VeganMoFo Day 14 - Golden Gravy

No list of favorites is complete without gravy!

This is one of our favorites as well as Mary McDougall's. It appeared in the January 2013 newsletter, but I've had it in my recipe cardfile for years, so it must have appeared on-line or in one of the books before that.

CREAMY GOLDEN GRAVY 
This gravy literally takes minutes to put together. Sometimes my boys eat just a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy for a snack. For dinner, we serve this meal with sautéed broccolini or green beans.

Preparation Time:  5 minutes
Cooking Time:  10 minutes
Servings:  makes 2 cups

2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons tahini
¼ cup brown rice flour
freshly ground black pepper

Place all the ingredients, except the pepper, in a small saucepan.  Stir well to mix.  Cook over medium–low heat, stirring occasionally until smooth and thick.  Season with freshly ground black pepper to taste.  Serve at once.

Hint: This may be made ahead and refrigerated.  It will thicken slightly more when refrigerated.  To reheat, place in a saucepan, add a small amount of water, whisk to combine and then heat slowly, stirring occasionally, until hot.

For purposes of VeganMoFo I did use the tahini this time, but usually leave it out. It's a wee bit less creamy without it but tastes just as great.

I never use rice flour but always use either white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour. I never have a problem getting this to thicken, unlike recipes that call for cornstarch.

One of our favorite meals. My husband calls this Unchicken Dinner, because it has everything a down-home chicken dinner would have except for the chicken itself. During the rest of the year I usually make this meal every Sunday, alternating the veggies and gravy. This time it's the Golden Gravy with baby carrots and cooked mixed greens.

Comfort food at its finest.

VeganMoFo Day 13 - Summer Stew

After this meal I didn't want to see another zucchini for a long time!

This one comes from the September 2011 McDougall newsletter. If anyone still has a bunch of zucchini around from their home gardens, Heather just did a whole newsletter of zucchini recipes this past July.


SUMMER STEW

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 6-8

1 ¼ cups water
2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
6 small zucchini, sliced ½ inch thick
4 small yellow crookneck squash, sliced ½ inch thick
1 green or red pepper, coarsely chopped
2 cups snow peas, trimmed and left whole
3 cups tomato chunks
2 cups corn kernels
3 tablespoons soy sauce
Seasonings (see note under hints)
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Sauté onions and garlic in ½ cup water in a large saucepan. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes.

Add both kinds of summer squash, green or red pepper, snow peas, and tomatoes, plus another ½ cup water. Cover and simmer over medium heat for 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add corn and chosen seasonings. Simmer an additional 10 minutes.

Mix cornstarch in ¼ cup cold water. Gradually add to stew while stirring. Cook and stir until thickened.

Serve hot over whole grains.

HINTS: This is a very low calorie stew. It is delicious with many different seasonings. Choose one of the four seasoning mixtures here, or use your own favorites.

1. 1 teaspoon turmeric, 1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro.
2. 1 teaspoon dried basil or 1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped, 1 teaspoon dried oregano or 1 tablespoon fresh oregano, chopped, 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped, dash lemon juice.
3. ½ teaspoon basil, 1 teaspoon dill weed, 1 teaspoon paprika
4. ½ teaspoon thyme, ½ teaspoon rosemary, ½ teaspoon marjoram, ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard.

Let me explain my changes:

Our stores don't know the meaning of the words "small zucchini" so I bought 6 of the smallest I could find and wound up using only 4, because otherwise it would be just too much zucchini.

None of us are fans of snow peas (those strings like to attack us when we least expect it) so I just used a bag of frozen peas.

For the seasonings, Simon and Garfunkle kept popping in my head (It does that a lot when I cook) and I had to go with the last option. I know, I know, there's no parsley or sage, but the earworm stopped as soon as I finished cooking.




Like this guy, I, too, still have my LP of this album, and when really nostalgic or depressed still play it. Otherwise, I just pop the CD in. There's something about the pops and hisses that soothe the soul.

Back to the stew.

As you an see, there was so much green zucchini you can't even find the yellow squash in the pot! 

I always have a problem getting things to thicken. I added a bit more cornstarch after the initial amount, but even after rapidly boiling for a while it never really thickened to my satisfaction. Maybe I just have too high expectations in wanting the stew liquid to be the thickness of gravy. But it was still mighty tasty. I served this over some brown rice. We each had one big, one smaller serving and I still had enough to put away for lunches the next 2 days.

