When I was a kid, my mom used to make nachos on a semi regular basis and I loved them.  What’s not to love.  Yummy gooey cheese and salsa on a really salty corn chip. Those days are long gone and the closest thing I get to nachos is at the Taco Bell drive-up.  Well tonight, we created fabulous, McDougally nachos. I still have a smile on my face thinking about them.

Here is how we did it. We took fat free corn tortillas and cut them into triangles. We sprayed a little salt water on them to make them… well a little salty. And then we toast them up in the oven.  Watch them carefully as they will burn fast.  We made cheese from our ““Cheese” Sauce for the Masses” post. And we cooked up one can of pinto and one can of black beans with a little salt, garlic, and cumin.  We cut up some fresh cilantro and a tomato.  Here is how we layered the whole thing from the bottom up: chips, beans, cheese, tomatoes, cilantro, and salsa on top. I so wish we made more chips!

Tonight was the first time we’ve cooked in a long while.  We’re going to try and post each night that we cook something,  So here we go….  Tonight we made super yummy tostadas.

Here is our recipe.  We use a non-fat yellow corn tortilla that we crisp up in the oven in the same way that we make tortilla chips. We use a can of fat free refried beans and I added cumin. To top it all off…  lettuce, tomatoes, salsa and cilantro.

This is a yummy spicy carrot stew that we ate over brown rice. It was very simple to make.

Ingredients:

5 lbs sliced carrots
2 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cayenne
10 cloves minced garlic
2 1/2 tbsp squeezed Lemon juice
5 tbsp brown sugar
salt (to taste)

Boil carrots in a pot of water until they are tender. Drain most of the water and puree the carrots leaving some of the carrots intact. In a separate pan, heat the spices with 1/4 cup of water until they thicken. Mix the spices into the carrots and serve over rice.

Summer in New Orleans is nothing if not one thing: HOT. It’s the perfect time to eat cool salads and refreshing dishes that don’t sit too heavily in your stomach. Most everyone is familiar with the classic cucumber salad. Our parents made it and so did their parents. The combination of freshly sliced cucumbers and vinegar is perfection, in its own right.

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!

This is, so far, the yummiest thing I have ever made. Eating it makes me super happy and I’m excited to share the magic with you. If you’re not a BBQ lover (why on earth would you not be?!), this might not be for you. It’s pretty barbecue-y. But that’s what it’s all about!!!

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.

I just whipped up a totally impromptu and absolutely delicious lunch! A friend recently told us about hummus pizza and the idea inspired me. I looked in the fridge and pulled together these tasty bites, perfect for a hot summer day here in New Orleans.

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!

This is a recipe we’re pretty excited about. It was born out of a wild idea and experimentation, and with a bit of luck, it turned out great! As always, feel free to fiddle… but after a few test batches (it’s a hard life, really), we’ve nailed down a recipe that delivers great results every time. 

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!

Jasperfields travels a lot with her job. And traveling can present a real challenge to eating healthy. So I always try to equip her with McDougally homemade snacks that she can have on hand when low-fat plant food is hard to find.  This recipe is easy, fast and flexible, not to mention delicious.  I got the original idea from Mary McDougall here:  http://www.drmcdougall.com/free_5f.html

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!

Well, after quite a long hiatus, I’m feeling more and more drawn to create new recipes and blog them! It’s a good thing too, because I’ve got 50 more pounds I’d like to drop (in addition to the 85 lost in the last year and a 1/2 or so), and I know being motivated to cook is key.

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!!!

If we did a poll asking, “What is your ultimate comfort food?”, we’re pretty confident that a substantial number of you would eagerly and without hesitation declare, “Mac & Cheese, of course!”.  Many people, even those who have been vegan their whole adult lives, look back with longing on the crack mac and cheese of our youth…. or if we’re really lucky, look back on homemade sticky, crusty, gooey baked macaroni.  If your family fed you the latter as a child, this recipe might not feel all that familiar.  If you were a kid who craved kraft’s yellow yumminess, however (or if your vice was velveeta)… listen up!

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!