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.

New Orleans Jambalaya

Note: I started this post over a week ago but never completed it until now, mostly because I had no time with hubby still home and because I never got a chance to transfer the pic from the camera to computer until now. More info after the picture.

This is one of Jeff Novick's simple meals that for some reason isn't included on the Facebook page. He does have an Okra Jambalya there, but I'm really not a fan of that slimy vegetable, so made that version only once and vowed to never make it again. This particular version I've only seen posted in his forum on the McDougall web site.

The recipe:

New Orleans Jambalaya

1) 2 28oz can Whole Tomatoes (No Salt Added)
2) 2 cans 14oz can red beans or kidney beans (No Salt Added)
3) 2 lbs frozen Vegetables, corn, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash (equal parts)
4) Success Quick Cooking Brown rice (1 large bag)
5) Spice mix

Cook Brown Rice (Success Quick Cooking). While rice is cooking, place tomatoes, and veggies in pot and heat. Add in 4 cloves garlic, diced, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp thyme, 4 tsp paprika, .25 to .5 tsp cayenne pepper. And heat.

When rice is done, place in a bowl and serve tomato vegetable mix on top.


Since cans of name brand whole tomatoes are getting harder and harder to find in our city, either due to rust, dents, or high sodium content, I was very happy to see that the local Stop and Shop recently expanded their own line of no-sodium added tomato products to include the 15 ounce cans of these beauties. The quality may be a small step down from some of the more expensive name brands, but just as good as some others. They do contain a bit more juicy liquid, the only drawback. I used one can of the Cento that I had left and 2 of the Stop and Shop ones.


I used the dark red kidney beans, and half a bag each of the frozen vegetables listed.

OK, maybe I tossed in a bit more corn and the whole bag of zucchini. :)

Instead of Success rice I cooked up some of the whole grain mix I got from the local Asian food store. I has brown rice, wild rice, barley, and a few other grains. This stuff is as tasty as any Lundburg mix at a fraction of the cost.

For the spices, I've had this jar of Cajun Spice Mix from Penzey Spices that I got free with a coupon for a few years now and never had the chance to use. I used 2 tablespoons and although it was perfect for me, my husband wanted more kick so added his sriracha sauce to his bowls.

See how great it turned out:

This made 2 large servings and 2 smaller servings the first day, and we had enough for 4 of my 3-cup Pyrex containers in leftovers that we had for lunches later that week.

This meal is now was going into my SNAP Foods rotation schedule. I (did) plan on making 3 or 4 of those meals a week for the next few "weeks, months, years, who knows?" to quote Eeyore.




Written today:
I had a whole big paragraph about why I'm going to stick with Jeff's SNAP meals for the time being because they 1) were helping me lose weight at a pretty decent clip there for a while and 2) are great for controlling cholesterol and, more importantly in this house, triglycerides. I had all intentions of doing that, until life once again interfered.

Now my husband has gout.

But I'll save that saga for another blog post.

Back to Doctor Bashing

Those who followed my VeganMoFo posts for the first half of the month might remember the day I mentioned my doctor's appointment to get some lab results. I wrote a long post about being overwhelmed when I finally got all the results.

Well, I did have some blood drawn to repeat some of those labs and got the results last Thursday.

The good news is that the ESR and CRP were well within normal limits, so no excessive inflammation that would indicate lupus, many other auto-immune diseases, or rampaging cardiovascular disease.

My total cholesterol was down to 176 - much better but still not in the heart-attack proof range. VLDL was up a little, but took me just one point over the normal reference range.

My triglycerides level is what shocked me - 237! They went UP even after eating from the 2 heart-healthy books for the 2 weeks prior to the blood draw and strict McDougall/Esselstyn since July 8th when my husband first told me of his chest pains! WTF?!?!?!

Then I looked back over my journal entries to see exactly what I was eating, and saw that for more than half of the entries in the first half of the month I had flour products, and what wasn't mentioned in those entries were the (whole wheat, unsalted) pretzels I was eating most nights. One day I had a load of fruit as a night time snack, and most mornings I had raisins or dried dates in my oatmeal. Most days I was also having a few ounces of POM juice, as recommended by Dr. Fuhrman in his autoimmune protocols, and once or twice some fruit-based salad dressing.

Between the flour and fruits I can see why the trigs were up.

