Epic Brats

Yes, I know I've mentioned these brats from the Engine 2 Cookbook a few times on this blog, and each time I admit I haven't made them yet. This is another of those times.

I finally did buy the rice paper wrappers required for it, but still haven't gotten around to doing anything with them.

Maybe the public posting of the recipe here, and this video of who I assume is Engine 2 Coach Ami Mackey, making them, will finally give me the push to do it. 



I have no excuse except for my general laziness. Very few of the meals I make lately even require a recipe - 3 days a week I make brown rice and 3 pounds of frozen veggies and we have them with assorted sauces - the Esselstyn 3-2-1 dressing, Bragg's Aminos, the Esselstyn Sweet Fire dressing, or just plain old low-sodium soy sauce. Twice a week I make spaghetti or other shape pasta with either Jeff Novick's or Mary McDougall's marinara sauce or just a mix of canned or boxed tomatoes. The other 2 days I either make Instant Pot potatoes with frozen veggies and the McDougall Fat-Free Golden Gravy or one of the soups of Mary McDougall, like Quick Black Bean or Bean and Corn Soup, although hubby prefers either Festive Dal or Mexi Soups.

Lately I've been having asthma problems again, thanks to all the rain we've been having and my mold allergy. I really should go back on my inhaler, the one that's a combo bronchodilator and steroid. But studies are now finding that the bronchodilator portion of that med may have contributed to causing my stress cardiomyopathy, and the steroid portion to my rapidly worsening cataracts. Even though it, too, is on the "avoid" list, I've had to take my emergency bronchodilator inhaler a few times over the past few weeks. It's easy for all these people to say "avoid" these meds, but they offer no alternatives, or the alternative is also contraindicated because of either the cardiomyopathy, cataracts, or my autoimmune diseases. The eye doc would say not to take the steroid, the cardiologist would say avoid the bronchodilator, a rheumatologist would say avoid both, and the primary care doc would say to just take it and deal with any consequences if they come up. My choices are to risk another cardiac episode, go blind, risk internal organ damage, or stop breathing. Some choice.

Mom, Make Meals That Are Less Complicated

Or, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

In my case, a bigger food processor, but I'll get to that later in this post.

A few weeks ago Ann and Jane Esselstyn demonstrated this recipe for Oberlin Corn and Shallot Chowder from the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook (page 89), except they called it Summer Corn Chowder in the video.



The other day I decided to give it a shot, and even bought the twice-as-expensive Pacific lower sodium vegetable broth as suggested. I also mistakenly bought leeks instead of shallots, not realizing my mistake until I was half-way checked out at the register, when the clerk asked me what those things were and I replied: "It was supposed to be shallots but grabbed leeks by mistake. Aw, crap!" I knew I had a container of freeze-dried shallots at home and decided to just use those instead of finishing my order, putting all the bags in the car and going back into the grocery store to grab 2 shallots. I'll find some other use for those leeks, even if it's just cleaning and chopping them and sticking them in a bag in the freezer.

Time came to start the soup, and I took the rehydrated shallots, celery, and broth on to cook as directed. While that was bubbling along I dragged out my food processor and got ready.

Here's where things started to go off the rails.

Instead of putting the veggies and broth into the food processor container first I put the defrosted corn and then started to pour the broth in. I get it only half poured when I notice puddles forming under my food processor! 

ACK!!

I quickly grab some paper towels and start sopping the area of the puddle that wants to pour over the edge of the cabinet. Then I quickly get the top of the food processor off and start pouring what's left in it into the pot and toss that in the sink, then continue grabbing paper towels to clean the still growing mess up.

Yes, those are pencils in my sink. They were on the counter near the pad where I write my shopping lists. The pad went right into the garbage. Those were just a handful of towels I used before getting the food processor opened and food dumped into the pot. There was a heck of a lot more paper towels on the counter, sopping, while I ran to grab the iPad so I could snap this shot. Right after this I poured everything into the pot and put it back on the stove while I washed out the food processor container, the food processor itself, the counter, and everything the broth touched on the counter, like the electric tea kettle, a bunch of spice bottles, and those poor pencils. Hey, they had erasers that worked - I wasn't going to toss them our just because they got a bit of broth on them!

After all the clean-up was done, I tried again, this time only putting a few scoops of soup into the food processor, whirring that up, pouring it into a different pot, then repeating until it was all done. Now I finished up the recipe by heating it all up again before dishing it out.

By now, the lacinato kale that I also bought was finished in the Instant Pot. It was the first time in a few years our store had this and not the curly kale. It tasted so delicious even plain! I did what the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue book says to do and made half my bowl full of greens, then ladled the soup into it.

A bunch of black pepper got added on top of this.

Now for the taste test.

Well, the kale is delicious. The soup? As Ann says at the end of the video, needs more pepper. It needed something - otherwise it tasted not all that different than a can of no-salt added creamed corn.