VeganMoFo Day 12 - Festive Dal Soup

Here's another soup for you all. It comes from the March 2007 McDougall newsletter, and has been made at least once a month since it first appeared.

Festive Dal Soup

This soup is a beautiful red and green color and it is so delicious and easy to make that it has become a lunchtime favorite in our home.

Preparation Time:  10 minutes
Cooking Time:  60 minutes
Servings:  4 

3 ¼ cups water
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 ½ teaspoons grated fresh ginger
¾ teaspoon smoked paprika
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup red lentils
1  15 ounce can garbanzos, drained and rinsed
1  14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon chili paste (Sambal Oelek)
2 cups fresh chopped spinach

Place ¼ cup of the water in a large soup pot.  Add the onion and garlic.  Cook, stirring occasionally for 3-4 minutes, until softened.  Add the ginger, paprika, cumin and several twists of freshly ground pepper.  Mix in well, then add the remaining water, the lentils, garbanzos and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 50 minutes, until lentils are tender. Add lemon juice, chili paste and spinach.  Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Season with a bit of sea salt, if desired. Serve hot.

Let's see, what changes did I made for this one? Bottled minced ginger instead of fresh. Frozen instead of fresh spinach. I even used the sambal oelek as directed. I'm trying to get used to having foods with a little more "heat" to them. Maybe this way my husband won't be going through bottles of sriracha like water.

Out of all the McDougall soups I've made over the years, this one has to be our all-time favorite. I hope you people like it as much as we do.

VeganMoFo Day 11 - Layered Bean Casserole

This is probably my husband's all time favorite meal right now. Well, the original version of it, at least. He loves it so much it was the first meal I made him when he got home after his CABG last year, and if I listened to him would make it at least once a week. I even wrote a VeganMoFo post about it back in 2012.

Mary McDougall dolls it up a little with extra ingredients.

Layered Bean Casserole

This recipe was originally posted on the McDougall Discussion Board several years ago.  I have modified it slightly for taste and convenience.  I really like recipes that can be prepared ahead and then popped into the oven just before dinner.

Preparation Time:  20 minutes
Cooking Time:  45 minutes
Servings: 6

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Bottom layer:
1  15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1  15 ounce can red or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1  15 ounce can chili beans in oil-free sauce, undrained
1  8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed slightly
¼ cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons chili powder

Mix all above ingredients together and ladle into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, distributing evenly.

Middle layer:
1  15 ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
½ cup fresh salsa
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard

Place all above ingredients in a food processor and process until very smooth.  Pour over the bean layer and spread evenly.

Top layer:
1  20 ounce bag fresh shredded oil-free hash brown potatoes

Sprinkle the potatoes evenly over the bottom two layers.  Bake uncovered for 45 minutes until potatoes are brown and sauce is bubbly.

Hints:  Serve with hot sauce to drizzle over the top for more heat, or serve with tofu sour cream to mellow it out a bit.


My changes:

In the original I use Southern Style hash browns, the diced ones. For this recipe I use the shredded hash browns as written.

For the canned chili beans, I use whichever version of the no-salt chili from Health Valley that Tame Tomato happens to be the one I had on hand, but doesn't seem to be available from VitaCost at the moment. VitaCost did have it when I last ordered.

I change the order around a bit, too. The bean mixture stays on the bottom, but I put the potatoes in the middle and top it with the sauce. I don't like sharp-as-nails crunchy hash brown shards and prefer them moister.

No matter which recipe I use, this dish is heavenly and if it wasn't for the heat during the summer I probably would make either version of it weekly. I've even made it in the microwave and lived with soggy potatoes. That's how good it is!

VeganMoFo Day 10 - Reuben Sandwiches

I haven't had a real Reuben sandwich in decades! These were a mainstay every Saint Patrick's Day and yearly at the local Irish Festival every September. Some years we would go to the festival, grab 2 sandwiches, eat while listening to the live bands, then take the light rail trains right back home and be gone less than an hour. This year, for the first time in over 2 decades, no festival. Not enough funds and too big a security risk (The site is less than a mile from Downtown Manhattan).

Corned beef has been relegated to the seitan version for a long time now

 

and Mary McDougall has her own version of a Reuben sandwich that relies on tofu. It's not quite the same, but close enough.

