VeganMoFo Day 19 - Rainbow Skillet Medley

We love hash browns in this family. For around 6 months now, not counting MoFo weeks, every Thursday I would make up 2 skillets of hash browns. One of them would contain a dish known as Poorman's Meal, based on Clara Cannucciari's dish from the Depression Cooking YouTube site.

This is the dish I make my son. He doesn't follow the McDougall - or ANY plant strong - program. Yes, I put those little pink globules known as sliced hot dogs in it, too.

But I don't make this for hubby and myself. I've never found a vegan hot dog I like, so just don't bother trying to replicate this for us. I usually make some other version of a hash brown meal each week, and as long-time McDougallers know, Mary McDougall loves using those bags of hash browns in recipes so I have plenty to choose from! I only buy the Ore-Ida Southern Style if it's on sale. I usually buy the store brand whose only ingredients are potatoes and some brands have a preservative.

This meal we had is Rainbow Skillet Medley and comes from the Quick and Easy cookbook. 

Still tossing stuff into the skillet

Instead of boiling the taters as Mary directs, I just take them out of the freezer in the morning and they're defrosted when it's time to start cooking. 

Not only did I use frozen corn as directed, but also used frozen broccoli and jarred fire-roasted red pepper. The green pepper was fresh, although I do keep some sliced up in the freezer that I usually use. The green onions were from the bag of dehydrated ones I keep in the pantry from the mail order place Spices, Etc. I use this so infrequently, and many times the bunches at the store look wimpy, so I found keeping a supply of the dried stuff works out nicely. I keep some other dried veggies in the pantry, too, like diced red pepper, green pepper, and a combo of both (I know - silly but an impulse purchase at the time). I tried the tomato bits, thinking they would be like the sun-dried tomatoes, but even when boiled in water for a few minutes they stayed hard as rocks. I forget what happened to them. If they're still buried in the pantry I might try grinding them down into powder and add to some of Bryanna's broth powder for a cheap but quick instant tomato soup. Carrots are another one I keep on hand, tossing a handful into soups or stews if they need just a touch of "something."

I did have one problem with this meal - I burnt it. One of the hazards of cooking without oil is that things don't brown, the stick unless you toss them about every 5 minutes or so. I got distracted and it was almost 15 minutes before I got to the pan, and although it was on the lowest flame, the entire bottom layer burnt onto the bottom of my 6-month old non-stick almost $100 Calaphon skillet. Damn! So with about a third less food to eat (It's a big skillet so even a small amount takes up a lot of volume) I knew we would still be hungry so I opened up a box of McDougall Right Foods Lentil Soup. They may be out of stock at the factory store, so I'm glad I stock up when the local grocery store has them on sale.

And the skillet washed up beautifully. Things may still stick while cooking, but with a little soap and water the burnt on mess swished right out of there.

VeganMoFo Day 18 - Potatoes in Children's Television

Yes, I'm 59 years old and still watch Sesame Street! Ironically, when my almost-30 year old son was young, he hated the show! Still does. But that never stopped me from watching it and laughing  - and singing along.






My new favorite. This is only a still from the bit, not a video, for Eye of the Potato. You'll have to hum "Eye of the Tiger" to yourself as you look at it until a video appears somewhere.

VeganMoFo Day 17 - Lesser Known McDougall Recipe Sites

Everyone knows Susan Voisin's Fat Free Vegan site, and the blogroll on the left hand side of this page here brings up a number of active bloggers who follow the McDougall program, but what about the lesser known sites, like:

The McDougall Plan Community on LiveJournal

The McDougall Community on SparkPeople

McDougall Talk (lots of older memberships were removed and they're not allowing new registrations)

Marla's Marvelous Meals - from down-home comfort food to exotic feasts

Livin' La Vida McDougall - Wiki of McDougall recipes and links

Bob and Farley's Place (no longer taking new registrations - is closing the end of November) - a blend of McDougall, Fuhrman and Jeff Novick food plans

And there are a few active McDougall-based Yahoogroups, too:

McDougall Chat - weight loss talk is discouraged because many people follow the program for health, not weight, reasons

McDougall Weight Loss Programs - for all McD plans, not just MWLP


If you know of any other McDougall-related site, please tell us about it in the Reply section. Thanks.

