Christmas Is Coming - Christmas Limas, That Is!

Who'd a thunk it? A year ago I was hating lima beans with a passion. Now, I'm ordering them by the 10 pound bag from Amazon!

And you know what? I think I'll be ordering more of these even before the end of the year. 

That big plastic bag is sealed at both ends so these beans will have to be transferred into something else when I open it up. For now, I just popped the entire bag into a 2 1/2 gallon zip bag and it only takes up about half a bag, a mere 20 cups. I can see me going through that many.

What has happened to me?? Bean soups, that's what happened! LOL

Dr. McDougall Q&A Video

An organization called Fork Smart out of Calgary, Alberta Canada recently did a Skype interview with Dr. McDougall and posted the video to YouTube.

Enjoy!

More From Dr. Esselstyn

I just found this in my Drafts folder. No idea why I never posted it back when I wrote it up in September.

~~~

Dr. and Ann Esselstyn were recently in Australia for a plant-based conference, and a family who post as Plant Based Health Australia were there taking notes. Here's their summary post on FaceBook. Loads of comments, many with clarifying information, so be sure to click to read them.

If you don't "do" FaceBook, here's the post. I'm not going to post all the comments to it, though - sorry.

Plant Based Health AustraliaSeptember 22 at 1:54 AM · 
We attended a 5-hour workshop with Ann and Dr Caldwell Esselstyn today. We had not previously seen Ann in action. She's an extraordinary bundle of energy and highly skilled in presenting the practical food based information that heart patients need to know. She was able to convey a great deal of information while showing us how simple it can be. We've seen Dr Esselstyn present many times before but not at the level of detail he presented today.
Here are some key points we noted from Dr Esselstyn's presentation:
- Patients need to understand endothelium and nitric oxide and avoid eating anything that damages endothelium.
- If you are only 90% doing it then you are further damaging your endothelium 10% of the time.
- The best foods for protecting and enhancing the endothelium are green leafy vegetables. For heart patients he still recommends that you eat these, not drink these, 6 times per day.
- The other core principles of Esselsyn's nutrition are: no animal products; absolutely, definitely no oil; no caffeinated coffee; no sugar; low salt and no avocado or nuts apart from a small quantity of flaxseed meal or chia seeds. The foods to include are grains, legumes, lentils, vegetables and fruit. He only recommends restricting fruit when triglycerides are elevated.
- In Dr Esselstyn's experience if patients adhere perfectly to his diet their heart disease goes into long term remission even if their LDL cholesterol does not reach the 'heart attack proof' target of less than 2.0.
- Coronary artery calcium score (CACS) only measures calcified plaque, i.e. old plaque which has healed into scar tissue. It is the current, inflamed, active plaque that leads to heart attacks. Sometimes the CACS can worsen as active plaque stabilises, heals and calcifies.
- An antioxidant rich WFPB diet reduces the stickiness of the blood and stabilises plaque so that patients may not need to continue taking aspirin after a year or so on the program.
- For weight plateaus he recommends giving up flour products and using water-only fasting from 7am to 7am on up to 2 separate days of the week.
- He recommends against taking vitamin supplements other than B12.

As for those fasting periods, they said Dr. Essy explained the example of doing the water fast on Monday and Thursday. You start your fast immediately after dinner on Sunday and Wednesday and don't eat again until Tuesday and Friday breakfasts. This isn't the first time I read about Dr. Essy recommending fasting - a few women over on the non-official Esselstyn FB groups had mentioned it before. Previously he recommended not water fasting, but eating only non-starchy vegetables 2 days a week. I guess the fasting gurus got to him and got him to change his recommendation.

Also in the comments, the restriction on fruit was mentioned, and there was a little bit of disagreement about that, too. In this talk, or at least in this summary of it, it sounded like like fruit is only restricted if triglycerides are high, but in all his other talks and writings he restricts fruit for everyone to only 2-3 pieces a day. I'm going to assume if you have high triglycerides you need to restrict them even further than those 2-3 a day, like maybe one or none a day, like Dr. McDougall recommends for high triglycerides.

Sweet and Smoky Dressing

After a few weeks of soups, my husband requested - um, demanded - at least a week of rice and veggie meals. Rice and cauliflower with garbanzos, rice and peas with garbanzos, rice and corn with black beans topped with salsa, rice and green beans and pintos, rice with mixed veggies and limas, rice and carrots with cannelinis, rice with peas & carrots and (you got it) garbanzos. We each have our favorite toppings - our son always uses Bone Sucking Sauce. My husband has been back and forth between that, Trader Joe's Cowboy Caviar or Pineapple Salsa, and the Esselstyn 3-2-1 dressing. I use either Bone Sucking sauce, Bragg's or low sodium soy sauce, low sodium teriyaki sauce, the Esselstyn Sweet Fire sauce, and sometimes Jeff Novick's tahini dill sauce.

But not only am I now sick of rice, I'm sick of all those same old toppings.

Yesterday I decided to once again try one of Chef AJ's dressings. This one is called Sweet and Smoky Dressing.

Sweet and Smoky Dressing

1 cup of water
1/2 cup of lime juice
4 ounces of pitted dates - soaked
1/4 cup Westbrae salt-free mustard
1 teaspoon chia seeds
2 teaspoons SMOKED paprika
1/4 teaspoon chipotle powder

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth and creamy.  Refrigerate any unused portion.

and it comes from episode 126 of her Weight Loss Wednesday series.



I soaked 8 deglet noor dates in boiled water for a half hour. Good thing I learned from Jeff Novick to never trust the front label of a product - although it says they're pitted, I found pits in 2 of them. Thanks, Jeff, for saving my blender blades once again. Gulden's mustard instead of Westbrae, orgainic bottled lime juice instead of fresh squeezed, and a bit less than 1/4 teaspoon of the chipotle powder. Well, I'm glad I did that - even with the smaller amount of chipotle this was still a bit too "hot" for my taste.

I didn't have time to refrigerate this for too long before serving it, and the dressing was still pretty watery. I'm hoping after it sits and cools for a day it's a bit thicker.

Conclusion: I wasn't a fan but my husband loves it. He'll be using this stuff for the rest of the week, and probably ask me to make it again in the future. He also requested I add the rest of the chipotle powder before I put it away last night so it'll be even hotter tonight. I'll probably grab the Bragg's, myself, for tonight.

Hopefully he'll have his fill or rice by the end of the week and next week I can get back to those soup meals. It's not even a full week of these rice meals yet and I already gained back 3 of the pounds I lost during those soup weeks.

Quick Bean and Vegetable Chowder

For the 6 of you who read my last post on the flu shot - please disregard. I wonder why my doc said all that he did, because I'm perfectly fine, not even sore in the injection site like I usually am.

Now, on to the recipe!

