Well, this salad continues that homey, pickley , comforting tradition – but with a spin. And it’s a tasty spin, at that. With the perfect punch of saltiness, sweetness, tang and just a hint of spiciness, this salad is an easy way to enjoy the cool, fresh flavors of summer, while beating the blistering heat.

Ingredients:

• Cucumbers, peeled and sliced into rounds
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Fresh mint leaves
• Carrots, julienned                                                  
• White vinegar
• Low sodium soy sauce
• Sweet chili sauce*

Directions:

Slice cucumbers and carrots and chop cilantro and mint leaves. Place veggies in container and add liquid. Experiment to find your preferred ratio of water to vinegar to soy to chili sauce.

As a starting point, I suggest 1 part soy sauce, 1 part sweet chili sauce, and 2 parts each of vinegar and water.

Also, in the past, we’ve added orange segments, which we very much enjoyed in this salad.

For best results, cover and let salad sit overnight in the refrigerator.

*Sweet chili sauce can be found at most grocery stores and definitely at Asian grocers. It is sweet and spicy and adds lovely texture (and flavor!) to oil-free dishes. We’ve used this one before, but most brands seem to have similar ingredients. As with everything, just be sure to read the bottle before you buy it. I’m sure there’s a great recipe out there to make it, but we haven’t  experimented with that yet.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 bag small red potatoes, skin on
• 1/2 white or yellow onion
• 1 small bunch of fresh cilantro
• Bull’s Eye Original BBQ Sauce (or other fat free BBQ sauce)
• Yellow mustard
• Fat free vegan mayo (we use Nasoya)
• Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning & Garlic Powder (both optional)

Directions:

Boil red potatoes, whole. Take them off the stove when a fork can be inserted easily into the center. Be careful not to overcook or the potatoes will fall apart. Place under cold water and let cool.

Chop onion and cilantro into small pieces.

Mix a couple of tablespoons of mayo with about 3/4 cup BBQ sauce and about 1/3 cup mustard. The amounts are rough guesses. The dressing isn’t too difficult to make taste good. Just don’t use too much mayo and add BBQ and mustard, tasting along the way, till it’s spicy and tangy and just right. Adding some Tony’s and garlic powder can be nice, but isn’t really necessary.

Sometimes I mix the dressing separate, but most often I just pour the components right in the bowl with the potatoes. The starchiness of the potatoes (not overcooked) helps create a nice creaminess to the dressing.

Cut the potatoes into bite-size-ish pieces in the bowl, add the onion and cilantro and mix everything up! It’s fantastic warm, but of course, is also great after it has been refrigerated.

YUM.

Here’s what you do:

Heat a non-stick skillet and place two (oil-free) corn tortillas in it.  Let them brown on both sides and then pop them in the toaster for a few seconds just to crisp them up. Keep an eye on them though, or they will burn.

Slice red bell peppers, garlic cloves and green onions. Place them in a non-stick pan and add a bit of water and salt. Cover and let steam to soften a bit. Add several shakes of balsamic vinegar and let cook, uncovered, until most of the liquid is gone and the vegetables reach desired tenderness. Stir often.

Smear oil-free hummus onto toasted corn tortillas. We had some left-over hummus in the fridge from a local restaurant, but if you don’t have any, here is a reference point for making your own.  A food processor is best for making hummus, but a high quality blender can accomplish it for you too. I recommend keeping it fairly straightforward and simple for this tostada dish, as the toppings add a nice punch of flavor, themselves.

Place sautéed veggies onto tostada and garnish with freshly chopped basil leaves, diced tomatoes and julienned carrots.

Dive in and enjoy!

You definitely need a good quality non-stick pan to make this work well (and to keep it fat-free). Also, we’ve used a couple of different types of bread and so far, there’s been only one that holds up well to this recipe. It is made by a company called Food for Life. They make many sprouted whole grain products. Their Sprouted Whole Wheat bread has a yellow label and though they have several varieties, the others we’ve tried don’t hold up as well.  This bread has no oil, is totally McDougally and actually, has no flour. I emailed Dr. McDougall to see if it would work for the Maximum Weight Loss version of his program and he said that although the bread has no flour, per se, the whole grains are broken down rather than being consumed whole. So though it’s better than flour, if your main goal is maximum weight loss, you probably want to consume this bread in moderation.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup nonfat soy milk
• 1 1/2 tsp nutritional yeast flakes or powder
• 1 1/4 tsp ener-g egg replacer
• about 10 drops of almond extract
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of clove
• 1 1/2 tsp real maple syrup

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and whisk together until everything is well combined and the egg replacer starts to get foamy. Pre-heat non-stick skillet as you would for pancakes. Dip slices of bread into mixture and soak well.  Place on hot skillet and cook about 2 minutes on one side. Then, use a spatula to carefully loosen bread from the pan, and flip it over.  It will be very sticky and the wet bread can fall apart.  Be sure to scrape it cleanly from pan when flipping so it remains crispy on the outside.  Cook until both sides are brown and the center is no longer runny.