VeganMoFo day 16 - Quickbread by Jan Tz

I've written about Jan's quickbreads a number of times. They're not sweet, fancy or even pretty looking, but they do fulfill the dictionary definition of a cake, and I make one up for each of our birthdays. Here's the one I made for my own birthday this month - Raspberry Cocoa Quickbread.

We added a few candles, my guys sang the birthday song to me with the kiddie lyrics (the one with ". . .you belong in a zoo" ), and a good time was had by all.

Thanks again, Jan Tz, wherever you are, for a memorable day with a memorable recipe.

  

Raspberry Cocoa Quick Bread

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray an 8 x 8" square or 8" round cake pan with non-stick spray.

Combine the dry ingredients and mix well:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda

Combine liquid ingredients separately:
1 and 1/4 cups hot water (tap water hot, not boiling)
1 Tbs. + 1 tsp. white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Have ready:
1 (10 ounce) jar Polaner All-Fruit, in Raspberry flavor

When the oven reaches temp., add the liquid ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix quickly with a spoon, and do not over-mix. Put half the batter into the pan; spread evenly. Spoon about 3/4 of the jar of Polaner Raspberry fruit spread onto the batter. Put it on evenly, but don't try to spread it around. Put the rest of the batter on top of the fruit and spread gently and evenly to cover. Bake 25 minutes -- toothpick test for doneness. Leave the bread in the pan and put the pan on a rack to cool. Remove the last 1/4 jar of fruit spread, put in a bowl, and microwave 30 seconds or so to melt. Pour this melted spread over the warm bread to glaze. Let the bread cool completely before cutting. 

Recipe by Jan Tzinski

Note from Jan: A couple of changes that apply to all the recipes:

(1)Bake at 350 F.

(2)liquid can be lukewarm soymilk, ricemilk, juice, or water

(3)Just add the vinegar to the liquid; no need to "sour" anything. 

Thin Lines Comic for 10/15/2012

The strip is called Thin Lines and is only published on Mondays.

What this doc says is nearly word-for-word what my own doctor has been saying to me for almost 30 years now. He is so anti-food that not only does he want me on 1000 calories or less, he suggested I should even try skipping a meal now and then to reduce food consumption by a third. He knows my metabolic rate is so slow that I gained weight on anything more than 1000 calories back when I was an active 11 year old, and now that I'm an almost-60 year old post-menopausal, arthritic old lady with hypothyroid and chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia issues, he also knows it's impossible for me to lose without starving myself, yet he still insists I try. The closest I get to it would be the few times I tried the hasty approach to the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program. Anything more than 1/3 starches on my plate and I no longer lose, and half a plate or more I start to regain. Funny, a lot of the Star McDougallers have the same problem, but they managed to lose a bunch of weight first. I never could, and maintain a morbidly obese BMI range even while eating apx. 1200 - 1600 calories a day most days. I love starches too much to eat any less than this. At least all my lab work is fantastic and my doc says he wishes all his patients had numbers as good as mine.

VeganMoFo Day 15 - Minnesota Hot Dish

Casserole weather is here! When the leaves start turning it's time to relight the oven in the un-air-conditioned kitchen, and the second most-requested casserole to toss in that hot oven is Jan Tz's classic Minnesota Hot Dish. The most requested is Isa's Chickpea Broccoli Casserole, McDougallized, of course, by omitting the oil and breadcrumbs and dumping the other ingredients together with a bag of hash browns, like this recipe. 

Jan first posted this recipe way back in October 2003 in the original McDougall forums at VegSource. That particular forum was replaced by the Fat Free forum for a while and eventually disappeared completely from any menu, but the old messages are still there in hiding, just like those of the McDougall forum. You can find a lot of Jan's original recipes over there - she only reposted a handful to the "new" (6 years old) official McDougall forums.

Subject: Recipe: Minnesota Hot Dish
Date: October 21, 2003 at 4:36 pm PST

From the Land of 10,000 Lakes (and 100,000 swamps), where the mosquito vies with the loon for State Bird, I bring you...

