Sweet and Smoky Dressing

After a few weeks of soups, my husband requested - um, demanded - at least a week of rice and veggie meals. Rice and cauliflower with garbanzos, rice and peas with garbanzos, rice and corn with black beans topped with salsa, rice and green beans and pintos, rice with mixed veggies and limas, rice and carrots with cannelinis, rice with peas & carrots and (you got it) garbanzos. We each have our favorite toppings - our son always uses Bone Sucking Sauce. My husband has been back and forth between that, Trader Joe's Cowboy Caviar or Pineapple Salsa, and the Esselstyn 3-2-1 dressing. I use either Bone Sucking sauce, Bragg's or low sodium soy sauce, low sodium teriyaki sauce, the Esselstyn Sweet Fire sauce, and sometimes Jeff Novick's tahini dill sauce.

But not only am I now sick of rice, I'm sick of all those same old toppings.

Yesterday I decided to once again try one of Chef AJ's dressings. This one is called Sweet and Smoky Dressing.

Sweet and Smoky Dressing

1 cup of water
1/2 cup of lime juice
4 ounces of pitted dates - soaked
1/4 cup Westbrae salt-free mustard
1 teaspoon chia seeds
2 teaspoons SMOKED paprika
1/4 teaspoon chipotle powder

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth and creamy.  Refrigerate any unused portion.

and it comes from episode 126 of her Weight Loss Wednesday series.



I soaked 8 deglet noor dates in boiled water for a half hour. Good thing I learned from Jeff Novick to never trust the front label of a product - although it says they're pitted, I found pits in 2 of them. Thanks, Jeff, for saving my blender blades once again. Gulden's mustard instead of Westbrae, orgainic bottled lime juice instead of fresh squeezed, and a bit less than 1/4 teaspoon of the chipotle powder. Well, I'm glad I did that - even with the smaller amount of chipotle this was still a bit too "hot" for my taste.

I didn't have time to refrigerate this for too long before serving it, and the dressing was still pretty watery. I'm hoping after it sits and cools for a day it's a bit thicker.

Conclusion: I wasn't a fan but my husband loves it. He'll be using this stuff for the rest of the week, and probably ask me to make it again in the future. He also requested I add the rest of the chipotle powder before I put it away last night so it'll be even hotter tonight. I'll probably grab the Bragg's, myself, for tonight.

Hopefully he'll have his fill or rice by the end of the week and next week I can get back to those soup meals. It's not even a full week of these rice meals yet and I already gained back 3 of the pounds I lost during those soup weeks.

Quick Bean and Vegetable Chowder

For the 6 of you who read my last post on the flu shot - please disregard. I wonder why my doc said all that he did, because I'm perfectly fine, not even sore in the injection site like I usually am.

