ready for the oven.
and here it is, fresh out of the oven and out of the pan onto the cooling rack. The toothpick test works on this bread, BTW.
My husband is about to take his lunch break, and it'll be cool enough to cut by the time he finishes. Let's see if it passes the taste test. (An hour later)
Uh, oh! I'm in trouble! This stuff is delicious!! First off, ignore what I said about the toothpick test - it may have come out clean, but the bread is still a bit on the gummy side. You can even see it in the photo. Is it because of the oat flour, the added water, or is it slightly undercooked? I'm leaning toward the oats, because the crust on the outside is firm and dry, top a bit crackly, like all good quickbreads should be. I cut it into 8 decent sized slices, and my husband immediately grabbed for a second slice after his first. He cut a piece off for me to taste, and all those little pleasure circuits in my brain started firing off. I know they did for him, too, because for the first time in forever he told me to wrap it up, get it out of his sight, or he'll eat the whole thing in one sitting. He said he'll have another slice after dinner, then limit himself to only one slice a night until it's gone. I reminded him that he bought three of those zucchini, to expect 2 more of these loaves in the near future. He said he won't mind. Yeah, but *I* will, having this delicious off-plan food hanging around the house where I can see it each time I go into the freezer! So, I'll probably be making the second and possibly third loaf before the week is out. I'll cut them up and wrap each slice individually and stick them all in the freezer, so after dinner each night he can take one out, and by the time Jeopardy is over it'll be defrosted. All three loaves will be gone before the end of his vacation in 2 weeks, so we can return to our normal eating patterns after that. But man, that's a tasty loaf of zucchini bread!
This talk was part of The Real Truth Symposium on February 9, 2018, but was just put on YouTube the other day. This lecture not only explains the entire history of Dr. Esselstyn's eating guidelines, but goes over in detail what happens in your coronary arteries, including the function of all the little cells found in the space beneath the endocardial cells (Foam cells? Wow!). He Talks of all his guidelines, including the newest ones that incorporate high nitrate greens 6 times a day and why it's so important to have acetic vinegars, preferably balsamic, with them. This is THE video to watch if you have heart disease and want to reverse it, or just want to prevent heart disease - or any the other diseases of humanity, from arthritis to cancer! A word of warning - because it was a free conference and had a lot of sponsors, a lot of advertising pops up as banners across the bottom of the screen telling you who various sponsors are. After the first few you learn to just tune them out.
Live with Dr. McDougall will resume August 14th, 2018. Join Dr. John McDougall and Gustavo Tolosa in this live webinar. A registration link will be available soon.
It's going to be under 90 degrees outside today, and when I woke up it was only 62º. That means it was safe to light the oven this morning! I've been dying to make something to nibble on in the evenings after dinner, those occasional nights I feel I need a smackerel of something.
I know many people on-line grab something made from an AJ recipe, like CRAM Muffins, Starch Cookies, or one of the many frozen fruit concoctions. Others have some McDougall treats, like Mary's Pumpkin Muffins or one of the cookies or other goodies Heather McDougall has shared. But for me, those are dangerous foods. One muffin would turn into 4, no matter how so-called "healthy" they are. Blending old fashioned oats or millet into a flour is still a flour product! Using dates blended up into a liquid is still a simple sugar. Between my weight and triglycerdies, I have to stay away from stuff like that as much as possible. Some oats ground up for waffles? Even Dr. Esselstyn admits once in a while it's okay. But oats ground up and mixed with a bunch of dried fruit sugar? I don't think so! So what do I do when it's been hours after a light supper and we're famished? Well, my husband grabs a bag of corn tortillas and a jar of salsa. I scrounge around the fridge and grab some kind of leftovers, like that half cup of beans I didn't need for one recipe, or the 3/4 cup of rice, cup of veggies. It's a great way to use up leftovers, but sometimes there just aren't ANY leftovers in the fridge. Yes, it's rare, but it does happen. Well, if I'm really, really hungry and can't sleep until I get something in my tummy, I'll grab one of those apple sauce cups (natural, no sugar added, of course), but I feel guilty because I usually get my 2 fruits for the day in the morning with my oatmeal. In the past, when I was still able to eat things like gluten, I would make seitan sausages or meatballs made from beans and seitan and keep them in the freezer, but thanks to my auto-immune diseases I'm taking Dr. McDougall's advice and avoiding it, and it does help the leg and shoulder pains a bit. So for a few weeks now I've been thinking of making up some bean burgers and/or those Engine 2 Cookbook brats. Tami's bean-free version was a possibility, too. I even have the same brand brown rice wrappers that both recommend - I was surprised my local HFS actually had them. But my mind was made up. Ever since I saw the video of Ann and Jane Esselstyn making S.O.B. Burgers I just had to make them, and today was the first day where all the stars aligned - I had the ingredients, the ambient temperature was good, and, most importantly, I had the energy to make them. So, I gathered up my giant mixing bowl and all the goodies needed to make them. The rice was warm but not hot, the cannelini beans were rinsed and drained well, everything was already measured out and dumped into the bowl. My, that's awfully yellow! My wooden spoon was no longer brown but taking on a golden hue. But now it was time to use my hands and squish. Um, why aren't these beans breaking down and getting mushy? I guess my slightly deformed arthritic hands just aren't up to the job of mushing this up as much as was necessary. I try using a closed fist, but since my index fingers no longer bend that way, I was working with a handicap, but it was enough surface area to get about half the beans mashed to a pulp. Next time, no hands - I'll go right for the potato masher. Here's the bowl after I started making some patties:
And here's some on the baking sheet, the next one in my hand:
You can see the wetness glistening on the burger and my skin. This photo was after a half hour. The top row has been turned over, and you can see it's still pretty moist and unbrowned. I put them in for another 10 minutes. The instructions in the book say to flip them half-way through, but that was just impossible to do.