Minnesota Hot Dish, that staple of church socials and funerals everywhere:

2 Boca Burgers, original vegan
2 good-sized potatoes, peeled and sliced
handful of chopped onion
1 can (about 1.5 cups) condensed vegetable soup (I used Vegetarian Vegetable) or any vegetable soup/broth

Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease or spray a small casserole dish.
Nuke the Bocas with the onion for a couple of minutes, until they are mostly cooked. Put the potato slices in the bottom of your casserole. Put the burger/onions on top. Then pour the soup over all. This is not a particularly "liquid-y" dish. Cover and bake for 45 min. Uncover and bake another 15 minutes.


This dish is really really filling and meaty. Very much comfort food for me in East Central MN. 
* ~ * ~ * ~ *

This recipe was written back when Dr. McDougall still allowed things like Boca Burgers and Gimmelean meat substitutes. Many of us old-timers had packages of burgers and chubs of both "beef" and "sausage" Gimmelean in our freezers and used them in a few different meals each week. I still keep some Gimmelean and Lightlife Smart Ground in the freezer and when I see they've been in there for around 6 months, defrost a pack and use it in one of the old tried-and-true recipes. I was never a fan of Boca Burgers, especially when they stay in the freezers of our local grocery stores so long they're freezer-burnt before I even purchase them.

Instead of a few whole potatoes I used a bag of frozen Southern-style (diced) hash brown potatoes.

Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup is the soup of choice for this recipe, and just last week I grabbed some at Walmart at the price of 3/$1. I used 2 cans and swished about half a can back and forth between them to rinse out all the little bits of soup, alphabet pasta and veggies that stayed behind when I poured the soup out. They're a bit higher in sodium than Jeff Novick allows, but there's such a small amount in each serving, I can live with it and just drink extra water the next day.

A few shakes of Frontier brand dried onion pieces finished off the ingredients. I always buy these in bulk bags from the company so they're always on hand, even when my newly bought fresh onions magically turned moldy on the trip home from the grocery store.



I use my largest Pyrex mixing/casserole bowl, stir everything up until it's well mixed, then cover with parchment then foil and pop it all into the oven. Jan says her isn't a particularly "liquid-y" dish, but with the bit of added water and the good mixing, all the stuff gets nicely distributed and nothing is dry. There's just no watery sauce or gravy so no need for bread for sopping any excess up. 

Because of the soup and the crumbles, this isn't a meal I make on a steady basis any more. In fact, this one is the first I'm making in over a year. It's a surprise for my husband, who had complained about all the very veggie meals I'd been making lately. Because this is the mid-point in VeganMoFo with a lot more very veggie SNAP meals to come, I figured he needed a good dose of starchiness and salt, real comfort food, for me to get back in his good graces.

VeganMoFo Day 12 - My Flickr Food Photos/Pizza

veg foods, a set on Flickr.

Of course, this is only what I had on Flickr. I just discovered the code to post this grouping today.

Notice that 2 of these are for pizza. This is an old photos, taken a number of years ago when Mary  McDougall was still occasionally calling for vegan cheese in her recipes. The crust was made with whole wheat flour, not even the white whole wheat that's available today.

Nowadays there's a healthier alternative to store-bought vegan cheese or even vegan pizzas. Mark Sutton released a book this year called the Heart Healthy Pizza Cookbook. On his website for the book and its accompanying blog he's shared many of the recipes for the crust, base sauce, toppings and even health versions of vegan cheese.

His book - and pizzas - have been endorsed by the McDougalls, the Esselstyns, and even the Mad Cowboy, Howard Lyman, the man who caused Oprah to get death threats after he appeared on her show and she vowed to cut back on red meat.

Anyway, the recipes in Mark's book are excellent and perfect for McDougallers, nutritarians, Engine 2 followers, plain old vegans, and anyone who wants to have their cake pizza and eat it, too.

Now if only he would put out a DVD of him cooking, like Jeff Novick and Mary McDougall have.