~~~

Another entry in the Best Soup competition. :)

This is another one from the McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart book, and it's also posted on the McDougall website in the Recipes section:

Quick Bean and Vegetable Chowder
SERVINGS: 4
PREPARATION TIME: 10 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 1 HOUR

1 cup Quick Bean Mixture
(recipe follows)
4 cups vegetable broth or water
1 leek, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen diced hash brown potatoes
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage

Combine all ingredients in a medium soup pot. Mix well, cover, bring
to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Quick Bean Mixture
1 cup split green peas
1 cup barley
1 cup split yellow peas
1 cup orzo pasta (or other small pasta)
1 cup brown lentils
1 cup red lentils

Combine well. Store in-a covered jar.

First off, I had to get the Quick Bean Mixture together.
Do I have a container to put it in? Nope. So off to the stores to find one. It took 3 different stores to find something appropriate, and I wound up with one that looks very similar to this one:

Those grey lines around the edges are either rubber or silicone and they keep out moisture, critters, and even air.

Now to gather the stuff that goes inside of it.

Go through the pantry and yes, I have all the ingredients and bring them into the kitchen so I can start measuring and mixing. Hmm, the bag that's holding the barley feels a little tacky. I've been mostly gluten free for a number of years now and haven't used barley in any recipe all this time, so I check the expiration date on the bag. 2015?? Yikes! Out it goes. And on barley goes to my grocery list.

Why is it so hard to find something that's such a staple as barley? None in Whole Foods, none in 3 local grocery stores, none in the local health food store. What's going on? I find a few bags in another grocery store the next city over, but it's store brand and nearing its expiration date, so I skip it. Eventually I find the boxes of Quaker brand barley mixed in with boxes of instant rice in another store. They're dated 2021, so it's not like it's been languishing there for years, so I grab one. Looks like when this is near the end I'll be adding it to a VitaCost or Amazon order.

