Excerpt - Jeff Novick Fast Food 4: Beyond the Basics

I got an email with a link to this video excerpt of Fast Food 4: Beyond the Basics today:




I finally get a good view of the cover and see it's not a savory oatmeal, as some have speculated, but Mushroom Barley Soup.

He mentions one of the new recipes is for a vegetable stock that can be used in place of the tomatoes in all the previous Fast Food/SNAP recipes.

Recipes with other grains will be included in this new DVD, and buckwheat (kasha) is mentioned, so I assume Kasha Varniskes will be one of those new recipes. In the Fast Food 2: Burgers and Fries video he talked about about his mom's cooking it for him every time he visited, that it's one of his favorite foods. It's a really good recipe on his Facebook site, too. He also mentions quinoa, so perhaps this recipe for Mediterranean Quinoa with Tahini Sauce will be another, or Quinoa, Brown Rice and Veggies, which uses the same tahini sauce, although he previously covered that sauce in the first DVD, so maybe not. Maybe the Split Pea, Potato and Kale soup. That one was a family favorite until all the stores around here stopped carrying the Tabachnick split pea soup, both regular and no-salt added versions. I've made it using McDougall Right Foods split pea soup, both the cups and ready-made, but those don't meet Jeff's guidelines for sodium so I don't make it any more unless I have leftovers of some pea soup I made from scratch.

I hope besides the soup on the cover some new recipes will be revealed. This two year wait for this DVD since it was first announced by Jeff better be worth it.

Who am I kidding! Even if there's nothing new, it'll be worth it! It's Jeff!! Just like Dr. McDougall in the McDougall Made Easy and McDougall Made Irresistable DVD's, what is said while cooking is as important as the meals being prepared.

At least we don't have to speculate for much longer - I also received an email from VegSource telling me my copy has been mailed, so hopefully I'll have it by the weekend.

Curried Split Pea, Potato, Broccoli & Veggies Soup

Another Jeff Novick recipe I made a few weeks ago, one of his rare non-tomato SNAP ones. His new DVD is said to be all non-tomato ones, so I hope it really is released soon. He promised it last year and I'm still waiting. :(

This particular recipe calls for a packaged food (gasp!), Tabachnick's Low Sodium Split Pea Soup that's found in the freezer section.

Well, IF you can find it! The box I used for the recipe I had in the freezer for over 6 months but never got around to using it. Now when I went to replenish it, I can't find it in any store locally, and I hit 6 supermarkets, 2 Walmarts and a K-Mart in search of it. I can find the regular one, the one that's so high in sodium that one serving is equal to an entire day's worth, but not the one I need. In fact the only Tabachnick low-sodium soup I could find at all was the Minestrone - 3 different stores had that one. If I'm truly desperate I suppose I can use a few Right Foods pea soup cups, but the sodium of those will be as high, if not higher, than the Tabachnick's, and that's using the lower sodium ones, too. If I have to make pea soup from scratch, well, then it's no longer a SNAP meal.

So, although I like this recipe, this may be the last time I ever make it, unless the stores start carrying the low-sodium Tabachnick soups again. I asked my favorite store about it and was told the low sodium soups aren't big sellers so they got dropped and no, they won't be carrying them again. But right now, no rush, because peas are a no-no on my husband's gout diet, especailly during these flare-ups.

The recipe is posted on Jeff's Facebook, but I'll repost it here, anyway, for those of you who dislike Facebook:

Curried Split Pea, Potato, Broccoli & Veggies Soup

- 1 Box Tabtachnick Frozen Split Pea Soup
- 4 Medium Potatoes
- 8 oz Frozen Broccoli
- 8 oz Frozen Mixed Veggies
- Curry Powder (Salt Free)

While Frozen Soup is cooking (boil in the bags), dice potatoes and place in pot. Cover with water to cover the potatoes, bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. Add frozen veggies and cook a few more minutes. The boil-in-the-bag soup should be done now and so add to the pot. Add curry powder. Stir well.

Another yummy addition to the list of favorite SNAP recipes. As with most foods, my husband added a squirt of sriracha sauce to his bowl for a bit of flavoring, but I found it delicious as-is. 

I'm really going to miss my SNAP meals! I hope after this gout flare I can tweak enough that they're still enjoyable and tasty, even if I have to eliminate all peas and beans.

VeganMoFo Day 13 - Right Foods Cups

Every Saturday we visit an elderly relative and do all her shopping, and when done we join her for a little nosh. She and my husband (her nephew) usually have a few cups of coffee and eat those Texas-sized store bought muffins, while I sip on my bottle of water and eat food from home. Many times I just bring a cooked baked potato sprinkled with a no-salt added spice blend, and in the past I had brought along some dinner leftovers. I found those to be way too much food for the short time we're actually in the dining room eating.

 In my pre-McDougall days I had brought along ramen noodle cups, but as I got older and then into McDougall eating I realized they may be delicious and convenient, but certainly weren't that healthy.

Then came McDougall Right Foods. In the beginning, Dr. McDougall and partner/s decided together what to make available, and to this day you'll find a large variety of instant meals, from oatmeal to curries, all McDougall Plan-acceptable. Recently they introduced ready-made soup in aseptic boxes. Many of the soups are way too high in sodium for me; many claim to be 2 servings when we all know nobody is going to share a cup of ramen. Eventually they developed a lighter-sodium version of some of the cups, but at over 300 mg per serving they were still a bit too high for frequent eating.

The cups still say "McDougall Right Foods" but Dr. McDougall recently mentioned in a forum post that he's no longer with the company. He also says these cups are to be "sometimes" foods, not for everyday use. Eating that cup of ramen when visiting that aunt is a "sometimes" thing for me.

There's a new line of these cups out, Asian Entrée, and I picked up a few of them last week. Today I brought the Roasted Peanut Noodle with me to try. It's still a bit high in sodium so I took the advice of some of the people on the official McDougall forums and used only half a flavor packet, and it still tasted pretty great. The spices won't go to waste - I'll use the rest during a veggies & rice lunch. I'm glad our local Stop and Shop has them on sale so I can go back and pick up a few more next week.

This is not something I would eat often - I still prefer to bring my own food when we're out at mealtime, but because I had no leftovers and no potatoes this morning to take with me on this elder-visit, this cup sure came in handy.