Vegan Baked Cauliflower Wings!!! #nutfree #oilfree #dairyfree #glutenfreeoption #Kosher #Pareve #CrueltyFree

I was at Joe Randazzo's wonderful fruit and veggie market a few days ago and picked up a bunch of produce including 2 heads of cauliflower. Having never tried making cauliflower wings before, I put together a quick recipe. It came out pretty delicious! YOU can easily make this gluten free by substituting the flour of your choice. I used coconut milk as well but any non dairy milk is fine. After posting a photo of the results on Facebook, a few requests for the recipe came in so here you go.....

Cauliflower Wings

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 40 minutes

Total time: 1 hour

INGREDIENTS:

1 head of cauliflower cut into florets

1 cup of flour (I used whole wheat)

2 cups of non-dairy milk (I used coconut)

1 T lemon juice

¼ Cup white vinegar (Apple Cider Vinegar also works)

1 tsp yellow mustard

¼ cup of water

2 T onion powder

½ T garlic powder

1 tsp salt (or to taste)

½ tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp regular paprika

¼ tsp cumin

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

Rinse the cauliflower and set aside to dry thoroughly.

Put all the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix it together with a fork until thick and creamy. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 430F.

Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper. Dip the florets into the batter coating completely and gently shaking off the excess. Line them up on the pans and bake for 20 minutes.
Dip them again .

Turn them and bake for another 20 minutes. You can also brown them under the broiler for 5 minutes at the end if you choose to. (I didn’t this time)

51 Months A Vegan! Passover "Tuna-ish" Sandwiches. #kosher #pareve #oilfree

Vegan "Tuna-ish" on whole wheat Matzo

"Tuna-ish", tomatoes, matzo

Its the end of my 5th Passover on a whole foods, plant based, no oil diet. One day to go. Every year I manage to come up with something new. Matzo gets really boring after a week. I found this fake tuna recipe and played with it until I got it just right! Now I want to share it with all of you! (I made plenty so come on over!!)

This is a recipe I modified by Sandra and Susan Sellani.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes
Yield: 6 servings


Ingredients:
2 cup cashews, soaked in water overnight then drained
4 garlic cloves
1 T apple cider vinegar
2 cups aquafaba (save the chickpea water)
2 cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained thoroughly

2 tablespoon capers, drained
3 stalks celery, finely diced

2 tablespoons dill pickle relish
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to tasteDirections (Vegan Mayo):
1. Blend the top 4 ingredients (cashews, garlic, vinegar, aquafaba) until smooth and creamy.

Directions (Sandwiches):
1. Mix 2/3rds cup of the Vegan Mayo, and capers with chickpeas, relish, celery, salt, pepper, and pulse until completely combined. Use a fork to crush the remaining chickpeas until it looks like tuna salad.

Make a toasted whole wheat or rye bread sandwich with a little lettuce, medium hot pickled peppers and mustard.
OR
Use it on crackers, celery or make sandwiches with any whole grain vegan bread.

You are gonna plotz!!!!

50 Months A Vegan. !!!!! #eatinglikeahorse #foodismedicine #MarchWithStarch

Its All Healthy, Its All Good AND Its All Starch

     Just in case you're keeping track, its been 50 months since I accepted that a Whole Foods Plant Based diet is The Healthiest Diet On The Planet!  It was easy for me to give up all animal products. Really! Even cheese!

I never got hungry or had any cravings. Meat from cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, fish and everything else that ever had a face and a mother contains no fiber. Zero. Without the fiber I would have to eat loads and loads of meat to make me feel full. Along with the meat comes loads and loads of cholesterol which is not found in plants and tons of sodium because without it, it tastes like dead meat! 

     The picture above was my dinner tonight. That one meal covers all the nutritional needs that I have including all of the essential amino acids for protein synthesis, all the vitamins and minerals, all the fatty acids, all the phytonutrients and all the fiber for the entire day, but its all starch and only around 550 calories. The plate contained so much food that I had to put some in the fridge for another day. Four hours later I still feel full with lots of energy, no feeling like I have to loosen my belt and take a nap and no brain fog. I used a pinch of salt for the mixed brown and wild rice, but most of the flavor came from the garlic, onion, ginger, cumin, sage, thyme, parsley, basil, cayenne pepper and the sliced sweet peppers. Notice all the colors in the veggies.  We are hardwired to be attracted to them.