 Reuben Sandwiches 

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  5 minutes
Servings:  variable

sliced rye bread
fat free honey-mustard dressing,
baked tofu or tempeh, thinly sliced
sauerkraut, drained
sliced tomatoes
sliced onions
soy or rice cheese (optional) 

Lay the bread slices out on your work space and spread both sides with a thin layer of the dressing.  Place the tofu or tempeh on one side of the bread.  Next add a thin layer of the sauerkraut, then the tomatoes and onions.  Finish with a small amount of soy cheese, if you wish.  Place another slice of the bread over these ingredients to make a sandwich.  Repeat as many times as necessary to serve everyone.

Heat a non-stick griddle to medium-low.  Place the sandwiches on the griddle, probably 2 at a time.  Grill until browned on one side (about 1 minute) then flip over and grill on the other side.  This usually takes only a very short time.  Remove from griddle, slice in half and serve warm.

Hints:  Baked tofu is sold in packages in most natural food stores, usually in various flavors.  Look for the brands that are lowest in fat content.  Tempeh is made from fermented soybeans, sometimes flavored, sometimes with other ingredients added. To marinate the tempeh before using, place about 1/3 cup of fat-free soy-ginger or teriyaki sauce in a bowl with the tempeh.  Turn several times to coat.  Drain, then briefly sauté in a non-stick frying pan. Slice either the baked tofu or the tempeh rather thinly crosswise, so you are working with larger thin sections rather than thin strips.  Your natural food store should have both of these products available in the refrigerated section.  Water-packed sauerkraut can also be found in the natural food store, usually by the canned vegetables or pickles.  Use any fat-free dressing that you like on the bread, Tofu Island Dressing from the Quick & Easy Cookbook is also a favorite of ours.

Baked tofu doesn't exist in my area - tofu itself barely does - so I just sliced up a pound of store-brand extra firm and fried it up on a non-stick skillet with a few sprays of Bragg's Aminos on each side.

If I had remembered ahead of time I would have made my own rye bread in the bread machine. Instead I had to settle for a package of store-baked rye whose first ingredient was regular white flour. I'll be popping a fresh bag of organic whole grain rye flour in the cart next time I put an Amazon order in to be ready when I need rye bread again.

No-salt added sauerkraut! I haven't seen this in ages so picked up 2 cans. They're both dated 2017 so unless my pantry closet swallows it up (It has a habit of doing that with canned goods that I buy) I now have some for the next time I need sauerkraut.

My husband started to grab this lite honey mustard salad dressing but I pointed out it has oil in it. I used the Esselstyn 3-2-1 Dressing, instead. I always keep a batch of it in the refrigerator at all times because this is our "house" go-to sauce/dressing. Veggies and rice? 3-2-1 dressing. Salads? Ditto. A dry sandwich or some blah soup that needs a little "something" but sriracha sauce doesn't fit the flavors? Bring it on!

I know Dr. Fuhrman says raw onions are healthier, but he doesn't have to live with me after I eat them, so I always cook mine up a bit. It's no trouble to toss a handful on the griddle while frying up the tofu and saves my boys from a lot of fragrant agony in the evening (My guys don't call me "Puumba" for no reason.). 



Here are 2 sandwiches side by side - one already grilled, one not.

Delicious! Messy, because the salad dressing does make the flimsy rye bread quite soggy, but quite tasty, none the less.

I have to remember to make these up more often.

VeganMoFo day 9 - Quinoa Chowder

Quinoa Chowder is from the November 2007 McDougall newsletter, and another recipe that you can experiment with to suit your own tastes.

Quinoa Chowder

We really enjoy soups during the winter months.  This is a hearty, yet simple soup, filled with delicious healthy ingredients.

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  40 minutes
Servings:  6-8

½ cup quinoa, rinsed well
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
2 ½ cups fingerling potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
¼ to ½ teaspoon chili paste (Sambal Oelek)
2 cups frozen corn kernels
3-4 cups sliced fresh spinach
freshly ground pepper to taste 

Place the first 8 ingredients in a large soup pot.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for 20 minutes.  Add the corn, mix well and cook an additional 15 minutes.  Stir in the spinach 5 minutes before the soup is done.  Add some pepper to taste, if desired.

Hints:  To spice this up a bit more, let each person add some hot sauce to taste before eating.  If you can’t find fingerling potatoes, use Yukon Gold or red potatoes and chop them into bite sized chunks.


My changes:
I was out of regular quinoa at the time so used red quinoa. Some people can tell a taste difference, but I can't.

Used my usual boxed salt-free oil-free vegetable broth from Pacific.

