Beany Ice Creamy

I found this recipe on Dr. Fuhrman's website, tried it, liked it, made a couple of corrections, and present it here.

The recipe on his website is for Strawberry Ice Cream made with aquafaba. Aquafaba is really just bean juice.

Yup, like we used to throw away after we cooked our beans.

The attraction is that this previous discard whips up like whipped cream, but without the fat, more stable than whipped cream and also replaces eggs. And with a beany taste and some of the nutritional benefits of beans. And no fat, cholesterol or high-grade animal protein that's really metabolic poison.

Weird, huh? But I like it and will make it again and again. No more wasted bean broth in my home.

Super delicious, cheap, healthy, flexible and useful ingredient, just my style.

Did I mention that I love eating this way?

Ingredients:
2 cups frozen strawberries
1 frozen banana
1/4 cup Medjool, regular or chopped dates
1/2 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 cup whipped aquafaba (see note)

Directions:
Blend dates with milk in high power blender until smooth. 
Add berries and blend.
Add banana and blend. 
Gently stir or fold in aquafaba.
Freeze in bread pan or similar, at least 2 hours. 
Scoop it up, add toppings (nuts, seeds) as desired.

Note: Whipped aquafaba is made with bean cooking liquid. Garbanzos (chick peas) are best with this recipe 'cause they're light colored, but with dark bean liquid we'll make chocolate mousse (another recipe on Dr. Fuhrman's website). He's also got quiche and frittata recipes, plus there's plenty more on the net.  

The juice from 1 can (3/4 cup) makes about 2 cups whipped aquafaba. Add 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar. Cool it to at least room temperature. Whip with a hand or stand mixer like whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks. The bean juice from cooking your own beans is likely too thin, at least mine was. I started with a cup of bean liquid and reduced it 25% by microwaving in a big glass measuring cup. If when it cools down it's too thin (like syrup) then thicken it, if it's too stiff (like jello) then re-heat with a little added water.

I made this with raspberries the first time, and the intensity of the raspberries made the beany taste go away. We didn't freeze it the first time so it was more like pudding, but still delicious (this instruction was missing from Dr. Fuhrman's site, maybe we won't need this with more practice).

With strawberries the second time (using the rest of the previous night's batch) the beany taste was slight, but not a problem. Annette says it's like a fruit sherbet. Next time I'll try frozen blueberries or blackberries. I can hardly wait to cook more beans!

Plus I'll get my feet wet with aquafaba's other uses, like as an egg and fat replacement in meringues, pies, chocolate mousse, nougat and fudge, buttercream frosting, brownies, cookies, pancakes, butter, creamy dip, mayonnaise, and general egg and fat replacement in baking. And more.

I also love exploring, inventing and modifying new recipes. That's not essential to being a nutritarian, but in my case it helps.

New Understandings

AirMed Helicopter

From time to time I hear the machine-gun fast whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter like this one, taking off about  half a mile from my house.

It always reminds me of, well, me.

I was a difficult patient at the E.R. I didn't want air transport, didn't think it was necessary, and resented the huge bill that would come with the service. Unnecessary waste, in my opinion.

Feeble and stupid reasoning, I know.

So it turns out I was right based on the immediate outcome, because the interventional cardiologists at the University Hospital in Salt Lake couldn't do anything for me, but I understand and appreciate the reasoning behind the E.R. doctor's insistence. I even understand her not giving me appropriate medication, as in a dose of nitroglycerin.

Dr. Polokoff says I could have sued.

I just think the E.R. doctor was scared spitless about being sued the other way, for any possible negative consequences of not absolutely insisting I be transported by helicopter. It's the standard of care, after all.

Just not my standard.

But what would you expect after walking into a hospital emergency room? Choices? Nope. Mention that this was overkill and hope to be taken seriously? Never. You give up all rights to self resolution when you walk in to the E.R. and sign the papers, and scare your wife to death that you'll die in the car with her driving and she'll likely have a fatal accident..

Sigh.

But I'm glad for, and would never do without, my ornery self-reliant attitude, my sense that I will overcome this by learning and doing better. The good doctor's resistance to my suggestions only made that resolve stronger, after all.

And I very much appreciate the doctors at the U. of U. Medical center cath lab trying and failing to correct the problem, and confirming my sense that I would have to learn and take action on my own. A new stent would be absolutely nothing compared to that.

