another good description of how to eat

From Dr. McDougall's latest newsletter:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2014nl/jun/foodpoison.pdf

The pictures of what to eat are so appealing!

mashed potatoes and gravy!

Our kitchen remodel is finally done and I think I'd be happy with any kitchen after 8 weeks without, but I'm very happy with ours.  Today I made mashed potatoes and gravy!  It was good good good!  

Here's the kitchen.

Who cares, here's the mashed potatoes, gravy and greens!

Dessert was watermelon.  Dinner was mashed potatoes, gravy, and sugar snap peas; and watermelon for dessert again.

The gravy is fabulous and guilt-free.  To make this delicious food, I cooked up some beans the old fashioned way, on the stove after soaking overnight.  In the pressure cooker I put potatoes, onions, mushrooms, and garlic cloves with some water and cooked them.  These were cut into big chunks for easy separation later (didn't cut the garlic or mushrooms).   After cooking, I whipped the potatoes along with some of the garlic, a little onion, and liquid from cooking.  I blended the beans with their cooking water and the garlic in a blender, then added the onion and mushrooms and Italian seasoning and just pulsed it so they were still chunky.   Most people would also want to add in soy or tamari sauce or salt to the gravy.   It's fun being able to load on the gravy and knowing that it's all healthy!   Housemate likes this too.  We'll have it again tomorrow since I have lots of gravy left over.

how to eat

This pretty much sums it up!
http://www.straightupfood.com/blog/my-meals/

favorite oatmeal

not the favorite but one of my favorites:

oats, curry powder and spinach.   easy to make in your hotel room but good enough to eat at home too.   Tomorrow's will be oats, strawberry, bananas, blueberries, and cinnamon.

A first for me

Today at a Whole Foods store, I got some cooked brown rice, quinoa, steamed kale and collards, all with no added salt, oil, or sugar (SOS).

That is a first for me to get something cooked from a store or restaurant with no SOS.  Yeah, I know others are very successful at this.  Not me.   I know I can't get that at the Whole Foods where I live, and I gave up on the restaurants a while ago.

Trip food

I found a good grocery store today--that is, it has good fresh produce--which is a surprise given I'm in a small very very touristy town.  But I guess the locals have to eat and they must like some fresh produce.  Note that it's the conventional produce that looked fresh, not the organic, so I went with conventional.  I got a beautiful head of romaine lettuce and a locally grown tomato and made is minimalist salad from that for today and tomorrow:


That's lettuce (washed and broken into 2 pieces per leaf) and sliced tomato.  No fork or dressing required; can be eaten anywhere with ease.  I also got some "baby carrots".  So that's my snacking food.

I'm in Tennessee and I have to say I am a southerner when it comes to food (well, and background too).  I have so many fond memories of the food.  OMG, there's a pancake place on every block and fried chicken and BBQ.  The store deli had all kinds of this stuff plus mashed potatoes and the usual delicious sides you get in southern restaurants.  Fortunately there is healthy food I can eat too.  Here is what I cooked up for the next two days in my Instapot pressure cooker (one day's worth is shown here--lunch and dinner).

That's rice, potato, black-eyed peas, okra, zucchini, canned tomatoes, and baby kale.  and I added some singapore, tandoori and italian seasoning.  Here's the instapot in the bathroom (hotel cooking):

and they had good fruit too.  I bought a container of watermelon pieces that I ate this afternoon.  For tomorrow's breakfast I have oats, cinnamon, sliced grapes, strawberries and pineapple.  I'll heat that in the microwave.

 I think I'll stop at this store before leaving tomorrow tomorrow since I know I can get good produce and then I'll be set for a few more days.

What I've been eating

Here is how I've been preparing food lately.  This has served me well in my temporary kitchen in the basement during our kitchen remodel (almost done!), at my meditation retreat last week, and on our upcoming vacation.  I'm using the Instapot pressure cooker to cook 2 days worth of lunch and dinner. I usually start by cooking an onion and brown rice (1/2-1 cup for 10 minutes); then I add a potato, sweet potato, and veggies and spices and cook that up (1-2 minutes); then add a can of beans.  My veggies are whatever I feel like.  Lately it's been local asparagus or broccoli, or cauliflower, and just recently, collards and kale from the garden.  For spices, I have a few handy dandy pieces of paper that tell me how to mix spices for different kinds of food.  Here's an example.  The other one I use is from the E2X website. Tonight I made barbecue flavor.  That included:  smoked paprika, no-salt mustard, pepper, garlic, nutmeg, chipotle powder, and vinegar.  You can look up any recipe for barbecue sauce to get your own ideas.   Next time I think I'll include a little portion of chopped apple which will turn into sauce in the pressure cooker.  Anyway, this was good and will last me through the first two days of my trip:

Our co-op has giant heads of local romaine lettuce, so I washed one and ripped each leaf into a few pieces and put them in bowls that should last through tomorrow.  That's my salad, ha---easy eating in the car, and it tastes good as is.   I've been having oatmeal and fruit for breakfast.   At the meditation retreat, they had a great salad bar and fruit. So I just cooked up my starches in the instapot and ate them with salad and fruit.  

I posted a few weeks ago about a book on human evolution I read and what my conclusions were for the ideal diet.  It was my attempt to form a low-glycemic (because the foods of our ancestors were likely this) vegan diet (my requirement for ethical reasons).  It has lots of vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds (the latter to replace the meat our ancestors ate), and some fruit.  Well, the only problem is, it's not the diet I want to follow.  I tire of it quickly, and I tend to overeat nuts and get a stomach ache.  I think what I want to follow most closely resembles Dr. McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss plan.  Any eating plan with the words "Maximum Weight Loss" sounds drastic and unappealing to me, which always made me think it's too extreme and I'm must be missing out, but in fact it is a very enjoyable and reasonably cheap way to eat, and I wish it had a different name.  like the maximum awesome way to eat.  It has my favorite foods:  oats, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans veggies, and fruit.   

Chef AJ's Yummy Sauce

I finally made Chef AJ's yummy sauce today and I concur, it is yummy!   You can find the recipe and video here.   I used a half-pound of dried white beans (soaked and cooked), which is more than 1 can, so I increased the other ingredients:  2 lemons, extra garlic, 3 Tbsp of mustard,  2 medjool dates.  For garlic I used green garlic--that's early garlic, it's like chives.  I blended the white parts, then added the greens at the end for a quick chop instead of blend.  Since 1/2 lb of beans usually lasts me 3 days, I added enough water to fill 3 16-oz jars:

That will nicely cover 2 salads a day.   I wonder what else I should put it on.