VeganMoFo Day 11 - Grandpa's Soup

Another winner from the Fuhrman forums. This one was posted by member "casinera" back in 2010. My husband loves lima beans and loves soup and put the 2 of them together (and make sure the fan is on and bedroom window is open) and he's in beany heaven. To add to the odiferousness of it all, I bought him a loaf of garlic/onion Italian bread to dunk.

Grandpa's soup

Chop and simmer in water:
2 onions
2 heads of garlic
Add:
1- 2 cans tomato paste
2 cans tomatoes (no-salt)
the spices (basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf and black pepper)
Then add:
1 whole thinly sliced cabbage
2 bags Fordhook lima beans (no-salt!)
1 bag frozen corn (no salt!)
a pile of fresh green beans, trimmed and cut to bite-size pieces
At the end, add, then turn burner off:
diced carrots (about 3)
~ ~ ~
I used the same amount of onions, a small bag of garlic cloves, 12-ounce can of tomato paste (no salt added), a box of Pomi chopped tomatoes, and about 2 cups of frozen green beans instead of the fresh.

The onions, garlic, cabbage and carrots I shredded in the food processor. It was much easier than standing for an hour chopping all those veggies into tiny bits.

I added everything but the spices into the pot at once. I used my 8-quart Fagor pressure cooker pot with the glass lid (NOT the pressure cooker top), because in this small apartment everything has to do double duty and I have absolutely no room for a big soup pot. All those veggies filled this pot almost of the top. I added around 2 cups of water and set it off to start cooking. The recipe didn't say to add any water except at the beginning to sauté the onions & garlic so I winged it. It's possible the 2 cups weren't needed at all and the juice from the tomatoes and what was released from the cooked veggies was all that was needed, but I doubt it. In the end there was very little soup and a heck of a lot of cooked vegetables.

After about 30 minutes everything was nice and tender, including the chunks of carrots and cabbage stems that didn't get shredded. It was at this point I added the spices and stirred it all up, put the lid back on, and let it cool enough to eat. While waiting I sliced up the bread.

My husband took one look at the pot and asked if I was planning on feeding an army, because this made a LOT of food! The veggies all softened as they cooked but the level in the pot didn't really go down all that much. In the end, we each had 2 bowls and I put away way more than what we had eaten, so this is going to make another full dinner and a lunch or 2, even for big eaters like us. We use bowls that hold about 4 cups for dinner, not those tiny soup/salad bowls that we use when eating soup for lunch or as a side dish. 

And he didn't touch the bread, either. The whole sliced loaf is going into the freezer for another time.

It tasted great, with no one flavor dominating the dish. Will I make this again? Possibly, but I'm going to cut the amounts of everything in half. While some people love making one big pot of something to eat multiple days during the week, we don't. Once a week is plenty for any one dish. Even cut in half there would probably be enough for a few lunches, that's how much this made.

VeganMoFo Day 10 - Chinese Apricot Stir Fry

As mentioned previously, this is the day of the week we traditionally have what our son calls Chinese Rice, and luckily I found a recipe that fits the bill on the Fuhrman web site that's very similar.

This recipe comes from the book Cholesterol Protection for Life, a book that must have had a limited run because the only place to obtain a copy at a decent price now is to get it as an e-book directly from Dr. Fuhrman's web site. I've seen copies going for over a hundred dollars on Half.com and Amazon book vendors. Wow!






Here's the recipe:


Chinese Apricot Stir Fry

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 blocks of extra firm tofu, cubed into bite sized pieces
4 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest
4 teaspoons apricot preserve (100% fruit, no sugar added)
4 tablespoons cooking wine
1 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Aminos
2-3 packages of frozen mixed oriental vegetables
1/2 teaspoon salt free Chinese seasoning

Instructions:
Place 2 tablespoons of water in a pan and add the tofu. Put on medium heat and once the pan is hot, lower the heat. Sprinkle garlic powder over tofu. Turn the tofu frequently at first to prevent sticking. Eventually, the water from the tofu will be released and it won’t have to be turned so frequently. In a cup, mix the VegiZest, apricot preserves, cooking wine, 2 tbsp. water and the Braggs aminos. Sprinkle half of this mixture over the tofu and continue to simmer. Defrost the frozen vegetables in a microwave or steam on stovetop. Once defrosted, add vegetables to the tofu. Sprinkle the remaining sauce over tofu-vegetable mix and add the Chinese seasoning. Continue to simmer until the liquid is largely cooked off.
~ ~ ~
As I mentioned in a previous post, the VegiZest is a powdered vegetable product used as a seasoning/soup mix and you can substitute any no-salt-added broth powder or seasoning, like plain Mrs. Dash if you don't have any.

