Mexi Corn Soup

Here's another McDougall soup I tried for the first time this week. This one comes from the book The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart. It's currently out of print, but you can find it both new and used from various book vendors, and you can get the PDF version of it from the McDougall web site, regular price $10 but using the code download20 get it for 20% off. It's well worth the money even at regular price. Dr. McDougall discuses how the basic McDougall program works for those with heart disease, and many of my favorite Mary McDougall recipes are from this book. This book contains the eating plan Dr. Esselstyn based his program on.

On to the recipe:

Mexican Corn Soup
SERVINGS: 6
PREPARATION TIME: 10 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 25 MINUTES
1/3 cup water
4 cups Vegetable Broth
3 cups frozen shredded potatoes (no fat added)
1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels
1 green bell pepper, chopped 1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups mild salsa
1 clove garlic, minced 1/4  teaspoon dried oregano
Chopped fresh cilantro for garnish (optional)

Place the water in a large soup pot with the .green pepper, green onions,
and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the remaining
ingredients, except the cilantro, and cook over medium low heat for 20
minutes. Garnish with chopped cilantro before serving, if desired.

I did substitute a bit, like dried Zatarain's Chopped Green Onions (by McCormack) and dried green pepper flakes from Burma Spice instead of fresh. Because of this, I added an extra half cup of water to the pot. I also skipped the optional cilantro garnish.

At first, my husband was disappointed when he sat down and looked in the bowl. He thought I said I was making the same old Mexi Soup that I've been making for years, and was looking forward to having that tomato based soup. He was also disappointed there was no cornbread with it, like I serve with the Mexi Soup. 

He quit pouting as soon as he had that first spoonful.

What I show in the photo is about half a Corningware serving bowl because I wanted to hurry up and get the picture before he sat down to eat. Each bowl holds about 4 cups comfortably. I filled each bowl to twice what's shown. He ate 2 full bowls to my one and he wanted more, he said it was so good. Not that he could fit any more into his tummy, it just tasted so good he wanted more. He waddled away from the table quite satisfied with his now full belly, declaring this one is another keeper.

Chalk up another win for Mary McDougall!

Hearty White Bean Soup

Let's see, when last commented on (In the Comments to this post), I had just gone back on the inhaled steroids, was then given a round of antibiotics, was ordered to use the nasal inhaler the doc  was prescribing, and told to force fluids to clear up that newest round of asthma and bronchitis. He kept the asthma med at the same dose strength but really wanted to put me back on the one twice as strong that he reduced back in 2017 AND put me on oral steroids, but once I plead my case to go easy on the steroids because of my cataracts he: 1) argued that inhaled steroids don't have anything to do with cataract development (I told him to just Google it or use any of the medical web sites he and the student docs have access to and he'll find I'm not making it up) and 2) caved in and didn't prescribe them when the student showed him some on-line article proving my assertion, but I now have to go back to him in early October so he can see how I'm doing. Since it's been over a month now since all this crap started and I picked up the Advair inhaler again and I still have bouts of coughing and laryngitis, I'm afraid he may win this war, afterall. I absolutely hate oral steroids! They make me feel weird, plus they really give me the screaming munchies! One round in the past led to 50 pound weight increase. :(

In the meantime, I've been making a lot of soup meals because they're not only easy to make but easy to get down this occasionally sore throat of mine. The antibiotics weren't for anything in my chest but he said my throat was as red as the shirt I was wearing that day. Well, duh! If he were coughing 20 out of 24 hours a day, his throat would be red and sore, too! I never did have a fever or pulmonary wheezing, just the cough, cough, cough. At least most of that is behind me and aside from some soreness in my neck muscles, the throat is fine (I hope).

Anyway (I DO get off on tangents!), many of the soups I've made have been the old tried and true Mary McDougall ones, like Festive Dal Soup, Mexi Soup, Bean and Corn Soup (a.k.a. Your Kids Will Love This Soup, Quick Black Bean Soup, Split Pea Soup (both with green split peas and white potatoes and yellow split peas and sweet potatoes - tonight's dinner, BTW). Other soups have been Jill McKeever's Soy Curls Noodle Soup, and even the Bob's Red Mill Veggie Soup Mix. Many of my lunches were one of the soups or chilis from the Harmony House Sample Kit (Yes, even the one or 2 with TVP. Don't tell Dr. McDougall!) if I had no soup leftovers.