For the onion, I took the lazy way out and used most of a bag of diced frozen onions. We love onions. Used garlic cloves from a bag, too. I usually toss the bag into the freezer when I get home from the store and just take out as many cloves as needed for any particular dish. For this one, althoug it says 2 to 4 I used about 8. No vampires here!

Instead of having to buy 2 microwaveable bags of fingerling potatoes and then cut them up into a dice I just used frozen Southern Style hash brown potatoes. Cheaper and quicker. Those tiny bags of fingerlings are $5 each around here and aren't even organic.

As usual for me, I skipped the jalepenos and chili paste. Hubby dosed his bowl of soup with about an ounce of sriracha sauce. I don't know how his gut can stand that stuff! 

And again, as usual for me, I used frozen, not fresh spinach.

Now isn't that a pretty bowl of soup? Like my Mickey Mouse spoon, too? 

We had whole grain seeded bread with it. As with most of Mary McDougall's soup recipes, it made 2 large bowls for each of us with no leftovers, and thanks to that bread, kept us filled until breakfast the next morning.

VeganMoFo Day 8 - Lima Bean Surprise

Here's one I hadn't made in a while. I forget which book it first appeared in, but it's also in this September 2009 newsletter.

Lima Bean Surprise

This is one of my favorite fast, and delicious, meals that can be put together, cooked and served in only 15 minutes. John has been talking about this meal in many of his lectures lately and so I have gotten many requests for the recipe.  I have added some fresh tomatoes to the recipe because they are so abundant in our garden this year.

Preparation Time:  5 minutes (cooked rice needed)
Cooking Time:  10 minutes
Servings:  3-4

¼ cup vegetable broth
½ tablespoon soy sauce
2 ½ cups frozen lima beans (16 ounce bag)
2 ½ cups shredded cabbage
1-2 teaspoons seasoning mixture (see hints below)
½  - 1 teaspoon Sambal Oelek
1 ½ cups frozen corn, thawed slightly
2 ½ to 3 cups cooked brown rice
1 large chopped tomato

Place broth, soy sauce, lima beans and shredded cabbage in a large non-stick sauté pan and cook stirring frequently for about 2 minutes.  Add the seasoning mixture of your choice and Sambal Oelek.  Continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Add corn and cook, stirring occasionally for another 2 minutes.  Add rice and continue to cook and stir until rice is heated through and all vegetables are tender. Stir in tomatoes.  Serve at once.

Hints:  Bags of shredded cabbage are available in many supermarkets, or shred your own cabbage in a food processor. To thaw the corn slightly, place in a colander and rinse with cool water. If you don’t have leftover cooked rice in your refrigerator, use a package of frozen brown rice and heat it in the microwave. There are many delicious seasoning mixtures on the market.  Try Mrs. Dash, or a lemon dill mixture.  I often use Lemony Dill Zest by Vegetarian Express. We like to top this with Sriracha Hot Sauce and it is wonderful rolled up in a soft corn tortilla.

The only change I made to this was using a bag of cole slaw mix instead of plain cabbage. For the seasoning I used Mrs. Dash Table mixture. And I did use both the fresh tomato and sambal oelek. There's so little of this hot chili paste used that it doesn't bother me. I'm kind of getting used to it now, but don't tell my husband or he'll insist I use lots of hot sauce all the time.


As the veggies cooked I made up my rice in my Zoji rice cooker, then combined everything into the cooker's pan to keep warm until my husband finished his movie and was ready to eat.

I really should make this one up more often and use some of the dried lima beans I have. I found a nice one called Christmas beans that I'm dying to use. This may be a good recipe to try them on.

VeganMoFo Day 7 - Sloppy Lentil Joes Sandwiches

This is one of our favorite sandwich fillings. This recipe from Mary McDougall is tasty and easy to put together. I don't remember when it first appeared in print/on-line, but it's been in at least one newsletter and book, probably more than one each.

Sloppy Lentil Joes

This is a quick and easy meal that also reheats well for lunch the next day or two.  Serve this stuffed into a bun and eat with your hands, or ladle it over the buns open-face style and eat with a fork. I like to make fresh bread in my bread machine and ladle the Sloppy Joes over the bread.

Preparation Time:  15 minutes
Cooking Time:  1 hour
Servings:  8-10

3 1/3 cups water
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 ½ cups dried brown lentils
1  15 ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
freshly ground black pepper 

Place 1/3 cup of the water in a large pot.  Add the onions and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally until onions soften slightly, about 5 minutes.  Add the chili powder and mix in well.  