In the wild the colors stand out and help us locate them as a possible food source.  Those colors are the phytonutrients that help optimize our health. They are easily and nearly totally absorbed. You won't see them coming out the other end. Your digestive system was developed millions of years ago and is geared to break down whatever you chose to eat, absorb what you need and flush out the waste. Animal and plant based foods are all capable of providing your nutritional needs. The plants won't clog your arteries. So eat the rainbow to help lower your cholesterol, improve your memory, decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack, lose weight, lower your blood pressure, improve your circulation, prevent or even reverse diabetes and heart disease, reduce the risk of colon cancer and even fight depression! There is no other diet plan or pill you can take that will do all that. If you find one I would like to hear about it! 

     If this is the first of my blogs that you've read, the reason I started eating like this is because I knew I had to lose a lot of weight. My friend, Joel Kahn MD is an interventional cardiologist who would rather teach you how to prevent a heart attack than treat you after you've had one. Simply following him on Facebook, I got all the information I needed right there to change my ways. He recently published his latest book: The Plant Based Solution . It is an excellent starting point with tons of easy to follow information and lots of wonderful and simple recipes. It even has success stories to help motivate you. My personal story leads off the chapter Slim and Trim.  

     One hundred pounds disappeared without any pills, surgery or exercise. Another 10 disappeared when I started regular exercise. It's a lot easier to exercise after losing 100 lbs. That means I lost 90% of the weight I needed to lose by eating real food and only 10% with exercise. You can't out exercise a bad diet but you can easily transition to a healthy one! Why not pick the healthiest!

     Don't think for a second that your Doctor is in charge of your health. He or she will expertly treat you once you get sick or develop a chronic disease but most probably won't go over what you are eating before a problem develops. You and only you are in charge of your health and what you eat every day is the key. Get started. Give it 2 weeks and see what happens. Anyone can do anything for 2 weeks. Even me!! 

Day 3 of Food Diary Update Diet Toolbox Tools. Dinner! #eatYOURveggies #EATtoLOSE

Mixed greens, BBQ tofu, oil free dressing.  Broccoli steamed with ginger, garlic, onion flakes, tomato, dates, vinegar

     Two days later, to continue my story, I'm doing the food diary again. With no additional exercise, I weigh 4 lbs less than I did 2 days ago. That's what happens when I find a way to let my brain account for everything I've eaten. The weight just falls right off with no additional work other than putting pen to paper. No special supplements, no medication, no specific food preparation, just mindful eating. It's like a ZEN lifestyle. I've found my TAO to ZEN.  I'll blame the ginger. ✌

Interested in learning more?
Joint me at the Plant Based Nutrition Support Group at Groves High School next Wednesday.
This is easy and really truly works!!

Joel Kahn MD and Allan Kalmus DPM

   

Diet Toolbox #thatappleiswatchingme #eatyourGBOMBS #FOODisMEDICINE

For various reasons I've had a hard time maintaining my weight over the past few weeks. Its hard to adjust and easier to put it on than it is to take it off. It may be the decreased level of activity due to the winter weather.  More likely it's the increased time indoors, stress associated with the slow season and just plain paying no attention to how much and how often I'm eating, hungry or not. Stress has me eating for comfort when I'm already full. There is no accountability. In spite of perfect compliance with a whole food plant based no oil diet my portion control has failed.

Back to basics. I thought I'd gotten over the need for a food diary. For most of the year it's not necessary but right now it is a simple tool to help me regain control. My brain does not want to acknowledge how full my stomach is through the usual neurological and hormonal pathways. The food diary gives my brain the feedback I need to know how much I have already eaten and when to stop!




Here's how it's going so far today:

Breakfast
7:00 am.  One cup of dry quick oats mixed with 2 cups of boiling water, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, 2 tablespoons of milled flaxseed and 4 tablespoons of mixed berries.
I cooled it down with 1/2 cup of vanilla almond milk.

10;00 am. One cup of black coffee.