My doc doesn't believe too much fruit has anything to do with triglycerides, that it's only saturated fats that raise it, "anything you can buy in a bakery, including whole wheat bread" is bad, everything else is fine, (here it comes) in moderation." (sigh)

My doctor went into immediate pill-pusher mode and had the student doc start looking up meds to lower triglycerides and wrote a prescription for Lovaza, a purified fish oil pill to raise Omega-3's, even though I told him I'm not going to take it, especially when the web site say it's for trigs over 500, and mine are less than half that. I can take more crushed flax seed and chia seeds to raise Omega 3's, like Dr. Esselstyn says to do.

He told me I'm eating too many carbs on my food plan, to switch to the "heart healthy" Mediterranean diet, to replace all those carbs with protein foods.

I looked him right in the eye and said: "You want me to stop eating my whole food plant based, no sugar-oil-salt food plan and start taking fish oil, eat fish, chicken and beef, and start pouring olive oil over everything so my triglycerides go down? What do you think my total cholesterol is going to do if I do that?" He and the student just shrugged. 

I also reminded him that many people with MCTD eventually wind up with kidney failure and on dialysis, and he wants me to load up on kidney-killing animal protein? He shrugged again.

He told me if I don't want to take the Lovaza, at least take fish oil pills from another source, but make sure they're fresh. I shrugged. Now I know he's just not listening.

I told him I'm going to cut the rest of the dried fruit out my diet and stick to only 1 serving a day of either blueberries or apples, and he shrugged.

I told him I'll cut out the processed carbs - the whole wheat flour and cornmeal - and he shrugged again, telling me I should also cut out the beans and potatoes, so I shrugged again.

He didn't even ask if I saw the rheumatologist yet to start treatment for my MCTD, the one thing my husband was most concerned about. I had to come right out and ask how my ESR and CRP results were. He shrugged and said they're fine, then went back to telling me how horrible my diet is.

So here I am, debating whether or not to shut him up and take Lovaza (probably not), other fish oil pills (ditto), grab a bottle of the EPA-DHA or OmegaPure that Dr. Fuhrman sells, or just go with other comments by Fuhrman and Esselstyn, that as long as one is following the whole foods plant based/plant perfect food plan, don't worry about the trigs, because they're not going to be normal until all the excess weight is off, especially if you already have a lot of belly fat, which I most certainly do. 

Dr. McD has a few tips, besides cutting down on fruit and eliminating flour products (meaning, go on MWLP instead of the regular/heart healthy program) that includes increasing exercise and eating an extra quarter cup of oat bran, and a few cloves of garlic every day.

So, no to Lovaza or fish oil, yes to more oat bran, garlic (Yum! Really!) and ground flax (I have to remember to drink more water now), no to flour products (Goodbye, pizza and pasta - sniff) and try increase my aerobic exercise a bit without causing any more pain to my already achy joints and muscles (Now attibutable to MCTD and not my fat and degenerative arthritis).

I'm now 60 years old - time to nip this in the bud so I can live to see 70 and beyond.

National Grouch Day

What a wonderful birthday present! Even my husband said it was appropriate, considering the kind of year we just had.

Sesame Street magazine declares Oct. 15 ‘National Grouch Day’

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sesame-street-magazine-declares-oct-15-national-grouch-day-article-1.1486562#ixzz2hsh4YC2Z

 

My husband returns to work in just a week and a half, and we have a lot to accomplish in these 12 days/8 business days, hence the scarcity of posts.

Since VeganMoFo ended I've been making a lot of Jeff's SNAP meals, and so far only one of them was new to me, and I'll post on that after the 28th. Tonight I'm making the New Orleans Jambalaya, another new to me one, so that's at least 2 posts with pics to look forward to. 

And wait until Jeff releases his next Fast Food DVD in November! It's only a year and a half since he first announced it, and it was supposed to come out the same time as Shopping School. I can't wait to work through those! I still wish he would post a sample recipe so I can get started!

I'll also have a very grouchy post about doctors, too. My family doesn't call me "Oscar" for nothing!

Dr. McDougall's Top Ten Questions

Dr. McDougall frequently appears on the TV show LifeStyle Magazine that these guys emcee various religious cable stations. Here they devote an entire show to the top 10 questions their viewers want to ask of Dr. McDougall.