Serve with powdered sugar, if desired, and real maple syrup. You also might want to try our previously posted Banana Maple Compote as a topping.

Recipe is enough for about 6 slices of French Toast.

Enjoy!

We’ve made lots of variations on her simple, nutritious muffin recipes (sometimes with additions that make them a bit less healthy, but still vegan and without added fat).  Since bars travel more easily than muffins, I just pour the batter into a rectangular baking pan and they always come out great.

Ingredients:

-2 cups whole wheat flour
-2 cups bran cereal (measure before blending, then crush in blender)
-4 tsp baking powder
-1/2 cup sugar                                                   -1 tsp salt
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/8 tsp nutmeg
-1/2 cup raisins (optional)

In a blender, put:

-1 ripe banana (going brown is perfect)
-3/4 c orange juice
-3/4 c nonfat soymilk
-1/8 tsp coconut extract
-1/8 tsp almond extract
(if you don’t have extracts, they can be omitted, but they give it a great flavor)
*you need 2 cups of liquid total, so adjust amounts as needed, depending on how much banana you use.
Blend till liquified and pour over dry ingredients. Mix till combined , but don’t overdo it.
(Add a little water as you’re mixing, if needed. Batter should be thick but somewhat pourable.)

Fill 12 muffin tins or baking dish evenly and sprinkle the top with whole oats.
Bake in preheated oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!
and…. Go forth and be creative! 2 cups flour (whole wheat, oat or  mix), 2 cups bran (or other cereal), 4 tsp baking powder and 2 cups liquid are the only requirements!

Some other muffins we’ve made with the basic recipe include cranberry-orange, vegan chocolate chip, blueberry oat, cinnamon spice, and chocolate chocolate chip (sub 1/2 c cocoa powder for 1/2 c flour). Please let us know in the comments if you create a doozy we should know about!

Today for lunch, I invented something super duper yummy. I know spring roll wrappers are traditionally reserved for cool, fresh rolls full of lettuce and herbs and sprouts and such… but they are such an easy, delicious way to make food appealing and fun to eat. They are made of rice flour – not brown rice flour. So to my knowledge, they come from refined white rice (which is not McDougally). But in the larger scheme of healthy eating, I feel confident that they are a help, not a hindrance. And any kind of spring roll makes great party food, too!

Ingredients: (makes 8-10 small rolls)

-spring roll rice paper wraps                                               -carrots, julienned

-1  19 oz can of chickpeas                                                      -fresh cilantro leaves

-4  white mushrooms, halved and sliced thinly            -chopped fresh tomatoes (optional)

-1/2  fresh red pepper, sliced into thin strips                  -oil free BBQ sauce (we use Bull’s Eye)

-about 3/4 cup chopped fresh (or frozen) white onions and green peppers

-soy sauce

-yellow curry powder

Directions: Place chopped white onions, green and red peppers into non-stick skillet. Sprinkle with some salt (or garlic salt) and let cook for a couple of minutes.  (add a little water if you need) Add sliced white mushrooms and cook for about another minute and add chickpeas.  Add some BBQ sauce (about 4 tablespoons) and some soy sauce (about 5 or 6 shakes). Stir and add yellow curry powder (I use enough to lightly coat the top of everything in the pan).  The sauce shouldn’t be too runny, but thin enough to continue to cook the veggies and chickpeas down a bit.  Tweak for flavor, adding more BBQ or soy sauce or curry powder as needed.  Let everything simmer with the lid off until the sauce cooks down and the whole dish is thicker.

Heat some water in a kettle and pour it into a wide bowl.  Dip your spring roll wrap sheets into hot water and they will start to wilt. Take care not to let the wrap double over on itself or it will be difficult to smooth out. Lay the wrap on a flat plate and put some of the chickpea mixture in the middle.  Add julienned carrots, fresh cilantro leaves and a few chopped tomatoes, if you like.  Roll it up like a burrito, folding it over the filling, then turning each side toward the middle, then rolling till the end of the wrap adheres to itself.