Add the remaining water, the lentils, tomatoes, and the rest of the seasonings.  Mix well, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook over low heat for 55 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Serve on whole wheat buns, or fresh baked bread, with trimmings of your choice.


Unlike Mary, I prefer rolls to bread for this, and luckily I have a source for whole wheat ones made with very little oil. During the cooler weather I do make my own oil-free rolls in my bread machine. 

My usual changes to the recipe? Why, none at all. This is one recipe that's perfect as-is. Sometimes I just use 2 cans of rinsed and drained lentils, but only one store in town sells them and they frequently run out. Freshly made lentils taste better, anyway, and I experiment using different lentils. The recipe may say to use the brown ones but I've made this using red (VERY sloppy!), green, and black lentils.

I had a little problem with my lentils, though. I used some from a 3-pound bag that had been opened a few months ago but are dated 2016. After the first half hour I turned the heat back up to a slow boil. They boiled for an hour and a half after that, and not only were the lentils still hard, there was still a lot of water in the pot.

I gave up after another 15 minutes of boiling and added a 6 ounce can of tomato paste to thicken the sauce. The lentils were still a bit chewy, but at least it was more soupy than watery. I only have about a cup of lentils left in the bag. I'll either toss them in a soup that cooks for hours or maybe pressure cook them for twice the time and see if that helps.

Ignoring the firmness of the lentils, the sandwiches still tasted great.

I tried not to get much sauce in the spoon, and was already soaked into the bread. By the time I picked it up the whole thing collapsed into a soggy mess.

As for the number of servings, this is one recipe that my serving count matches Mary's. I had 2 sandwiches, my husband had three, and I put half the mixture away in the freezer for a quick meal in the future.

VeganMoFo Day 6 - Creamy Broccoli Pasta

We have pasta at least once a week in this house. My son makes it daily for himself. Before we McDougalled it was the same old semolina pasta that most SAD eaters prefer. 

When I was a kid way back in the 1950's and 1960's, we were able to buy it fresh from some of the local Italian places. My mother and one grandmother even took the time to make their own noodles on occasion. I remember helping them roll out the dough until it was less than an eighth inch thick, letting it dry on the table for a few hours, turning the gigantic rectangle of dough over hourly so it dried evenly, then taking a knife or pizza cutter to to to make long ribbons, then slicing in the other direction to make tiny 1/4 inch square noodles. It was tedious, back-breaking work, but OMG! They tasted so great the work was worth it.

There was no way I was going to go through all that. When pasta makers were available for home use I bought one and used it weekly. I remember making tomato elbows, spinach penne, and my husband's

favorite, garlic spaghetti noodles.

Then I made the switch from white flour/semolina to whole wheat, and the joy of pasta making ended. No matter how much liquid I added to the kneading dough it was still so stiff and hard and impossible to pass through the extruders on the machine. I scrubbed the machine well and packed up the machine and dies. I kept it all these years. It moved with us from NJ to Florida and back 15 years ago. It sits in one of the few kitchen cabinets we have in this apartment taking up precious storage space. I really should get rid of it, but like mothers who hold on to their children's most precious toys, I hold on to an appliance that used to give me so much pleasure. I hold out hope that one of these days I'll find a way to make whole grain pasta in it.

Another thing I spent money on one of those hand-crank flat pasta makers:



hoping that I could make whole wheat pasta. At least there was no motor to burn out, right? Wrong. That motor was my own arm muscles, and after a half hour of turning that crank over and over again my shoulder really hurt! That was the beginning of all my shoulder problems in the right arm that persist to this day, almost 2 decades later! I was told they make motors for these units, but those cost three times what I paid for the cutter, and there's still no guarantee it would work with the heaviness of whole wheat doughs, so this is another item should be donated.

I was so happy the first time I saw boxes of whole wheat pasta in the HFS! Each box cost over $5, but our health was worth it. Now you can get whole wheat pasta for under a buck at any grocery store, although the size shrunk from a pound to as low as 10 ounces, depending on brand. And other whole grain pastas have appeared - brown rice, bean, corn, quinoa. So many choices!

Over the years, our family has gravitated towards Tinkyada Rice Pasta as our preferred type and brand of pasta because it tastes most like old fashioned semolina pasta, but for this recipe I decided to go "old school" and buy a box of whole wheat. That was my first problem with this recipe.