I love how they remind him there are TEN questions to be answered, not to dawdle over any one. They obviously know how he likes to talk! LOL

 

VeganMoFo Day 30 - Basque Paella

For the final recipe of VeganMoFo 2013 I've chosen another new-to-me recipe from Mary McDougall.

Basque Paella
SERVINGS: 8
PREPARATION TIME: 30 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 40 MINUTES

1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup water  
1 onion, chopped  
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small green bell pepper, sliced
1 small red bell pepper, sliced
2 small red potatoes, sliced
1 small tomato, chopped
2 cups hot Vegetable Broth 
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground oregano
Pinch of powdered saffron
1 small can water-packed artichoke hearts (about 6), cut in half
1 cup frozen peas

Place the rice and boiling water in a bowl. Cover and let stand for 20 minutes. Pour off the water and set aside.

Place 1/4 cup water in a large pot. Add the onion and garlic. Cook and stir over medium heat about 2 minutes, until the onion softens. 

Add the bell peppers, potatoes, and tomato. Cook and stir for another 3 minutes.

Add the rice and hot broth. Bring to a boil. Stir in the soy sauce, oregano, and saffron. Reduce the heat, cover, and cook for 30 minutes. 

Add the artichokes and peas. Cook for another 5 minutes

The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1 
page 329

Not only had I never tried this recipe, I've never eaten paella, nor have I had artichokes in my life, so it's a new adventure all the way. The only thing I know about paella is that George Costanza's mother made some to feed Jerry Seinfeld's parents when they came up to visit from Florida.

Again, the red and green pepper strips will come from a bag of frozen ones. Ditto the onion and garlic.

I'll concede to using a fresh plum tomato.

The saffron is a problem. I have saffron threads but have never seen powdered in the stores. Out comes the handy dandy mortar and pestle and a'crushing I will go. 

Those are a lot of steps in this recipe, and some I don't understand why, like soaking the rice in the beginning. But, as I said, I've never made or eaten this dish before so I obey all the directions as close as possible.

A few mistakes were made.

I decided to use brown basmati rice. I always said this brand must be mis-labeled, because the rice seems more the texture of white than brown, and this dish could have used the heartier regular long grain brown rice.

My saffron disappeared. I always kept it in the freezer because I rarely use it, maybe twice a year. Two of us tore the freezer apart and couldn't find it, and since the food was already on the stove, there was no time to go shopping for more. I thought of using turmeric, as others on-line suggested, but thought better of it and just skipped it entirely.

The plum tomatoes were horrible so used a regular slicing tomato of a fairly large size.

I added 2 cups of peas instead of one. That wasn't a mistake, but intentional. We love peas.

Not bad. We finished off the entire batch and were satisfied nicely without being over-fed. I have no idea what the saffron could have added to this dish, it was good the way it was. Well, it would have been better with the right rice, but still good as-is. My husband liked it, said it was another keeper.

Tonight I'm remaking the Pea, Potato and Couscous Hash that I made 2 weeks before MoFo started, back when my husband's appetite was nearly non-existent. Tomorrow  I'm making a tried and true favorite he's been asking for, Cuban Potatoes. Then comes a SNAP favorite from Jeff Novick, Simple Everyday Meal. I do have another Esselstyn heart-healthy recipe planned for later this week and if I do make it, I'll write about it.

As for "keepers" from this year's VeganMoFo recipes, there aren't that many. I'll add the Bright Summer Stir Fry, Golden Kanieski Sauce, Potatoes Mexicali, Spinach Rice, Spicy Potato Stew, and Bachelor's Bounty to my list of family favorites. I already mentioned the Mac & Oaty Cheese as possibly my new go-to mac & cheese recipe. My husband has already adopted the Roasted & Rustic Red Pepper Sandwich as his favorite lunch.

And one thing I will never, ever make again is Speedy Vegetable and Bean Soup. We finished up the last of the leftovers the other day, about a cup and a half each with sandwiches, and both of us were running for the bathroom for the rest of the day! Never again!

Thanks for following along, and I hope you enjoyed it. See you next year for VeganMoFo 2014, possibly as early as August. In the meantime, I'll continue to plod along.