I had assumed soup weather was going to be here by now, but temps are still in the low 80's most days. I already have menus made out for the next few weeks with mostly soup meals planned. I'm so glad neither my husband or myself mind hot soups on warm days. Some days it's those same old tried-and-true recipes, but every now and then I have planned a new-to-me soup. The one I made last night, Hearty White Bean Soup, goes back to the fairly new book The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook.

NEW??? OMG!! That book is from 1999 - it's 20 years old already!! I also react this way when people on TV say someone lives in an "old" house that was "built almost 30-50 years ago." In our city, a 50 year old house is referred to as one of the *new* houses in town! The house I'm currently living in goes back to the 1920's, the 6-family house I was born in from the 1880's.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Hearty White Bean Soup

servings: 8

prep time: 15 minutes

cooking time: 30 minutes

1/2 cup water

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, sliced

1 stalk celery, sliced

1 1/2 cups shredded cabbage

1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic

1 15-ounce cans white beans, drained and rinsed

4 cups vegetable broth

2 cups frozen hash brown potatoes

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon soy sauce

several twists freshly ground black pepper

Place the water in a large pot and add the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, and cabbage. Cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients; bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. 

Remove bay leaf before serving.

So, what kind of comments do I have? I used frozen diced onion, half a pound; for a change I used fresh carrots that I chopped up a few days ago with the Vidalia Chop Wizard; I used dehydrated celery flakes instead of fresh; half a bag of Dole cole slaw mix for the cabbage; and as usual, skipped the bay leaf.

Delicious! And yes, hearty. My husband said it was so filling he didn't need any bread to sop up the liquid. He also requested it again soon. Lucky for him I still have half a bag of cole slaw mix in the refrigerator, so his wish will be my command later this week.

Brand New Vegan's Brand New Resource Library

Long time McDougaller Chuck Underwood, a.k.a. Brand New Vegan, has had his website going for a few years now. Loads of information and recipes, including sections on MWLP and Mary's Mini. I recently became aware he also has a Facebook community besides his personal and professional page.

Today he wrote about about what would happen if Facebook disappears, and mentioned he now has a password protected resource library on his website. It's free, and as long as you belong to his mailing list you'll get the password and access to it. Sorry I can't link to the message itself - you have to belong to his FB community to see it.

There's nothing earth-shattering there yet - the info is still available in other parts of his web site - but it's sure to grow into a one-stop-shopping place for good info on WFPB eating the McDougall way.

Epic Brats

Yes, I know I've mentioned these brats from the Engine 2 Cookbook a few times on this blog, and each time I admit I haven't made them yet. This is another of those times.

I finally did buy the rice paper wrappers required for it, but still haven't gotten around to doing anything with them.

Maybe the public posting of the recipe here, and this video of who I assume is Engine 2 Coach Ami Mackey, making them, will finally give me the push to do it. 



I have no excuse except for my general laziness. Very few of the meals I make lately even require a recipe - 3 days a week I make brown rice and 3 pounds of frozen veggies and we have them with assorted sauces - the Esselstyn 3-2-1 dressing, Bragg's Aminos, the Esselstyn Sweet Fire dressing, or just plain old low-sodium soy sauce. Twice a week I make spaghetti or other shape pasta with either Jeff Novick's or Mary McDougall's marinara sauce or just a mix of canned or boxed tomatoes. The other 2 days I either make Instant Pot potatoes with frozen veggies and the McDougall Fat-Free Golden Gravy or one of the soups of Mary McDougall, like Quick Black Bean or Bean and Corn Soup, although hubby prefers either Festive Dal or Mexi Soups.