Now that I have all the ingredients I take the time to measure and mix. Once again I use the Tinkyada small shells for the "small pasta" called for in the recipe. I also add a half cup of black lentils, only because I have a lot of them and one bag is nearing its expiration date.

The recipe says it makes only 4 servings, and experience has taught me that that means it's not going to make enough for us to have seconds if we want it, so I'm doubling the recipe. If there are any leftovers, I'm sure they'll taste even better the next time around.

No leeks. I thought I had another bag of them already washed and cut in the freezer but can't find them. I'll use onions instead.

I'm using a mix of water and broth, only because I have 2 cups of broth in the refrigerator leftover from a meal I made over the weekend, and none of the other meals this week call for 2 cups of broth.

And instead of putting it all in a pot on the stove, I'm dumping it all into the Instant Pot and setting it on Manual for 12 minutes. That's how long I cook a lot of recipes that are primarily lentils and they come out fine.

When it was all cooked, the soup came up to the 3 quart line in the Instant Pot. We each had 2 decent sized bowls and there's some in the refrigerator to lunch later this week.

My husband said it was perfect the way it was, but I felt it could have used a bit of salt when I first started eating it, but by the end of the first bowl I didn't even think of it any more. The taste was nice and rich, like a very hearty barley mushroom soup. The tiny pasta just melted right into the soup, making a nice thick broth. Mmmmm, mmmmm good! That's what McDougall soups are, mmmmmm, mmmmm good!

As I said in the beginning of this post, another one in the Best Soup category. This one will also be added to the rotation!

Winter weather isn't going to get me down this year!

Hot Yam Soup

And here's another Mary McDougall recipe I never made before!

This one comes from 1992's Doctor McDougall's Health-Enhancing Recipe Book, another out-of-print book that, unfortunately, is not available in e-book form on the McDougall web site. At least it can be purchased new (at a ridiculous price) or used (as low as $4 plus shipping) from places like Amazon or Ebay.com,.

Last weekend we hit Whole Foods once again for various sweet potatoes and yams, so we'll be eating a lot of them over the next 2 weeks, even if only for lunches or snacks. This time I'm using one of the nice sized red-skinned Garnet yams for this soup.

Hot Yam Soup
servings: 8
prep time: 30 minutes
cooking time: 30 Minutes

2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup chopped green beans
2 cups chopped peeled yams, sweet potatoes, or winter squash
5 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
1 large tomato, chopped, 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 bay leaf
3 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons basil
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce (optional)

Place onions, garlic, celery, green beans, and yams in a large soup pot with 1/2 cup of water. Cook over medium heat, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook over simmering heat for 20 minutes.

Hint: If you don't have any green beans, use a cup of peas or chopped green pepper instead.

Once again, I'll be using a can of petite diced tomatoes instead of fresh, frozen onions, and dehydrated celery. I'm also using a quarter cup of dehydrated green beans that I bought from Harmony House and used only once since last year's purchase. I'll toss in an extra half cup or so of water, too. I bought them for a soup recipe by Jeff Novick that I made only once before. I know I gave that soup high praises in that post, but that was before its, um, laxative effect hit us! My husband was in no rush to have that soup again, but after all these soups we've been having lately, maybe I will try it one more time. I'll make sure we plan on being home the next day with no plans to leave the house, just in case.

I wish I had a sturdy device - and the arm muscles - to chop up that sweet potato! Now I remember why I started pre-cooking those potatoes, even if just for a few minutes, when I needed to cut them up for a recipe. I do have a jar of dehydrated sweet potatoes (also from Harmony House) but I'm saving those for emergency meals when stuck indoors and unable to go shopping, thanks to winter's blizzards.

Back to the soup.

It looked good, but tasted weird. I'm not sure if it was the paprika combined with basil and cinnamon spice mixture, or that flavor profile with the sweet potatoes, but I just wasn't a fan of this. My husband declared it "Okaaaaay, but something is 'off ' with it." He thought it was the sweet potatoes themselves, but I told him to put just a potato on his spoon and eat it. He did and said it's not the potatoes, they taste fine by themselves. Neither of us could put a finger on it. He did eat his usual 2 big bowls full, so I guess it wasn't that "off" but we both agreed I won't be making this one again. 

It's one of the rare Mary McDougall flops for this family. In fact, probably only the second. The first one was over 20 years ago, some kind of potato stew, I think - I can't even remember which recipe it was. I can't even remember what was wrong with it - too bland or too spicy. Oh well, since I can't even remember what it actually was, I'll most likely unknowingly wind up making it again at some point in the future.