I even appreciate the terrible food the hospital tried to serve me. It very much seemed they were determined to keep me sick, make a return visit necessary, and make sure I understood my nutrition first philosophy was out of wack with their medical expertise, when really it was the other way around.

How could anyone be more blessed, or lucky, or fortunate, or whatever you call it?

Probably couldn't have turned out any better regardless. Probably would have been worse, in fact, without the [waste of a] helicopter ride. I got a complete diagnosis and set of scans to be used for my current involvement with Dr. Polukoff.

So my  number one lesson from the visit with Dr. Polukoff is the end result.

Perspective.

My good fortune continued when I found Dr. Fuhrman, and was preceded by my wife's cure from diabetes.

And the desire to learn more and do better. I know he has lots to teach me about my specific situation, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

And I have a sense that I am indeed fortunate to have had this experience, and that I owe a debt that I want to pay back, by virtue of these experiences.

What's the opposite of a perfect storm? A perfect outcome by virtue of perfect understanding, validated by knowledge and practice.

But wait, there's more.

By working with Dr. Polukoff, I'm looking forward to substantial validation of my current course. And by learning and preparing for the visit, by re-reading Dr. Esselstein's book (done), and Dr. Fuhrman's book The End of Heart Disease (in progress), eating better (substantial progress), and exercising better (doing it - joined a gym ((Kubex)), so I'm looking forward to building some muscle along with losing some fat and improvements in my aerobic and heart fitness).

Dr. Polukoff even suggested I take in Dr. Esselstein's on-line training. Another chance to learn and build my knowledge base? Yippee!!

And having an expert review of three sets of complete scans and tests appropriate to my situation, and getting a highly personalized reading and recommendations for course correction.

It just doesn't get any better than that.

Eggplant Ratatouille - Amazing Principles, An Amazing Dish

When the French make a dish, it always sounds exotic.

I call this Eggplant Ratatouille, but I could have called it Eggplant Stew. Or Cacciatore.  Or Gazpacho. Or Goulash, or Pottage, or a dozen other things. Only the country, seasoning, temperature and language differ. Insignificant things, really.

The point is, vegetables in season, mixed, heated, seasoned, served and eaten.

No oil. No meat. No salt.

Variety. Availability. Cost. Freshness. Eaten with my true love, my family.

These are the things that really matter.

So here's my favorite ingredients: Eggplant, zucchini, sweet peppers, onions, garbanzos, tomatoes, mushrooms, Italian spices (oregano 1 1/2 t, marjoram 1 t, thyme 1 t, garlic 1 t, basil 1/2t, rosemary 1/2 t, sage 1/2 t, red pepper 1/4 t). Slice/dice, cook until done, add spices any time. Arrange attractively in a baking pan for maximum effect, or put them all together to save time as above. Add more stuff if  you've got more stuff. Start with 1/2 seasonings amount if you want to be cautious, it's easier to add seasonings later than double the recipe because it's too strong. Add a little meat (-balls, chicken) for a less healthy dish.

To think that a set recipe matters is to lose some of the intent and possibilities. Not that I'm opposed to recipes. But sometimes it's just right to go with what you've got.

This time it was just eggplant, onions, tomatoes, tomato sauce,  mushrooms and seasonings. We just chopped them,  put them in the pan, heated them up, added a little seasoning. We ate it hot, we ate it cold, we loved it. Even made more the very next night. We had more eggplant, after all.

Here's another principle. We often engage in "recipe roulette," where we take a CD titled 1 Million Recipes, put in a list of ingredients we've got on hand, and see what the possibilities are.  Or we play "recipe roulette" by Google search.

Here are some other principles.

1. More important than a recipe is to be flexible.
2. We almost never make it exactly as it says.
3. We never fry or sauté in oil.
4. We cook fresh veggies by "flash steaming" (use your imagination)
5. We cook things less and at lower temperatures than we did.
6. We don't add salt in cooking. If one of us wants salt, we add it after, and in small quantities.
7. We never serve food with or over rice, or potatoes, or starchy foods in general.
8. We eat generous portions, but don't stuff ourselves.
9. We enjoy talking together as we eat.
10. We congratulate good eating decisions.
11. We don't criticize or even acknowledge each other's bad eating decisions, only our own. 