Creamy Broccoli Pasta
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 10 Minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes


  8             ounces  pasta -- your choice
     1/2           cup  water
  2                     leeks -- thinly sliced
  2               cups  broccoli florets -- small
  1                cup  soy milk -- or rice milk
  2          teaspoons  cornstarch
  2          teaspoons  chopped fresh basil
     1/8      teaspoon  Tabasco sauce

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Drop in the pasta and cook according to the package directions. Drain and rinse.

Meanwhile, place the water, leeks, and broccoli in a saucepan. Cook, stirring frequently, for 8 minutes. 

Combine the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Add to the vegetable mixture and cook and stir until thickened. 

Serve over the pasta.

Source:
  "McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook"
page 151

We're not used to the grittiness and heaviness, even the overall taste of whole wheat pasta any more. Even though I cooked it longer than package directions it was still very "al dente" and some pieces still seemed uncooked in spots. It was a big turn-off. The recipe called for only 8 ounces of pasta, but I cooked up the whole 12 ounce box and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly.

Instead of 2 leeks I planned on using three. Yes, I used real live leeks, not freeze-dried ones, for this recipe. Never again! First came the buying - they're only sold in bundles of 2 so I had to buy 4. I figured I always come across recipes that need leeks so I would just stick some in the freezer. But after following the directions in this video on how to clean and cut them:

There really didn't seem to be that much leek left, so I wound up using all 4 for this dish. As it turned out, it could have used twice this much.

I used a whole one pound bag of defrosted frozen chopped broccoli, which came out to 4 cups.

I doubled the amount of milk, and it still didn't look like enough, so I added a third cup of almond milk. Even tripling the amount of corn starch the mixture never thickened and I wound up tossing in a heaping teaspoon of Instant Clear Gel. Now it was thickening up a bit!

I put in the rest of the package of basil I had, which came out to a quarter cup of chopped basil. It could have used more.

I even tripled the Tabasco and although I don't like things "hot" felt it needed more.

Notice a running theme here? The whole dish needed something "more."

My husband wound up putting a few ounces of sriracha sauce into his bowl. I used my homemade parmesan (equal parts ground almond meal, nutritional yeast and pinch of salt ground up in a food processor for a few minutes). Doing that made it edible.

We each got one decent sized serving out of it. If I used the 8 ounces of pasta as written only one of us would have eaten. It's like that old joke: This meal tastes so terrible! And they give you such skimpy servings!

Nothing seemed to go right with this meal. In the end, my husband was the first to say I should never make this again, not unless I make some serious changes to up the taste somehow. I agree. 

But if you have a family with little kids or older people who don't like things too flavorful or spicy and prefer the blandest of foods, then this meal is for you! 

VeganMoFo Day 5 - Quick Black Bean Soup

This is one of our all-time favorite soup recipes. It comes from the April 2004 McDougall newsletter and the McDougall Made Easy DVD. 

We have this at least once a month, many times more than that. It comes together in a matter of minutes, and if you don't care what temperature it is, you can eat it immediately after putting everything together in the pot without even heating it!

Quick Black Bean Soup

Preparation Time:  5 minutes
Cooking Time:  10 minutes
Servings: 2-4

3  15 ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1  ¾ cups vegetable broth
1 cup fresh salsa
¼ teaspoon ground oregano
¼ teaspoon chili powder (or more to taste)
1/8 teaspoon smoked chipotle chili powder (optional)
several dashes hot sauce (optional)

Reserve 1 cup of the beans in a separate bowl, place the remaining beans, the vegetable broth and the salsa in a blender jar.  

Process until fairly smooth, then pour into a saucepan.  

Mash the reserved beans slightly with a fork or bean/potato masher.  Add to the saucepan with the remaining ingredients.  

Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes to blend flavors.  Adjust seasoning to taste before serving.

Hints:  This is great to make ahead of time and then heat just before serving.  Make a double batch so you can enjoy a quick bowl of soup when you are hungry.

The only change I make to this recipe is to toss everything in the pot at once and use the immersion blender and whir the whole pot up to a thick liquid. Many times I blended this and immediately sat down to eat it for a quick lunch on busy weekend. It's so filling we don't even use bread with it, just divide it in half between the two of us and dig in. Of course, my husband puts a few squirts of sriracha sauce in his.

This soup was my introduction to black beans, and I'll be forever grateful to Mary McDougall for this recipe.