VeganMoFo Day 29 - Hearty Bean Soup

This is the soup I was planning on making, before the other soup fiasco. I still have plenty of that one in the fridge so I won't be making this one now. Maybe some day next week? I'll still share the recipe.

Hearty Bean Soup
Servings: 4
Preparation time: 15 minute
Cooking time: 35 minutes

1/3 cup water
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 cans (15 1/2 ounce) cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
15 ounce stewed tomatoes
2 cups vegetable broth or water
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup packed fresh chopped or baby spinach

Place the water, celery, onion, carrots and zucchini in a large soup pot; cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are fairly tender, about 15 minutes.

Mash one cup of the beans until fairly smooth, then add to the soup pot, along with the tomatoes, additional can of beans, broth and basil. Add pepper to taste.

Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook another 15 minutes.

Add spinach, cook an additional 5 minutes, then serve.


The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1
page 320

One way people have made this soup even quicker is to avoid all the chopping and just do a rough chop of the veggies and pulse them in the food processor to turn them into smaller bits. While it does make for nice tiny pieces of the veggies, you're now stuck with clean-up of a multi-part appliance and a knife instead of just a knife. You can also use dehydrated/freeze dried veggies, either reconstituted first or just tossed into the pot with an extra cup of water or broth. For this meal, I'm using freshly chopped carrots and zuke, frozen onion, but freeze-dried celery.

I don't bother mushing up a can of beans. Near the end of the recipe, if I do want the soup a bit creamier, I take the immersion blender to it. I usually just skip that part and the soup is hearty enough.

I usually skip the zucchini, but did buy one this time. Right now they're plentiful and cheap.

Although it always tastes just fine to me as-is, my husband always takes his bottle of sriracha sauce and shakes a bit into it for added flavor. He seems to do that with more and more foods lately, especially now that he's on a low salt diet. Better him than me - I can't stand super hot and spicy things! When we were younger (WAY younger!), he would eat hot peppers out of a jar as a snack and add them to every sandwich he had. Just touching one of those would burn my finger, so you would never catch me attempting to eat one of them! He stopped his pepper infatuation almost 20 years ago but started it up again with the discovery of the rooster sauce a few months ago, before his heart surgery. It became a blessing then, when he had no appetite, and the sauce made foods more palatable to him.

This is a hearty soup and always made enough for us to enjoy for 3 days of lunches or 1 dinner and 1 lunch. If I want to stretch it out even further, I would get a loaf of whole grain bread and have a little of that every time, too. 

Darn, I really want this soup now! The Speedy Vegetable and Bean soup should last just about one more day and after that I can make this one for lunches during the week.

Jeff Novick Videos

Boy, oh boy! Long-term readers of this blog know how much I enjoy Jeff Novick and his works. Didi on the McDougall forums just posted a link to a Jeff Novick video on smoothies, and I discovered he's been doing a whole series of videos for EHE International - Executive Health Exams.

While I'm waiting for him to finally release his fourth Fast Food DVD of more SNAP meals (but not tomato based) that he announced over a year ago, I'll have to make myself happy watching these short videos. Fast Food 3 - Shopping School was announced at the same time, but that one did come out. Jeff is "delete happy" and removed all traces of those conversations from the forums so I can't link to the announcement from last autumn when he said it was delayed until after the holidays. Well, holiday season 2012 is long gone and holiday season 2013 is rapidly approaching, so I hope it finally gets released soon.

Is it my eyes or is he "aging in reverse" and getting younger??


Cousin Shiela is back! I love his videos with her! You can see that humor runs in the whole family!

And of course, his "scoop on spuds":

I'm cooking up some taters for breakfast as I type. Yukon Golds are worth their weight in real gold!

There are 26 videos on that site right now and 15 of them are from Jeff. Oh, boy!

VeganMoFo Day 28 - Bachelor's Bounty

I haven't used as many recipes from Dr. Pinckney as I originally planned and hope this one makes up for it. It's another quick, dump, heat and eat one, at least after the pasta is cooked.

Bachelors' Bounty
Amazingly simple and easy one dish dinner for people who don't cook 

1 1/2 C whole wheat macaroni
1 can beans in tomato sauce
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 T ketchup
1/4 C BBQ sauce
1 T taco seasoning
crushed chili peppers or hot sauce to taste

Cook macaroni, drain. Add everything else. Stir and simmer a few minutes.