Chunky Chocolate "Ice Cream" Dessert

Chocolate Chunk Dessert in Food Processor Cup

Here's another recipe that is endlessly variable, fun, delicious, and keeps me from ever wanting the stuff that's terribly bad for me. I made it last night in 5 minutes (I get plenty of practice).

Ice cream. My absolute most favorite. My culture's favorite food (some people think it's green jello - sick!)

Make it with chocolate and nuts, and I'm helplessly addicted.

Now I live in the state with the highest per capita ice cream consumption in the world. We have lots of dairy farmers and their families around where I live, so there's plenty of reinforcement.

I also live close enough to two hospitals to hear when the medevac helicopters take off, and when I hear 'em I think, "Yep, likely another ice cream lover."

In that medevac helicopter was me, six years ago.

So here's the dead-honest great ice cream substitute that keeps me alive:

Ingredients:

• 2 frozen bananas (you can substitute non-frozen bananas and a few ice cubes, but you may need less of the soy or other milk below)
• 2 heaping teaspoons baking cocoa powder (not hot cocoa powder)
• 3 heaping teaspoons ground flax, straight from the freezer, or ground chia seeds
• 1 packed cup cold spinach (or other greens)
• Enough soy, almond, cashew or other non-cow milk to make it blendable to a creamy-but-not-runny state
• 4-5 tablespoons assorted nuts and seeds (the dessert in the picture has walnuts, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds and coconut)
• 1/2 cup celery chunks (celery diced into approximate 1/4" chunks)

Blend the frozen bananas in a blender or food processor while they're still hard-frozen. You should get a coarsely textured kind of "banana-meal" that'll blend the rest of the ingredients with next to no effort (or skip this first blending if you're using non-frozen bananas).

Add the cocoa powder, ground flax and spinach. Add enough cashew or other milk to make it cold, thick and creamy, but never runny, and blend until it's smooth. Make a mistake and you've got a chocolate milkshake (no great loss!).

Add the nuts, seeds and celery chunks. Don't blend these, stir them in by hand until it's all evenly mixed and everything is coated, creamy-cold and chocolatey.

The last step, very important, is to relish every bite, while you contemplate the pleasure of something so delicious and healthy. You may choose to recite to yourself the following facts: Cocoa powder has the highest antioxidant content of any food. Spinach is a highest nutrient-value leafy green food. Celery is the way to double your crunch, making the nuts seem like there's two or three times as much as there really are while adding another healthy green to the mix. And the nuts and ground flax or chia are the healthiest of the necessary oils in your diet.

At least that's what I do.

And this morning, after eating this last night, I got up and weighed in at a new all-time low of 162.3 lbs.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I could ever weigh that little, or walk 3+ miles as fast as I did this morning without a trace of chest pain/pressure/angina.

Thanks, Dr. Fuhrman.

Veggie Pizza & The Ultimate Test Of Success

So I'm a pizzaholic.

I know I'm not alone in this. But I used to take it to extremes.

I could personally down a couple of large pizzas, any toppings included.

No wonder I had two heart attacks, with a life history like that!

And I've missed the occasional pizza fix. OK, OK, I have indulged in the last couple of years, especially since the all-you-can-eat Pizza Monster Café opened locally, but rarely, and in much smaller quantities.

No more than two pieces of pizza twice yearly for me now, thanks.

At least that's what I thought, until this delightful thought occurred. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first, and if you Googled the main ingredient, I'll bet you'd find it out there somewhere. But it's original to me.

Start with a veggie pizza. Throw out the crust. OK, yes, you'll have to start from scratch with your own crust.

But here's but beauty of it. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN CRUST FROM A TORTILLA. Waaaayyyy less carbs. And cheeeeep. The crust (1 large tortilla) on this baby cost me about 12 cents. 'Course, I had to buy 30 at Sam's Club to get that price.

Too thin, you say? Hah. See the above proof.

So here's what I used to make it work:

• 1 large tortilla, or a couple of regular ones.
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup undiluted (no water added) tomato paste, depends on how much tomato taste you want, or tomato sauce if  you take the time to condense out lots of water.
• Good sprinkle of nutritional or brewer's yeast (optional).
• Pizza seasoning to taste, included red pepper flakes if you're so inclined.
• 2/3 medium onion (about 2+ inches), thin sliced, about 1" pieces.
• 2 cups assorted raw veggies, or about 1 1/2 cups if cooked 
•  Grated parmesan cheese
• 1/3 of the onion, thin sliced in about 2" pieces (1/2 of full round slice) for the top
• Thin sliced tomatoes for the top, after it's cooked.