Now, on to the recipe!

~~~

Another entry in the Best Soup competition. :)

This is another one from the McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart book, and it's also posted on the McDougall website in the Recipes section:

Quick Bean and Vegetable Chowder
SERVINGS: 4
PREPARATION TIME: 10 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 1 HOUR

1 cup Quick Bean Mixture
(recipe follows)
4 cups vegetable broth or water
1 leek, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen diced hash brown potatoes
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage

Combine all ingredients in a medium soup pot. Mix well, cover, bring
to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Quick Bean Mixture
1 cup split green peas
1 cup barley
1 cup split yellow peas
1 cup orzo pasta (or other small pasta)
1 cup brown lentils
1 cup red lentils

Combine well. Store in-a covered jar.

First off, I had to get the Quick Bean Mixture together.
Do I have a container to put it in? Nope. So off to the stores to find one. It took 3 different stores to find something appropriate, and I wound up with one that looks very similar to this one:

Those grey lines around the edges are either rubber or silicone and they keep out moisture, critters, and even air.

Now to gather the stuff that goes inside of it.

Go through the pantry and yes, I have all the ingredients and bring them into the kitchen so I can start measuring and mixing. Hmm, the bag that's holding the barley feels a little tacky. I've been mostly gluten free for a number of years now and haven't used barley in any recipe all this time, so I check the expiration date on the bag. 2015?? Yikes! Out it goes. And on barley goes to my grocery list.

Why is it so hard to find something that's such a staple as barley? None in Whole Foods, none in 3 local grocery stores, none in the local health food store. What's going on? I find a few bags in another grocery store the next city over, but it's store brand and nearing its expiration date, so I skip it. Eventually I find the boxes of Quaker brand barley mixed in with boxes of instant rice in another store. They're dated 2021, so it's not like it's been languishing there for years, so I grab one. Looks like when this is near the end I'll be adding it to a VitaCost or Amazon order.

Now that I have all the ingredients I take the time to measure and mix. Once again I use the Tinkyada small shells for the "small pasta" called for in the recipe. I also add a half cup of black lentils, only because I have a lot of them and one bag is nearing its expiration date.

The recipe says it makes only 4 servings, and experience has taught me that that means it's not going to make enough for us to have seconds if we want it, so I'm doubling the recipe. If there are any leftovers, I'm sure they'll taste even better the next time around.

No leeks. I thought I had another bag of them already washed and cut in the freezer but can't find them. I'll use onions instead.

I'm using a mix of water and broth, only because I have 2 cups of broth in the refrigerator leftover from a meal I made over the weekend, and none of the other meals this week call for 2 cups of broth.

And instead of putting it all in a pot on the stove, I'm dumping it all into the Instant Pot and setting it on Manual for 12 minutes. That's how long I cook a lot of recipes that are primarily lentils and they come out fine.

When it was all cooked, the soup came up to the 3 quart line in the Instant Pot. We each had 2 decent sized bowls and there's some in the refrigerator to lunch later this week.

My husband said it was perfect the way it was, but I felt it could have used a bit of salt when I first started eating it, but by the end of the first bowl I didn't even think of it any more. The taste was nice and rich, like a very hearty barley mushroom soup. The tiny pasta just melted right into the soup, making a nice thick broth. Mmmmm, mmmmm good! That's what McDougall soups are, mmmmmm, mmmmm good!

As I said in the beginning of this post, another one in the Best Soup category. This one will also be added to the rotation!

Winter weather isn't going to get me down this year!

Hot Yam Soup

And here's another Mary McDougall recipe I never made before!

This one comes from 1992's Doctor McDougall's Health-Enhancing Recipe Book, another out-of-print book that, unfortunately, is not available in e-book form on the McDougall web site. At least it can be purchased new (at a ridiculous price) or used (as low as $4 plus shipping) from places like Amazon or Ebay.com,.

Last weekend we hit Whole Foods once again for various sweet potatoes and yams, so we'll be eating a lot of them over the next 2 weeks, even if only for lunches or snacks. This time I'm using one of the nice sized red-skinned Garnet yams for this soup.

Hot Yam Soup
servings: 8
prep time: 30 minutes
cooking time: 30 Minutes

2 onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup chopped green beans
2 cups chopped peeled yams, sweet potatoes, or winter squash
5 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
1 large tomato, chopped, 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 bay leaf
3 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons basil
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce (optional)

Place onions, garlic, celery, green beans, and yams in a large soup pot with 1/2 cup of water. Cook over medium heat, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook over simmering heat for 20 minutes.

Hint: If you don't have any green beans, use a cup of peas or chopped green pepper instead.

Once again, I'll be using a can of petite diced tomatoes instead of fresh, frozen onions, and dehydrated celery. I'm also using a quarter cup of dehydrated green beans that I bought from Harmony House and used only once since last year's purchase. I'll toss in an extra half cup or so of water, too. I bought them for a soup recipe by Jeff Novick that I made only once before. I know I gave that soup high praises in that post, but that was before its, um, laxative effect hit us! My husband was in no rush to have that soup again, but after all these soups we've been having lately, maybe I will try it one more time. I'll make sure we plan on being home the next day with no plans to leave the house, just in case.