Lunch
Noon
Leftover 1 pan pasta with gluten free chickpea rotini pasta, red Swiss chard, curly parsley, fresh grated ginger, fresh tomato, sliced carrots, sliced celery, garlic, onion, purple cabbage, onion flakes, cayenne pepper, 2 pinches of black sea salt and 2 cups of water. Also fresh pear slices on the side and another cup of black coffee.

2:00 pm.  One 16 ounce bottle of water.
3:00 pm.  One large apple.

Already by the end of lunch I got in my Greens, Beans, Onions, Berries and Seeds.
All I have to do to complete the Dr. Fuhrman acronym is eat some Mushrooms and I can cross off my G-BOMBS for the day.

The more I write down, the more aware I become of all the things I put in my stomach today and the fuller I feel. That's why I'm putting in all the detail. It becomes a change in thought pattern between "what can I eat next?" and the healthier  "what have I already eaten?".

That's the idea. It's not complicated and doesn't cost anything. Spring is around the corner and I want to get back into the 5K races. I started training yesterday. It's my way of taking control of my own health. It's not my Doctor's responsibility to make me healthy, its mine.
I can do this and I know you can too!  All it takes is 1 step at a time. Take that 1st one!!!

49 months a vegan! Filling meal of Spaghetti Squash #foodismedicine #vEGANisNOTboring

Spaghetti Squash with homemade marinara and portobello mushrooms

      I'm into this whole foods plant based no oil cooking for over 4 years and the food is never boring! This is a spaghetti squash with meatless spaghetti sauce, portobello mushrooms that I cooked in it's own juice using a non stick pan and cooking it on medium low heat.
     It's really easy and it took almost no time to prepare. All I did was cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, sprinkle on a tiny pinch of salt and that was the prep. I baked it at 350 degrees open side up in the oven for an hour. During that hour I did paper work.
     Once done I used a fork to scrape out the squash, mixed it with the sauce that I made and jarred 2 weeks ago, added the mushrooms and sprinkled on a little nutritional yeast. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


That squash was in the fridge in the garage waiting patiently for me  to do something with it for about 4 weeks uncovered. Had it been chicken, beef or fish I would have thrown it out by then. That's the great thing about veggies. Even when they are a few weeks old you can still use them. Almost nothing goes to waist! Wilted veggies usually perk back up if you soak them in water for a little while and if they don't, I cut them up, throw them in a pot and make soup!  This is not a complicated equation.
Eat your fruits and veggies, get healthy, lose weight without going hungry and save money!  What's not to like?

Think you could never give up meat and cheese?  So did I and I was wrong. Try it for a week. Anyone can do this.....even me.

49 Months a Vegan! Here is my salad dressing recipe. #Simple #hatepublicspeaking #lovethemessage

I had the honor of speaking to an audience about my personal lifestyle changes over the past 4 years following a lecture on whole foods plant based no oil eating given by Dr. Joel Kahn last week.

In case you missed it, I gave out a recipe for a healthy, simple salad dressing. Here it is again. 

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Romaine and Kale with sweet bell peppers and tomato

     There is absolutely no reason in the world to eat oil period. It doesn't matter if it's vegetable, olive, coconut, safflower, canola, etc, They are all oil and oil damages the endothelial lining of your arteries.  It is the most calorie dense food out there. One tablespoon is 120 calories taking up almost no room in your stomach, adding no nutrition that you couldn't be getting from whole foods. If you have a history of heart disease, a family history of heart disease or you just want a future without heart disease, stay away from oil!!!  ← (that's a link...)

     When you are trying to lose weight, you should go for foods that fill your stomach yet are very low in calories. These are the foods that Weight Watchers assigns Zero points and tells you to eat them as much as you want. Any fruit or vegetable that grows above the ground will do. Stretching out your stomach with low calorie whole foods tells your brain you are full and don't need to eat anymore. Here's my simple salad dressing:

NO OIL SALAD DRESSING

Red Wine Vinegar

Agave nectar (may substitute Mandarin orange slices)

Rosemary

Lemon Juice

Onion flakes

Black pepper

Mix up a nice large salad in a bowl. Drizzle on the vinegar, lemon juice and a little agave nectar. Sprinkle on the seasonings. Toss. That's it! Simple. This is how my mother used to do it. There was no measuring. Add or subtract any seasoning you like and enjoy!!!

     Check out PBNSG.org more recipes and tips.