I prepared the crust above by drying it out in advance in a warm, not hot, oven. If your oven is too warm the tortilla tends to warp and be difficult to use.

Pre-heat oven to 425.

Put your tortilla on a baking sheet and assemble your pizza. No oil is necessary. As needed, I can assemble two pizzas on 1 cooking sheet, but one makes for no trimming due to overlap. Or, I can get 3 regular tortillas on one baking sheet.

Tomato paste works best, as it doesn't soak into the tortilla and make it too soft. Plain tomato sauce makes for a mushy crust.

For seasoning I sprinkled on pizza seasoning blend from Winco, but any Italian seasoning works.

The brewer's yeast adds a kind of cheesy taste. My wife, who won't eat anything she's not used to or sure of, wouldn't. But I like it, and it  adds vitamin B12, good when you're light on meat in the diet.

I used 1/2 a green bell pepper, a cup of fresh broccoli, plus 2/3 of the yellow onion and 3 large sliced mushrooms. Other possibilities are red bell pepper, green beans, red onions, cauliflower, green peas, sugar peas, cabbage, shelled edamame, or any non-starchy vegetable that won't turn to mush. Therefore I don't use zucchini.

The key is to dry the veggies as you cook them, so I loosely stack them on the crust so the oven dries them out as they cook. This is really the key step, and takes some practice.  Mushy-wet veggies make for a mushy-wet crust.

Sprinkle a little grated parmesan on top of the veggies. Too much and you smother the veggies and keep them from drying out. Plus you void your nutritarian warranty on this one.

My ultimate pizza always has toasted onions on top, so I save 1/3 of the onion, thin sliced then cut in half, and separating the strands as I randomly scatter the onion on top. Cook in the hot oven until the onions and parmesan start to turn brown.

The final step is to spread thin slices or small chunks of raw tomato all over the top after it's cooked. I tend to do this piece by piece as I eat it. In the above picture, I ate one slice for my dinner, then froze the rest. Yes, I did pull this out of the freezer for this picture. Is that cheating?

There are two important principles to emphasize. First, keep everything dry. Nothing that is actually liquid should go on your tortilla. Of course, there's always a fork if it goes soggy. But the attraction of a pizza is having a crisp crust so you can pick up and eat your pizza by hand, in my book.

Second, don't eat too much of this too often. It's low carb compared to regular pizza, but I try (and sometimes fail) to eat only a couple of slices in a single meal,  and not to eat this too often.

If it was life and death I'd have to quit it completely.

But for now it's better than saying goodbye to pizza forever.

The acid test is my weight. If I'm at or progressing toward my ideal weight, it's ok. If I'm struggling, it's not.

Zuchini Spaghetti

Spaghetti sauce on grated zucchini in 8" pasta bowl

Here's a seasonal favorite, wonderful when the garden works well, or if your  neighbor's garden works well, or even if you have a distant cousin who's garden is productive.

Some people may even pay you to take away their excess zucchini :)

It's super easy and inexpensive.

The zucchini is unpeeled and raw, just grated.

The sauce is Prego. Nothing special. Tastes fabulous as far as I'm concerned.

The white stuff on top is grated parmesan cheese. Any commercial brand will do. I buy mine in bulk, straight from the bulk bins at Winco.

Like I said, super cheap, super easy, super good.

Keep in mind the above picture was taken for illustration purposes, before I smothered it in more spaghetti sauce and added more parmesan.

Now some would fault this for 1. A tomato sauce that has sugar and salt in it, 2. Parmesan cheese that has animal products and salt, and 3. Not one darn thing pictured here is certified organic. I think but I'm not sure my source gardener for the zucchini doesn't use pesticides, and zucchini in general doesn't need any.

That's why there's often such an explosive abundance. And the zucchini pictured here was one of those extra-large ones that most people don't prefer, some even throw away, about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter.

Regardless, it all grates, tastes and works just great.

But here's a qualifier. I don't believe I'd get the same great results by using "spaghetti squash." As a winter squash it's far higher in carbohydrates, and therefore calories. Nothing wrong with it nutritionally, it's just the tradeoff between quantity and calories. You can have one or the other, But if you have to take or keep the pounds off, a little bit is great, a lot is not.