2 huge servings, each 584 calories:  3% from fat (2.34 g), 82% from carbohydrates (129.1g), 15% from protein (24.0 g). Sodium 365* mg, Fiber 22 g.   *when made with no salt added beans and tomatoes

Healing Heart Hints:
Adding shredded fat-free soy cheddar and/or soy parmesan cheese when cooking gives this dish a TexMex flavor.

Any diced vegetables can be added, but they should be steamed or microwaved for a few minutes before mixing them in.

Cooking pasta requires plenty of water, at least three cups for each cup of pasta. Bring water to a full boil and slowly add pasta, stirring at first to prevent it from sticking together or to the pot. Most white pastas take about 6 to 9 minutes to cook, whole wheat pasta a minute or two longer. No oil or salt needs to be added. Check to see how well done it is by taking out a piece and biting into it. When done, rinse immediately in cool water to stop it from cooking more. Overcooked pasta can be gruesome. Pasta can be warmed just before serving by rinsing in warm water. If you make more than you can eat, put it into a baggie and freeze it; a few minutes of microwaving will have it as good as new. 

©2001 Dr. Neal Pinckney / Healing Heart Foundation
When the web site's servers are fixed, it'll be found here again, but for now you can grab it from Susan V's Fat Free Vegan page for it.

I make mine a little bit different than this, because although this says it makes 2 servings, we want a little more so we can have some leftovers, too.

I use a whole box/bag of pasta. For this I'm using Tinkyada's Fusilli.

I need low/no salt added products, so I'm using 2 cans of mild Health Valley no-salt chili purchased from VitaCost instead of beans in tomato sauce. Doing that also eliminates the need for taco seasoning.

I would have tossed some spinach or kale into the pasta water, but after yesterday's problem with the soup my hubby requesting NOTHING GREEN for today. I can't say that I blame him. The rehab nurse even called the house before she left for the day to make sure he was feeling alright again, so I wonder how bad be looked when all that was happening.

You know at the beginning of every episode of Futurama there's always a billboard for Bachelor Chow? This is the stuff they had in mind. But it's not a perfect bachelor food - there are too many ingredients. The pasta and 2 cans of the tomato-y beans/chili would have been enough. I've lived with bachelors, my husband was one and we used to visit his friends' places before we all got married. To them, a meal is tomato soup made with hot water and ketchup. This is way too fancy for the bachelors I have known, including my own son. He said it was too spicy, too many flavors in one bowl.

My husband declared it almost as good as our usual Friday night pizza. Almost. He still prefers to keep up our family traditions, so next week it's back to pizza again for Friday's dinner.

VeganMoFo Day 27 - Speedy Vegetable and Bean Soup

A Fuhrman recipe soup today. 

You can tell Autumn is in the air, even though the temperatures aren't quite there yet during the day. In the mornings, sure. More than once already I've waken up to temps still in the upper 40's, but they warm up to near 80 by afternoon. But morning comes later, night comes earlier, and my body starts craving those soups and stews. I've read on a few message boards and blogs that others are feeling the same way.

Speedy Vegetable and Bean Soup
Serves: 10
Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
1 pound frozen Asian vegetables
1 pound frozen broccoli florets
1 pound frozen mixed vegetables
1 pound frozen collard greens
2 cups frozen corn
1 cup frozen onions
7 cups carrot juice
4 cups water
1 1/2 cups sun-dried tomatoes, snipped in half
1 cup cooked adzuki beans, or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
1 cup cooked red beans or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
3 cups cooked lentils or canned no salt added or low sodium, drained
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest or other no salt seasoning
1 tablespoon Spike, no salt
2 teaspoons chili powder
8 ounces organic baby spinach or coarsely chopped organic spinach

Instructions:
In a large soup pot combine all ingredients, except the fresh spinach. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Add more water if a thinner soup is desired.

Turn off heat and stir in spinach to wilt.


The recipe above was taken from the Member Center on the Fuhrman web site using his link to recipes from the book. The link only works for forum members. The recipe as printed in the book is a bit different:

First off, the name is Quick Vegetable Bean Soup.
The first few rows of frozen veggies stays the same, but there's no corn in the book version.
Then there's just one cup of water and 4 cups carrot juice.
The lentils are listed as 2 cans instead of freshly made.
Adzuki and red beans are both listed as one can each.
The sun-dried tomatoes aren't clipped in half and is only a cup.
The book calls for a pound of spinach, the web only half.
Garlic is listed as 1 teaspoon garlic powder.
Other spices are 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon garam masala and an optional 1/2 teaspoon curry powder. There's no mention of Spike.
Another optional ingredient is 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast.


