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Split Pea Soup (Vegan)
This recipe courtesy of Jerry U, one of my YouTube viewers. Thanks Jerry!
NOTE: Do NOT buy loose, bulk unpackaged split peas, as they may be old and not cook thoroughly. We learned this the hard way.
Ingredients:
18 cups of water in a large pot (note: I couldn’t fit this many cups in my large pot so I used less)
16 oz BAG of rinsed green split peas (yellow ok too but imo not quite as tasty)
2 large peeled sweet potatoes
2 peeled medium carrots
2 stalks of celery and leaves
2 onions
Italian seasoning
salt
pepper
Total time = 1 1/2 to 2 hours, possibly a bit more
Directions:
Puree the celery, carrots and onions in a blender or food processor. Chop the peeled sweet potatoes into cubes or chunks.
Bring water to a rapid boil. Put in the rinsed split peas and pureed celery, carrots and onion. Put in the peeled cubed or chunky sweet potatoes.
Keep the pot uncovered for this phase.
Cook at a medium boil for about a half hour, stirring every once in awhile. Keep at a medium boil for another half hour to an hour and stir more often to keep from sticking. Put in additional water if the need arises, a half cup at a time
When you see the soup start to thicken, put in the Italian seasoning – a thin layer over the top or to taste. Be careful not to put in too much. Put in a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a simmer for about another half hour, or until the soup thickens, and stir now and then. When you see that the soup has thickened, take it off the burner, keep it covered, and let it sit on another cold burner for about 10 minutes. Try eating with some toasted whole wheat baguette slices. Enjoy!!
Nutcracker Improv + Kemo
What to do when you don’t have something to crack open a nut. Remember Dr. McDougall says “Nuts have a hard shell for a reason.” 🙂
Starch Solution Grocery Haul and Cupboard Display
Here is my latest grocery haul and I also show you what I have in my cupboard, along with my rescue cat Kemo. People like to see Kemo in my grocery hauls!
Shredded Hash Brown Omelette
This is pretty easy as you basically cook up some veggies and put them inside a folded shredded hash brown layer. You can put whatever veggies you like in there.
Ingredients (use whatever veggies you like):
Whole Wheat Baguette
Making bread can be tricky. I’ve seen so many recipe variations out there that it can be overwhelming! Many recipes call for soakers, spongers, waiting days for dough to rise, punching the dough down multiple times, putting dough in the fridge and so many other possibilities. But I usually try to find something that is fairly quick and easy. All I can say is if you have any problems, try again and be willing to make variations in the recipe! Some of the instructions will come with caveats or possible modifications. Check back over time as I may try different things and make it better. I can’t predict what every variation might turn out like as I’ve only tried a few.
If you don’t have vital wheat gluten you can try it without. I need to try some more variations and see what works best, it’s supposed to help with the texture as whole wheat flour has a harder time developing gluten. I also read it’s not really necessary depending on how fine the flour particles are. So we’ll see.
Ingredients:
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar (any sweetener should do)
1 cup warm water (~110 deg. F). I use warm water from my tap (filtered/softened well water).
2 cups of whole wheat flour (I use Speerville Organic). Before measuring stir up the flour to loosen as it can get compacted.
1 tsp salt (this is optional if you eat the bread with other things like jam, without salt the bread itself is a little bland if not toasted)
1/2 tbsp of vital wheat gluten, optional and depends on whole wheat flour used.
Instructions
Put water in bowl and add yeast and sugar, stir a couple times to mix. Let sit for 10 minutes. Yeast should bloom, you’ll see it go across the top of the water. If it doesn’t the yeast might be dead or the water was too hot/cold.
Put the flour, vital wheat gluten (if using) and salt in a bowl, mix thoroughly with a spoon (I eventually dive in with my hands once a ball starts to form). Add the flour mixture slowly to the water/yeast mixture and mix until it starts to forms a ball. It will be a bit sticky (was for me in a humid climate). If you’ve added all the flour and it’s still really sticky add some more flour slowly as you mix with your hands. The flour/water ratio can vary depending on brand of flour. The dough should have a little stickiness but still be workable. Knead the dough for a few minutes. I did this is the bowl as I added flour. I aim for a play-dough like feel. Cover the bowl in a damp cloth and let the dough rise for an hour (or more if you have time). I found it stop rising after a certain point so it didn’t seem worth waiting any longer.
Take the dough out and lay on a 11×17″ baking tray lined with a silpat non-stick baking sheet. If you have parchment paper you can use that. Roll the dough out with your hands so that it forms a long thin baguette shape, almost touch the ends of baking tray. Score the baguette using a sharp knife – basically make 1/2 inch deep cuts that are roughly 6 inch long slices in the bread at a slight angle to the bread lengthwise, a few inches apart (see above photo, my scoring technique still needs work!)
When ready to bake the bread, preheat oven to 425F, covering the dough with the damp cloth again until ready to bake. Put an oven-safe baking dish with 1 cup of water on the bottom rack of the oven. The steam will create a good crust on the bread. When the oven is heated put the dough in the oven on the non-stick baking tray (I use silpat sheet). Bake for 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven) until a good crust is formed and when sticking a knife in the bread it should come out with no dough on it. When the bread looks cooked I turn off the oven and leave it in there to cool with the oven door open which can increase the crispiness. You can spray water on the dough halfway through baking as well which helps form a thick crust, which is the best part of this baguette! Toasting this makes it even better either in a toaster or in the oven.
