Its been 10 months and I'm still a Vegan! My weight has plateaued down 60 lbs from where I started on January 1st. There haven't been any cravings and the pain in my back and knees that I was experiencing prior have disappeared. No need for Statins to control my cholesterol and no blood pressure pills either. I have plenty of energy and I don't get hungry during the day. Just a wild guess but I'm going to say that the complex carbohydrates in whole grains, fruits, seeds, nuts, beans and vegetables are providing stability to my blood glucose level thereby eliminating the peaks and valleys responsible for cravings and hunger. Works for me!
Shelley bought a spaghetti squash for me with the challenge to do something with it. Having never cooked one before in my life, I dredged up a memory of someone telling me that all you have to do is cut it in half and bake it upside down (400 degrees for 1 hour). Imagine my surprise when that worked! Then came the fun part. I gathered up the ingredients in the picture above and tweaked them as I went along. It came out pretty darn good so I'm passing on the recipe to you.
Mesquite Spaghetti Squash
3 carrots, 3 stalks celery, 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic, 2 stalks kale, 2 handfuls baby spinach, 1 spaghetti squash, 28 oz diced tomatoes, 28 oz tomato sauce, 6 oz tomato paste, 2 TBS chili powder, 1 TBS cumin, 2 TBS paprika, 2 TBS mesquite seasoning, 1/2 dried ghost chili pepper, 4 TBS agave nectar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup quinoa, 4 cups water, 1 TBS basil.
Put 1 cup of quinoa in 2 cups of water with the salt and basil in a pot, bring it to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmering boil, cover and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and keep it covered. Put it to the side.
Put all the veggies and the pepper into a food processor and grind them up to a course texture.
In a large pot bring 2 cups of water to a boil with a little salt, add the tomato sauce, paste and diced tomatoes and everything else. Bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to let it simmer covered for an hour, stirring it occasionally. Stir in the quinoa and let it simmer for another 15 minutes until most of the liquids are absorbed. Add salt to taste. If its too spicy, add more agave nectar. If you want to add heat, try using a whole pepper. Good luck with that.
The ghost pepper is EXTREMELY hot. It comes with a warning about wearing gloves and not touching your eyes. A little goes a long way. I like things hot so I used half a pepper without the seeds and put it through the food processor.
My nephew turned me on to Black Bean Spaghetti noodles from Costco. They are gluten free and have no egg. Just 2 oz of the noodles alone contain 25 grams of protein. Compare to 2 oz of Barilla Whole Grain spaghetti noodles with 7 grams of protein. Top it off with some nutritional yeast and you have a wonderful meal with no saturated fat, no oil, no processed sugar, no gluten for Mimi and zero guilt!
Get the book: The Whole Heart Solution - Simon & Schuster
by my friend Joel Kahn, M.D. and let him help you learn about the simple things you can do for yourself.
Enjoy!