Here's the saving grace. I ate three huge bowls full two nights in a row, and weighed in at less than before.

Now that's the kind of (non)diet I can live with.

Cost Effective, Delicious/Nutritious Greens: Chinese Cabbage Salad

Top 100 nutritarian recipes, Here I Come!

That's how I think of this one. It's a favorite, but I sometimes go months between having it. Whenever I get bored with other, more standard fare, this one is a candidate to come out of the file and transform my dinner table, once again.

It's more important than just a recipe, to show some basic principles:

• It takes a common, typically least expensive green and transforms it into a delight.
• It uses more expensive ingredients sparingly for taste, color and texture.
• It's endlessly variable with different ingredients possible. In fact, you can make a great knockoff without a single identical ingredient.

It saves well in the refrigerator. I find it's great up to four or five days later. The only disadvantage is it's something I'd never freeze (but I might use in a batch of lentil soup, and freeze that!)

It uses less-than-ideal ingredients very sparingly. Nutritarian recipes don't have to be perfect in every regard. Things that would be poison in larger quantities are of great value when they are, literally, the "spoonful of sugar" that helps the much larger quantity of supercalifabulistic nutritional medicine go down.

Who'da thought it, Mary Poppins as the expression of the Nutritarian Code of Ethical Eating - at least of mine;)

Ingredients:

• 1 large head cabbage
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 cup thin sliced celery
• 1/2 thin sliced x 1" long green or red pepper
• 1 cup sliced spinach (1/4" slices)
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup coarse chopped almonds
• 1 tsp. chicken base
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tbspn. brown sugar

Chop cabbage as for slaw, add chopped green onions, celery, green or red pepper, sunflower seeds and almonds. Blend together the rice vinegar, chicken base and brown sugar. Pour over salad, toss and chill.

The only thing different here is I added 1/2 cup frozen edemame (green soy beans, not in pods) since I had some left over from the prior weekend. We love the color and the taste.

This is also great with lettuce or any other salad greens. One of our very favorite variations is to  replace the rice vinegar with a fruit or berry vinaigrette, and use walnuts instead of sunflower seeds and almonds.

Wow, makes me hungry just thinking about it. Perhaps I'll re-think that top 100 rating, this may be top 10 material.

But beware of standard cookbooks or on line recipes. They mostly all call for significant amounts of oil in the dressing. As far as I'm concerned, oil adds nothing to the taste, and does nothing but ruin the nutritional profile.

The biggest lie here is that olive oil makes it a healthy food. Wow, what a whopper.

All I'm giving up here is heart disease, diabetes, and a bunch of other bad, bad possibilities.

You're welcome.

Creamed Kale

A big part of our success is having some choice recipes that we enjoy, and also create lots of variations based on the original, according to what's on hand. This is a recent addition to that select group.

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 c. water
• 3/4 c. raw cashews, or 1/2 cashews and 1/2 sunflower seeds
• 2 bunches (10-14 oz.) kale, ribs removed and chopped, or similar amount of just about any greens (cabbage or broccoli are frequent substitutes here)
• 1 level tbspn. (or less) no-salt seasoning
• 2 tablespoons raw onion, or dried onion flakes

Directions:

Remove solid stems and ribs from the kale, chop the kale. Steam the kale in a double boiler (or better yet, flash steam) until it's tender.

While kale is steaming, heat the water and cashews in the microwave to boiling. Blend the hot water-cashews/sunflower seeds, then add no-salt seasoning and dried onion flakes in a high-speed blender. Go slow with the blender at first so the boiling water doesn't explode (or bulge the blender - it's a sore point as to how I learned this).

Blend the stems into the cream for the most nutrition, or save 'em for a smoothie if you don't want the green color. Add a little water if it's too thick, then pour the cream over the kale.

Variations are endless. This works for any greens, cabbage, mixed steamed veggies or green beans. A variety of spices works as well (curry powder, parmesan and chicken base are favorites).

Here's a picture of ours, on a bed of kale and swiss chard and garbanzos on top. Honestly, Annette had to have a little salt with it.

You'll find "Creamed Kale" recipes online that show this type stuff served on rice or other grains, but it spoils the health aspect.

Happy healthy eating!