Cholesterol Protection for Life
Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
page 102

My changes include combining both recipes.

Frozen veggies stay the same and I'm including the corn because I love corn. But wait - Where's my broccoli? I know I bought a bag of broccoli the other day! Crap! No broccoli! Oh, well. Too late now.

Since all I have left in the closet is one jar of carrot juice, that's what I'll be using. The water is a bit more than the one cup in the book but less than the 4 cups in the web recipe. This finally finishes off my stash of carrot juice.

I made fresh lentils and there are no adzuki beans in my entire city, canned or dried, so one full can of red (1 1/2 cups) will have to do. This pot is getting really crowded, and it's the largest one I own, too.

Who cares about what size to cut sun-dried tomatoes? I just grabbed a bag of julienned. No mess, no measure.

Same ease for the spinach. I have a 1-pound bag of triple-washed baby spinach to dump in. That'll bring it up to the rim of the pot when I add it. 

Spike and nutritional yeast are being used, for both taste and convenience, but I'll leave the nooch at 1/4 cup, thanks to my having powdered, not flakes.

After the spinach was added

I love these dump, heat & eat recipes! As soon as VeganMoFo is over I already have some Jeff Novick SNAP and Engine 2 meals planned. This one takes an hour to heat, but once everything is dumped in you can just forget about it until dinner time.

As usual when I make these big batches of soup, I used the large pot from my pressure cooker, the 8 quart one. When the spinach was added, as I predicted, the greens were over the top, but once they warmed and softened and mixed into the soup, the level came down to about an inch below the rim of the pot. Whoa, mama! This makes a heck of a lot of soup!

But because it's mostly green/yellow veggies, it's not that filling. My husband even dunked 4 slices of whole wheat bread in his bowls just to feel fuller. We each had 2 large bowls of it and used up half the pot, even though Dr. Fuhrman says this makes 10 servings. I guess they would have to be smaller servings than we're used to eating. We'll have those smaller ones when we finish this soup over over the next 2 days for lunch.

As for the taste? Well, there are so many things in there you can't really taste any one - it's just a mouthful of, well, stuff. All that stuff made this a fairly expensive meal to make, compared to the usual starchivore meals I make, that is. 



All those frozen veggies alone, even choosing store-brand when I could, cost over $20, then add the juice, the ebans - well, it certainly costs more than a bag of veggies and a few taters. To be honest, if it wasn't for the spices - the VeggieZest and Spike, this would probably be pretty much tasteless.

Others may enjoy it, but this isn't a soup I'll be making again. My husband had a dizzy spell and cold sweats in cardiac rehab this morning and my son had to go over to drive him home. His blood pressure dropped to 90/50 during the session. While waiting for them to get in I phoned the rehab nurse and found out from her that he had diarrhea all night long that he didn't tell me about, and her feeling is that he was just dehydrated. Maybe this is why Dr. Fuhrman calls for the recipe to make small servings. She also discovered today that he doesn't eat any breakfast before he goes for his hour exercise session and said she reprimanded him for that, too, and now wants him to eat before coming. She told him she doesn't care that he's not a breakfast eater usually but should have at least a few pieces of toast before coming in to give the body the fuel it needs. I think a nice bowl of something like Apple Pie Oats or just plain old fashioned oats with blueberries will do the trick. Only takes 3 minutes to get ready from pantry to table so he has no excuse. I'll even make it for him while he gets his sneakers on, it's that quick to make.

Back to the soup - he has informed me that he's not going to any more of it ever, and has said not to make any more very veggie heavy meals like that ever again. Even before his heart thing he had a hard time with meals like this, and I had been asked not to make any on a work night. He has a 90 minute commute each way via public transportation, and there are no restrooms on subways or light rail trains nor their stations, so if the urge hits, he's literally SOL. So no more Fuhrman or other greens-heavy meals for us, at least not the night before any day we have to leave the house, which is just about every day. 

It sucks to get old.