Will I ever make this again? No. Not that it's bad - it's just blah. My husband took a taste and grabbed his ever-present bottle of sriracha and added so much his soup was almost pink. Not a good sign. He also told me I can have all the leftovers for myself. Gee, thanks. I had a bit yesterday, and will probably finish it up at lunch today. If I go a bit heavy-handed with the salt shaker it's not too bland.

When my son heard this story (He was at work when it all happened. Hubby wasn't home at the time I did the above, either), he turned to look at me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said the title of this blog post: "Mom, make meals that are less complicated." Will do. 

Either that, or buy a bigger food processor. Mine is the 11 cup model, and in all the years I've had this, I never made a mess as big as this one was. I looked up the one I think Jane has and discovered it's most likely the 16 cup capacity. So word of warning - if you try this soup yourself, either use a larger food processor, a fairly large capacity blender, or an immersion blender. Consider yourself warned!

As for those "less complicated" meals, since 3 days a week I make rice and frozen veggies, 2 days a week some kind of pasta with a very simple sauce, and either a McDougall soup, a SNAP meal, or potatoes and frozen veggies the other 2 days, what I usually make isn't complicated at all. I just wanted something different! That'll teach me!

Speaking of Rip, Plantstock 2019 Videos Now Available

Register at the Engine 2 Plant Strong Academy page, just like last year. And it's also the same price as then, $149. 

There are many returning speakers, like the Esselstyn family (Duh!), Adam Sud, the Drs. Sherzai, and John Mackey, but others include the McDougall Program's own Dr. Anthony Lim, the diabetes experts Dr. Cyrus Khambata and Robby Barabro, Melissa Pampanin (She plays an integral role running MUSE School, the first school in the country that is 100% solar powered, zero waste, and serves a 100% organic, plant-based lunch program.), and a few others I never heard of before, but their topics sound interesting.

I can't wait to dive into them! I still keep a few that I downloaded last year on my iPad to watch when away from home and away from an Internet connection. I can never get too much of Dr. Esselstyn or his wife Ann!

John Stewart Discovers Nooch

I saw this the other day, when John Stewart tagged Rip Esselstyn on this Instagram video. Too bad there's no way to just share the darn video.

Mary's Favorites, Part 2

I admit, I haven't looked at the McDougall Cookbook app for a few months, so maybe this has been there for a while now, but the app just updated a day or so ago and this morning I'm awake since 5am and bored, waiting for my husband to get up (He usually arises around 9 on Sundays), so decided to take a peek and see what, if anything, changed. The last time they updated they returned the print function.

Imagine my surprise when I notice they now have the same categories as the McDougall website, including the Mary's Favorites one!

Okay, now you can all holler at me for not looking more frequently, that this has been there for ages. Go ahead, you have every right to embarrass me for not diligently looking at this app. I deserve it. LOL

Mary's Favorites

For those who haven't explored the McDougall web site lately, it's s-l-o-w-l-y being updated. Like, taking a year or 2 to see any changes on the site or message boards.

For those who have signed up to receive email notices from the McDougall Program, I'm sure you've seen the weekly resending of the old McDougall's Moment videos and the occasional recipes post. Well, earlier today another group of recipe links came into my mailbox, this time labeled McDougall Family Favorite Recipes. Yes, these are the same old tried-and-true recipes that I've been serving my family for a few decades now, but I noticed at the bottom of the list of links the orange button that says Click Here for More Delicious McDougall Favorites. I assumed it would just to to the general recipe page, but I'm bored so I clicked it anyway.

Guess what! It didn't go where I thought it was going!

One of the changes to the web site over the past year was the recipe section's links being divided into categories, like Appetizers, Breakfasts, One Pot Meal Recipes, and so on. It never dawned on me that there was a section with all my favorite recipes, the same recipes that are classified as Mary's Favorites!

From now on, when someone on Facebook asks for the community's members to post their favorite recipes, all I have to do is send them to the Mary's Favorites section!

Now if only they would add a Kids' Favorites category! That's the second most requested category of recipes asked for on McDougall/Starch Solution Facebook communities (OK, maybe tied with MWLP recipes, which does have its own section).

Atlanta Creole Is Back

I forget this lady's name, having seen her write once or twice on some McDougall-themed Facebook community. She's done some nice recipes on her YouTube page, and lost weight following the McDougall food plan. Here's her video explaining how she lost her first 50 pounds:



And she's even contributed a video to the Starch Queens YouTube site:



She posted a few dozen more recipe videos on her site, and a dozen or so videos explaining what's going on in her weight loss journey, and soon after one on the Pleasure Trap, she vanished. No new videos appeared for about a year.

And now she's back, popping in to say she's going to follow a potato-based Mary's Mini for 10 days.



It's been three days, and already she's posted 2 more potato recipe videos with her special touch. 

Stop on over and give her videos a view, especially if you have a hankering for Creole foods.