No sauce is needed, as the chickpea-veggie mixture is packed with flavor and plenty of moisture.  Eat and Enjoy!!!

There are a few recipes in circulation, most of which use a similar combination of ingredients, for vegan versions of that addictive cheese sauce we couldn’t live without as kids. Most recipes use nutritional yeast as the main component. If you haven’t discovered nutritional yeast yet, head out to a natural foods store and pick some up in the bulk section. It’s an easy way to add a buttery flavor without adding fat to your dish.  What we’re offering is a modified version of Susan V’s “Easy Macaroni and ‘Cheeze’” recipe.  Like her and her family, we very much enjoy Road’s End Organics Chreese sauces, so we wanted to try out her recipe, which she describes as similar to theirs.  But because we didn’t have all the ingredients on her list (and because we’d tried to make cheese sauces before and disliked certain components), we made a few changes.  What resulted was a bit simpler, fast and still super tasty.

We recommend this sauce for noodles of course (whole grain pasta for we McDougallers), but also for scalloped potatoes and other things like broccoli rice casseroles.  And we highly recommend a nice sprinkling of Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning to top it off.  It adds the perfect punch of flavor that makes this sauce really sing, and your dish just won’t be nearly as good without it. (same goes for the Road’s End Organics Mac & Chreese, btw).

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups water                                                         1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup fat-free soy milk                                              1 teaspoon onion powder

3/4 cup nutritional yeast                                       1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

3 tablespoons cornstarch                                         1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/8 teaspoon lemon juice                                         pinch of smoked paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons salt                                                    pinch of cayenne pepper

Whisk together all ingredients in a non-stick sauce pan on low/medium heat until sauce thickens to desired consistency. Add to cooked pasta and stir to coat evenly. Or for a scrumptious maximum weight loss version, stir into cooked brown rice!  The sauce is great over broccoli and baked potatoes and I plan to use it as a base to make a nacho cheese dip in the future.  Also, coming up, look for a post on Jasperfields’ delicious Scalloped Potatoes.

Enjoy!

I cubed the apples and placed it in the bread bowl along with the currants.  Once the onion mix cooled, I added it to the bowl with the herbs and tossed.  Next I added 1 cup of vegetable broth and continued to mix.  Placed the content into a casserole dish and into a preheated 350 degree oven covered for 40 minutes.  Uncover and cook for another 15 minutes.  If the dish is becoming too dry add vegetable broth while cooking.

Ingredients

1 Loaf of Wheat Bread
1 Yellow Onion
1 Green Bell Pepper
3 Celery Stalks
5 Cloves of Garlic
16 oz. Mushrooms
3 Small Gala Apples
1/2 c Currants
4 tsp Sage
4 tsp Thyme
1/2 c Parsley
1 c Vegetable Broth

Dice a single large mango into small bite sized cubes. Add a small bit of fat free vegan mayo, about a 3/4 teaspoon. Finely chop cilantro and add with the curry, tumeric, garlic and salt to taste.  Mix it up until it starts to get a little creamy.  I will add some pictures soon.

Ingredients:

• Fatfree mayo
• One mango
• 1/4 Teaspoon Curry
• Dash of Tumeric
• Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Cilantro
• One garlic clove crushed

Garlic Crisps:

• 2 whole wheat pita bread
• 1 cup veggie broth
• 4 tsp minced garlic
• 1 1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• salt to taste

I added the broth, finely chopped garlic, nutritional yeast and salt to a pan and heated it up, blending well.  Once I had a nice garlic flavor, I brushed the mixture over the pita and placed the pita into a 425 degree oven until it was crispy.  While it was baking, I worked on the main part of the dinner.

Spring Stew:

• 4 cups veggie broth
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 medium onion
• 3 medium carrots
• 1 large crown of broccoli
• 1 small red pepper
• 3 medium zucchini
• 4 red potatoes
• 1 16oz can diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp chili powder
• salt to taste

When chopping the vegetables, keep them large enough to give this soup a hearty feel.  I started by adding 1 cup of broth to the pan with my garlic sauce remnants from the garlic crisps.  To this I added chopped onion, chopped carrots, quartered small red potatoes and 2 tbsp minced garlic. I cooked this until the onions became translucent.  Next I added the red pepper, broccoli, zucchini and 2 cups of broth.  Special note on the broccoli: I cooked the stems and crown.  To prepare the stems I removed the tough outer layer and cut them into bite sized pieces.  I added the spices, vinegar, tomatoes and another cup of broth. Cook until vegetables are al dente. Serve with garlic crisps.