You can double this recipe to make a loaf of crusty bread as well, if you have a loaf tin which I need to get now!
Why Go Vegan?
After the recent WHO declaration that red and processed meats cause cancer, people say to me: “Humans have been eating meat for thousands of years. So why can’t I have a burger once in awhile?” Well, other than that being an ‘appeal to tradition’ fallacy, I’m not that interested in what humans have done in the past. I’m interested in what is the healthiest diet for humans while minimizing the impact to animals and environment. And the diet that covers all three happens to be a 100% plant-based diet (vegan).
Okinawans live very long lives. They eat 96% plants and 4% animal products. “So hey Will, why are you oblivious to or ignoring this fact and why are you against eating animals? You know like say 5% of your diet.”
Well there are few reasons. In this video below by Dr. Greger there are people who live even longer than Okinawans. The Adventist vegetarians in California eat 100% plant-based. So going that final few yards to 100% seems to be worth it not just for health and other reasons as well.
Our biology doesn’t seem suited to eating animals. We have more amylase enzyme for digesting starches, weaker stomach acid for digesting flesh, longer intestines and more. The fact that we get so sick from eating animals makes perfect sense to me. Instinctively we don’t look at animals as prey that we want to hunt down and eat with our bare hands. Instead we go to the supermarket and get a shrink-wrapped product, take it home and cover it with barbecue sauce (from plants by the way). See this chart I recently posted: http://www.werone.co/images/05_Humans_Are_Frugivores_750.jpg
With 7+ billion people (and growing), eating even this smaller percentage of animals that would still be billions of animals (land and sea) every year being killed. Most land animals live horrible lives in confinement and then are killed after a few short months. Many sea animals are swept up in the nets and are pulled out of the water to suffocate. I’m happy knowing animals don’t have to suffer for my dinner plate.
Raising even this many animals requires insane amount of forests to be clearcut (for grass fed), water usage, waste and methane production. Lots of other animals are killed as they are seen as ‘competition’ eg. wolves, bears, coyotes, etc. More facts about animal agriculture can be found at www.cowspiracy.com/facts
On a practical note, it’s hard for most people to practice moderation. If you’re only going to eat a few percent of your daily calories from animals why not go 100%? I love the food I eat now and have no desire whatsoever to eat animals. I’m not depriving myself of anything. I think it’s easier to go 100% than say 95% as you keep all your unhealthy habits from being removed for good and it’s easy to let this expand to 10% and more.
I find it really interesting that when people find out that something is this unhealthy (like the red/processed meat causes cancer finding) to eat they just want to cut back, as opposed to say cutting our cigarettes and avoiding asbestos. Would those people let their kids have a few cigarettes and day and only spend a couple hours in an asbestos-laden school building? But for some reason it’s okay to do this with cancer-causing foods (not to mention heart disease and diabetes inducing as well). Those addictions and habits are strong!
So believe me when I say that I’ve given this a tremendous amount of thought on many levels. It all seems so clear and logical to me. I hope one day you will all agree with me.
New Brunswick Man Gets Lean and Healthy By Eating Potatoes
Will Kriski, resident of Sackville, New Brunswick was tired of being overweight and having high blood pressure and high cholesterol as he hit his 40s. So after researching online and watching documentaries like Forks Over Knives and Engine 2 Diet on Netflix, he found a little known starch-based diet that allows you to eat a lot tasty, filling potatoes while losing weight and getting healthy!
Before Pic
Before Pic
Will discovered the problem is not with healthy carbohydrates (carbs) like potatoes that everyone fears these days, but it’s with all the added stuff like sour cream, bacon, butter and oils that are high in fat along with the unhealthy saturated fats and cholesterol. These products can pack on the pounds, raise blood pressure, raise cholesterol and cause all sorts of other health issues like diabetes and even cancer. It turns out that complex carbohydrates like potatoes are packed with nutrients and are extremely healthy but they’ve received a bad rap over the years as people shun healthy carbs for unhealthy fats and protein.
So Will started eating lots of PEI and New Brunswick potatoes in the form of baked fries and gravy or ketchup, mashed potatoes and gravy, scalloped potatoes, potato salad – all modified to be plant-based and low fat. Over a period of months he slowly and steadily lots over 35 pounds, and lowered his cholesterol and blood pressure so that he is now considered ‘heart attack proof’ (112 mg/dL or 2.89 mmol/L)
Before/After Transformation
The amazing thing is that potatoes are super cheap as well. So you save lots of money on your grocery bill while eating lots of tasty, filling comfort foods like mashed potatoes, pasta, pizza, tacos, shepherd’s pie and so on.
Changing one’s diet can be daunting for some. But by making some small changes we can eat the same types of foods we are used to, just with some changes. Will still eats mashed potatoes, fries, burgers, pasta, pizza, tacos, burritos, and desserts, he just tweaks them to be much healthier. And since the food is much lower in calories he can eat a large volume of tasty food while still losing weight and gaining health.
After having such amazing success Will now spends his time spreading the message to as many others as he can. With health care costs in New Brunswick and elsewhere reaching unsustainable levels it’s time we start to educate people as to what they should be eating on a daily basis. Instead we opt for expensive unnecessary medications and surgery when most of the common, expensive problems are caused by diet.
Will says we need to set up seminars and programs in New Brunswick to teach people how to eat better. If you would like to work with Will to spread the word in New Brunswick please contact him.
Vegan Holiday Recipes
Thanksgiving can be tasty, filling, healthy and cruelty free with these recipes. Please also see the videos posted below.