And here is the final result. All of them are nice and firm but not hard and crunchy. After they cool a bit I plan on having one for lunch today, and the rest will go into the freezer in a plastic freezer bag, each separated by a plastic disc cut out from old oatmeal or raisin canisters. I've been using them for years and no bean burger, raw or cooked, has ever stuck to them in the freezer.
As far as taste goes, I did what Ann didn't do, at least on camera, and sort of wiped the bowl clean using a silicone spatula and nibbling on the leavings. Yummy! I'm looking forward to eating these beauties. In fact, this recipe may even replace Jeff's Sweet Potato Curry Burger as my favorite veggie burger!
Edited to add: Um, no. They're not going to replace that sweet potato burger as my favorite. Somehow the taste got really muted with cooking, and I couldn't even taste a hint of that smoked paprika. I ate it wrapped in a romaine leaf, so no conflicting flavors there. Will I make it again? Maybe, but as a spread or dip, or with rice or over potatoes, not as a cooked burger. Live and learn.
The interview was meant to introduce the audio version of their book The Pleasure Trap, read by Chef AJ, but both doctors have a lot to say regarding what's IN the book rather than what format the book is in. They describe how they both got into healthy eating, how and why the book was written, and, at the end, both talk a wee bit about what they both have coming up in the future, writing-wise.
OK, I won't say it. I waited for the Prime Day sale for weeks. After years of deliberation I finally talked myself into buying a VitaMix blender, and the 5200, with the tall canister, was most recommended. Retails at over $500 - too rich for my blood - so into the Amazon Wish List it went, waiting for this sale. 3pm Eastern comes and - Amazon crashed. Maybe every 50 clicks I was able to get a real page, but usually it was the home page, a partial home page with no search bar, or a page of puppies, but mostly puppies. At one point I actually DID get to see the Prime Day sales and Yes! There was the blender I wanted at about half the price! I click to go to the item's page, and . . . More puppies. Eventually I was finally able to get into my Cart, only to find every single item I had in it - over $200 worth in the Cart and a whole lot more in the Save for Later queue, all gone. No items in my cart at all, including the blender. Things I spent hours accumulating, comparing brands, styles, stores, all gone. ARGH!!! And with the search not working when it does pop up, I can't put anything IN my cart all day. I never could get back to the VitaMix 5200 page again up to the time I went to bed at 9pm. This morning I woke up around 4am and it looked like Amazon fixed itself. The site looked like it usually did during those big sale days, with time limited sales and quotas under each item. I start looking through the Prime Day Deals to find my VitaMix again, and it's not there. A different VitaMix is there, one I long ago decided against, and a Blendtec, but not my 5200. A search for it brings up the usual product page, and now instead of a Prime Day sale price it's back to over $500, available only from third party vendors. Then I read a USA Today article that said many products sold out immediately once the site came back up, and my VitaMix blender was one of them, with no hope of it reappearing before the sale is over. Oh, well, I lived many years without it, I can continue to live without it. Mary McDougall didn't need one. Jeff Novick, either. Still, it would have been nice to have. There's always Black Friday/Cyber Monday in 4 months. Now to go find all my other items and put them back in my shopping cart and hope they don't vanish again before I get to order them this time.
Someone posted these 2 links to the McDougall forums for the McDougall Program - 12 Days to Dynamic Health package - the audio tape set, the 12 Days book, and the Doctor McDougall's Health Enhancing Recipe Book, and a VHS tape called Secrets to Good Health, and a bonus called The McDougall Report: Life Saving Facts Your Doctor Never Told You. Sorry, I can't find a link to these anywhere on-line. They were filmed back in 1993 during the St. Helena days. The video quality is pretty poor, especially if you're watching in HD on a large monitor, but it's nice to see 1) a young Dr. McDougall and 2) the fact that the message hasn't changed in all these years. Another bonus is that they both have decent closed captioning for those of us who are hard of hearing. Enjoy!
That's nice, but way too messy for me, and not feasible in 102º weather. Been there, done that, spent way too much time cleaning the mess. When I want roasted red peppers now, I usually walk to my pantry closet and grab this(I keep about 4 jars on hand at all times).
And when I feel really decadent, achy, or just plain lazy, I grab a jar of this (again, I keep a few on hand)
I do wish a local store would have some of the better brands, like those mentioned in this article. Those rare occasions when we hit Trader Joe's or Whole Foods I make it a point to pick up a few jars of various brands to try, but for normal everyday cooking, the Stop and Shop brand does just fine.
The only thing in the article I did not know about was Mary McDougall having shoulder surgery while all this other stuff was going on. What a year they had!