I wish I had a sturdy device - and the arm muscles - to chop up that sweet potato! Now I remember why I started pre-cooking those potatoes, even if just for a few minutes, when I needed to cut them up for a recipe. I do have a jar of dehydrated sweet potatoes (also from Harmony House) but I'm saving those for emergency meals when stuck indoors and unable to go shopping, thanks to winter's blizzards.

Back to the soup.

It looked good, but tasted weird. I'm not sure if it was the paprika combined with basil and cinnamon spice mixture, or that flavor profile with the sweet potatoes, but I just wasn't a fan of this. My husband declared it "Okaaaaay, but something is 'off ' with it." He thought it was the sweet potatoes themselves, but I told him to put just a potato on his spoon and eat it. He did and said it's not the potatoes, they taste fine by themselves. Neither of us could put a finger on it. He did eat his usual 2 big bowls full, so I guess it wasn't that "off" but we both agreed I won't be making this one again. 

It's one of the rare Mary McDougall flops for this family. In fact, probably only the second. The first one was over 20 years ago, some kind of potato stew, I think - I can't even remember which recipe it was. I can't even remember what was wrong with it - too bland or too spicy. Oh well, since I can't even remember what it actually was, I'll most likely unknowingly wind up making it again at some point in the future.

But not this soup.

Give it a try and report back with your opinions. It's possible it's just us and our taste. In the book, Mary wrote about this: "Be adventuresome - I promise you'll enjoy this richly colored, richly flavored soup." It's obvious the McDougall family likes this soup, and yours may, too, just not mine.

Heather's Vegetable Soup

This one comes from an old McDougall newsletter, and is currently posted to the McDougall website recipe section. Here's how Mary McDougall posted it:

Vegetable Soup
Prep: 15 minutes Cook: 60 minutes
Serves: 6
By Heather McDougall

          This is a soup that my daughter, Heather, makes often for her family. Our grandsons, Jaysen & Ben, love it and will often eat several bowls of this for dinner.

Ingredients
4 cups vegetable broth
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups water
1 yam, peeled and cubed
1 white potato, peeled and cut in large chunks
15 ounce can chopped tomatoes
15 ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp basil
1-2 cups chard, chopped
1/2 cup uncooked pasta

Directions
Place 1/4 cup of the broth in a large soup pot. Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften slightly, about 5 minutes. Add the remaining broth, the water, yam, potato, tomatoes, beans, bay leaf and basil. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for about 45 minutes, until all vegetables are tender. Stir in the chard and pasta. Cook for about 10 minutes until pasta is tender

The recipe is fine for all versions of the McDougall program (and most other WFPB ones, too), but if you're following the Maximum Weight Loss Program as written by Doctor McDougall, omit the pasta. If you're following Jeff Novick's revised MWLP guidelines for pasta, you can safely leave them in.

First, a moment of silence for my THIRD Vidalia Chop Wizard device. In the past, it was the blade part that broke. Today, the lid split in 2 down by the hinge.

I was able to finish chopping the carrots that were already in there by leaning one arm down on the hinge end and putting the rest of my weight on the other side to push down onto the carrot quarters. As you all know, you have to slice your carrots first into small and thin enough chunks to fit in the small section where the blades are, then slice the pieces thin enough the long way because this chopper has trouble chopping anything firmer than a hard boiled egg. As soon as I finished those pieces of carrots that were embedded in the blades I pushed this chopper aside, grabbed my knife, and cut the rest of the carrots the old fashioned way. No more of these choppers for me - I wasted enough money on them!

Now, on to what I did with the recipe.

Let's see, I used frozen diced onions, dehydrated celery, 2 small peeled red potatoes, half a large Hannah yam, petite diced no-salt added canned tomatoes, no-salt added small white beans, and frozen diced collards instead of fresh chard. You already know about the carrots. For the pasta I used Tinkyada shells. I looked around in 2 different Whole Foods stores and couldn't find any smaller gluten-free pasta shapes, like ditalini or orzo, in any brand. Turned out they were small enough.

Look at this nice, chunk soup! Loads of veggies, good tasting broth, very filling. We finished it off, again with me having one bowl and hubby having 2 full bowls (Plus some bread for dunking. I don't know where he puts it all!).

The pasta is a bit plump because I forgot to turn the heat off 10 minutes after adding the pasta and collards. I set the timer, and remember turning off the timer, and I swear I got up and turned the gas off, but when we finally went into the kitchen to eat I saw the flame was still on. Thank goodness I use those aluminum flame tamers when I know food has to heat on low simmer! This stove runs so hot I have to use 2 at a time to keep things from boiling away on the lowest setting.

Right now my husband has a cold, and has been coughing and sneezing, not just during the day but during the night, too. When he coughs, I wake up, and I'm awake for at least an hour after that. I just about doze off again and he coughs or sneezes again. This has been going on for a while now. But remember, I'm the one who's been coughing since mid-August and waking him up, but luckily, he can usually fall right back to sleep within seconds of waking. Anyway, during those sleepless hours many things toss and tumble around in this crazed head of mine, and one of those things last night was this soup. There was a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. I had no idea what - I had all my ingredients measured out or out of the cabinets ahead of time. Looking over the recipe when I put it in this post, I saw what I did wrong - I forgot to add the additional 2 cups of water. To be honest, it didn't need it. Maybe when my appetite returns to normal and I'm eating larger amounts of food again I'll appreciate the extra 2 cups of this soup, but it was fine for us yesterday.

And this soup will be made again. I've said many times that the Mary (and Heather) McDougall recipes are family favorites, and this is yet another one to add to the list.  

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!