Lately I've been having asthma problems again, thanks to all the rain we've been having and my mold allergy. I really should go back on my inhaler, the one that's a combo bronchodilator and steroid. But studies are now finding that the bronchodilator portion of that med may have contributed to causing my stress cardiomyopathy, and the steroid portion to my rapidly worsening cataracts. Even though it, too, is on the "avoid" list, I've had to take my emergency bronchodilator inhaler a few times over the past few weeks. It's easy for all these people to say "avoid" these meds, but they offer no alternatives, or the alternative is also contraindicated because of either the cardiomyopathy, cataracts, or my autoimmune diseases. The eye doc would say not to take the steroid, the cardiologist would say avoid the bronchodilator, a rheumatologist would say avoid both, and the primary care doc would say to just take it and deal with any consequences if they come up. My choices are to risk another cardiac episode, go blind, risk internal organ damage, or stop breathing. Some choice.

Mom, Make Meals That Are Less Complicated

Or, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

In my case, a bigger food processor, but I'll get to that later in this post.

A few weeks ago Ann and Jane Esselstyn demonstrated this recipe for Oberlin Corn and Shallot Chowder from the Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook (page 89), except they called it Summer Corn Chowder in the video.



The other day I decided to give it a shot, and even bought the twice-as-expensive Pacific lower sodium vegetable broth as suggested. I also mistakenly bought leeks instead of shallots, not realizing my mistake until I was half-way checked out at the register, when the clerk asked me what those things were and I replied: "It was supposed to be shallots but grabbed leeks by mistake. Aw, crap!" I knew I had a container of freeze-dried shallots at home and decided to just use those instead of finishing my order, putting all the bags in the car and going back into the grocery store to grab 2 shallots. I'll find some other use for those leeks, even if it's just cleaning and chopping them and sticking them in a bag in the freezer.

Time came to start the soup, and I took the rehydrated shallots, celery, and broth on to cook as directed. While that was bubbling along I dragged out my food processor and got ready.

Here's where things started to go off the rails.

Instead of putting the veggies and broth into the food processor container first I put the defrosted corn and then started to pour the broth in. I get it only half poured when I notice puddles forming under my food processor! 

ACK!!

I quickly grab some paper towels and start sopping the area of the puddle that wants to pour over the edge of the cabinet. Then I quickly get the top of the food processor off and start pouring what's left in it into the pot and toss that in the sink, then continue grabbing paper towels to clean the still growing mess up.

Yes, those are pencils in my sink. They were on the counter near the pad where I write my shopping lists. The pad went right into the garbage. Those were just a handful of towels I used before getting the food processor opened and food dumped into the pot. There was a heck of a lot more paper towels on the counter, sopping, while I ran to grab the iPad so I could snap this shot. Right after this I poured everything into the pot and put it back on the stove while I washed out the food processor container, the food processor itself, the counter, and everything the broth touched on the counter, like the electric tea kettle, a bunch of spice bottles, and those poor pencils. Hey, they had erasers that worked - I wasn't going to toss them our just because they got a bit of broth on them!

After all the clean-up was done, I tried again, this time only putting a few scoops of soup into the food processor, whirring that up, pouring it into a different pot, then repeating until it was all done. Now I finished up the recipe by heating it all up again before dishing it out.

By now, the lacinato kale that I also bought was finished in the Instant Pot. It was the first time in a few years our store had this and not the curly kale. It tasted so delicious even plain! I did what the Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue book says to do and made half my bowl full of greens, then ladled the soup into it.

A bunch of black pepper got added on top of this.

Now for the taste test.

Well, the kale is delicious. The soup? As Ann says at the end of the video, needs more pepper. It needed something - otherwise it tasted not all that different than a can of no-salt added creamed corn.

Will I ever make this again? No. Not that it's bad - it's just blah. My husband took a taste and grabbed his ever-present bottle of sriracha and added so much his soup was almost pink. Not a good sign. He also told me I can have all the leftovers for myself. Gee, thanks. I had a bit yesterday, and will probably finish it up at lunch today. If I go a bit heavy-handed with the salt shaker it's not too bland.

When my son heard this story (He was at work when it all happened. Hubby wasn't home at the time I did the above, either), he turned to look at me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said the title of this blog post: "Mom, make meals that are less complicated." Will do. 

Either that, or buy a bigger food processor. Mine is the 11 cup model, and in all the years I've had this, I never made a mess as big as this one was. I looked up the one I think Jane has and discovered it's most likely the 16 cup capacity. So word of warning - if you try this soup yourself, either use a larger food processor, a fairly large capacity blender, or an immersion blender. Consider yourself warned!