I'm using only one 1-pound block of Nasoya Extra Firm tofu, pressed, because I've found this amount is more than enough for the two of us. 

I don't keep any wine in the house so I use broth.


I'm using 2 different bags of stir-fry mix - one has broccoli, green beans, sugar snap peas, carrots, celery, red pepper, onion and water chestnuts, and the other has broccoli, green beans, carrots, mushrooms, onions and red pepper. Between the 2 I get some G-Bombs and cruciferous veggies.

The closest I can figure the "Chinese seasoning" to be is the Chinese 5-Spice powder, which consists of Szechwan pepper, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon, salt and white pepper. I had a jar of this once and didn't like the taste and tossed it out when it got a few years outdated, and don't plan on buying any more just for this dish. People who commented on the recipe on Dr. Fuhrman's site said they just omitted it, and so will I. 

To make the sauce I put the ingredients in a jar and take my whisk to it to break up the preserves into tiny pieces and make sure everything is well mixed. That VegiZest does like to settle to the bottom if not kept in motion!

Served over brown rice, it's a delicious and filling meal for a cold, dreary day. The apricot sauce taste is similar to the packets of pinkish duck sauce (as opposed to the more yellowish ones that taste more like pears) you get when you order Chinese food delivery but without that cloyingly sweet taste. We used to use jarred duck sauce a lot years asgo when I made our weekly rice and veggie dish, but when it started to contain HFCS in larger and larger quantities we just gave it up and went more for the salty sauces, like soy and teriyaki (both low sodium versions). This is a nice home-made alternative that's quick and easy to make, and don't forget, much healthier.

VeganMoFo Day 9 - Extremely Easy Vegetable Soup

This one comes from Fuhrman forum member susan1007, owner of the Susan's Cooking blog. I searched on her blog for it but it looks like she never posted it there.

Here's how it was originally posted in the forums:

Extremely Easy Vegetable Soup


1 small onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz can chopped tomatoes, with juice (no salt)
8 oz Very Veggie Juice (or other low sodium vegetable juice)
1 15 oz can no salt Great Northern Beans, with liquid
1 15 oz can no salt Red Kidney Beans, with liquid
half a 6 oz can tomato paste (no salt)
3 15 oz cans water (or more if you like a thinner soup)
2 tsp dried Oregano
1 tsp dried Basil
1 tsp dried Thyme
1 cup green beans, cut up
1 cup green peas
1/2 left over medium sized baked potato (you can omit this or use fresh)
freshly ground black pepper to taste

I water sauteed the onion, garlic, celery, carrots, then added all the rest of the ingredients except the green beans and green peas. Cook until veggies are tender.

Add green beans and peas and cook for 10 minutes or so longer.

I sprinkled it with a nutritional yeast mixture I had around (that had dried parsley, almond meal, and a little garlic powder in it).

Very easy to make. If you eat pasta or you're trying to feed more conventional eaters, cook some whole grain pasta separately and add some to the bowl before serving.
~ ~ ~ ~
I used a few more carrots, because mine were kind of small and it was the end of the bag, and a bit more juice and water, and here's what it looks like, all bubbly in the pot before the green beans, peas & handful of chopped up baby spinach were added:

I didn't add any starch to this except the optional potato, since I already have one in the fridge. As expected, my husband wiped his bowl clean with some bread before the meal was over. His first impression as soon as he tasted it: "MMmmmmm, tomato-y" (Said in a Pee Wee Herman voice)! He does love this soup! I had to promise to save the leftovers for him to eat for lunch when he takes the day off Wednesday.

With temps not expected to rise out of the 50's today, and his flu winding down and in the annoying cough phase, it's definitely soup weather again. Stay tuned - another soup is coming later this week.