But not this soup.

Give it a try and report back with your opinions. It's possible it's just us and our taste. In the book, Mary wrote about this: "Be adventuresome - I promise you'll enjoy this richly colored, richly flavored soup." It's obvious the McDougall family likes this soup, and yours may, too, just not mine.

Heather's Vegetable Soup

This one comes from an old McDougall newsletter, and is currently posted to the McDougall website recipe section. Here's how Mary McDougall posted it:

Vegetable Soup
Prep: 15 minutes Cook: 60 minutes
Serves: 6
By Heather McDougall

          This is a soup that my daughter, Heather, makes often for her family. Our grandsons, Jaysen & Ben, love it and will often eat several bowls of this for dinner.

Ingredients
4 cups vegetable broth
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups water
1 yam, peeled and cubed
1 white potato, peeled and cut in large chunks
15 ounce can chopped tomatoes
15 ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp basil
1-2 cups chard, chopped
1/2 cup uncooked pasta

Directions
Place 1/4 cup of the broth in a large soup pot. Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften slightly, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining broth, the water, yam, potato, tomatoes, beans, bay leaf and basil. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for about 45 minutes, until all vegetables are tender. Stir in the chard and pasta. Cook for about 10 minutes until pasta is tender

The recipe is fine for all versions of the McDougall program (and most other WFPB ones, too), but if you're following the Maximum Weight Loss Program as written by Doctor McDougall, omit the pasta. If you're following Jeff Novick's revised MWLP guidelines for pasta, you can safely leave them in.

First, a moment of silence for my THIRD Vidalia Chop Wizard device. In the past, it was the blade part that broke. Today, the lid split in 2 down by the hinge.

I was able to finish chopping the carrots that were already in there by leaning one arm down on the hinge end and putting the rest of my weight on the other side to push down onto the carrot quarters. As you all know, you have to slice your carrots first into small and thin enough chunks to fit in the small section where the blades are, then slice the pieces thin enough the long way because this chopper has trouble chopping anything firmer than a hard boiled egg. As soon as I finished those pieces of carrots that were embedded in the blades I pushed this chopper aside, grabbed my knife, and cut the rest of the carrots the old fashioned way. No more of these choppers for me - I wasted enough money on them!

Now, on to what I did with the recipe.

Let's see, I used frozen diced onions, dehydrated celery, 2 small peeled red potatoes, half a large Hannah yam, petite diced no-salt added canned tomatoes, no-salt added small white beans, and frozen diced collards instead of fresh chard. You already know about the carrots. For the pasta I used Tinkyada shells. I looked around in 2 different Whole Foods stores and couldn't find any smaller gluten-free pasta shapes, like ditalini or orzo, in any brand. Turned out they were small enough.

Look at this nice, chunk soup! Loads of veggies, good tasting broth, very filling. We finished it off, again with me having one bowl and hubby having 2 full bowls (Plus some bread for dunking. I don't know where he puts it all!).

The pasta is a bit plump because I forgot to turn the heat off 10 minutes after adding the pasta and collards. I set the timer, and remember turning off the timer, and I swear I got up and turned the gas off, but when we finally went into the kitchen to eat I saw the flame was still on. Thank goodness I use those aluminum flame tamers when I know food has to heat on low simmer! This stove runs so hot I have to use 2 at a time to keep things from boiling away on the lowest setting.

Right now my husband has a cold, and has been coughing and sneezing, not just during the day but during the night, too. When he coughs, I wake up, and I'm awake for at least an hour after that. I just about doze off again and he coughs or sneezes again. This has been going on for a while now. But remember, I'm the one who's been coughing since mid-August and waking him up, but luckily, he can usually fall right back to sleep within seconds of waking. Anyway, during those sleepless hours many things toss and tumble around in this crazed head of mine, and one of those things last night was this soup. There was a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. I had no idea what - I had all my ingredients measured out or out of the cabinets ahead of time. Looking over the recipe when I put it in this post, I saw what I did wrong - I forgot to add the additional 2 cups of water. To be honest, it didn't need it. Maybe when my appetite returns to normal and I'm eating larger amounts of food again I'll appreciate the extra 2 cups of this soup, but it was fine for us yesterday.

And this soup will be made again. I've said many times that the Mary (and Heather) McDougall recipes are family favorites, and this is yet another one to add to the list.