As for those "less complicated" meals, since 3 days a week I make rice and frozen veggies, 2 days a week some kind of pasta with a very simple sauce, and either a McDougall soup, a SNAP meal, or potatoes and frozen veggies the other 2 days, what I usually make isn't complicated at all. I just wanted something different! That'll teach me!

Speaking of Rip, Plantstock 2019 Videos Now Available

Register at the Engine 2 Plant Strong Academy page, just like last year. And it's also the same price as then, $149. 

There are many returning speakers, like the Esselstyn family (Duh!), Adam Sud, the Drs. Sherzai, and John Mackey, but others include the McDougall Program's own Dr. Anthony Lim, the diabetes experts Dr. Cyrus Khambata and Robby Barabro, Melissa Pampanin (She plays an integral role running MUSE School, the first school in the country that is 100% solar powered, zero waste, and serves a 100% organic, plant-based lunch program.), and a few others I never heard of before, but their topics sound interesting.

I can't wait to dive into them! I still keep a few that I downloaded last year on my iPad to watch when away from home and away from an Internet connection. I can never get too much of Dr. Esselstyn or his wife Ann!

John Stewart Discovers Nooch

I saw this the other day, when John Stewart tagged Rip Esselstyn on this Instagram video. Too bad there's no way to just share the darn video.

Mary's Favorites, Part 2

I admit, I haven't looked at the McDougall Cookbook app for a few months, so maybe this has been there for a while now, but the app just updated a day or so ago and this morning I'm awake since 5am and bored, waiting for my husband to get up (He usually arises around 9 on Sundays), so decided to take a peek and see what, if anything, changed. The last time they updated they returned the print function.

Imagine my surprise when I notice they now have the same categories as the McDougall website, including the Mary's Favorites one!

Okay, now you can all holler at me for not looking more frequently, that this has been there for ages. Go ahead, you have every right to embarrass me for not diligently looking at this app. I deserve it. LOL

Mary's Favorites

For those who haven't explored the McDougall web site lately, it's s-l-o-w-l-y being updated. Like, taking a year or 2 to see any changes on the site or message boards.

For those who have signed up to receive email notices from the McDougall Program, I'm sure you've seen the weekly resending of the old McDougall's Moment videos and the occasional recipes post. Well, earlier today another group of recipe links came into my mailbox, this time labeled McDougall Family Favorite Recipes. Yes, these are the same old tried-and-true recipes that I've been serving my family for a few decades now, but I noticed at the bottom of the list of links the orange button that says Click Here for More Delicious McDougall Favorites. I assumed it would just to to the general recipe page, but I'm bored so I clicked it anyway.

Guess what! It didn't go where I thought it was going!

One of the changes to the web site over the past year was the recipe section's links being divided into categories, like Appetizers, Breakfasts, One Pot Meal Recipes, and so on. It never dawned on me that there was a section with all my favorite recipes, the same recipes that are classified as Mary's Favorites!

From now on, when someone on Facebook asks for the community's members to post their favorite recipes, all I have to do is send them to the Mary's Favorites section!

Now if only they would add a Kids' Favorites category! That's the second most requested category of recipes asked for on McDougall/Starch Solution Facebook communities (OK, maybe tied with MWLP recipes, which does have its own section).

Atlanta Creole Is Back

I forget this lady's name, having seen her write once or twice on some McDougall-themed Facebook community. She's done some nice recipes on her YouTube page, and lost weight following the McDougall food plan. Here's her video explaining how she lost her first 50 pounds:



And she's even contributed a video to the Starch Queens YouTube site:



She posted a few dozen more recipe videos on her site, and a dozen or so videos explaining what's going on in her weight loss journey, and soon after one on the Pleasure Trap, she vanished. No new videos appeared for about a year.

And now she's back, popping in to say she's going to follow a potato-based Mary's Mini for 10 days.



It's been three days, and already she's posted 2 more potato recipe videos with her special touch. 

Stop on over and give her videos a view, especially if you have a hankering for Creole foods.