Friday Night and Leeks in the Fridge

So, I'm feeling a little uninspired tonight to cook anything fun, does anyone have any suggestions for the two beautiful leeks that are hanging around in my fridge?

Artichoke Tomato Onion Pie Pictures

OK, so I'm new to blogging and can't seem to move the photos around... next time I need to upload the in reverse or figure it out :-)...

Artichoke Tomato Onion Pie (vegan)

So, this morning I mangled two recipes and made one dish that is in the oven now. I have made artichoke pie and found it is best when left to cool and then warmed up later - it seems to allow the artichoke hearts the time to mellow and blend.
From The New McDougall Cookbook I used the crust recipe from page 218's Swiss Chard tart but instead of adding whole wheat pastry flour to the second mix-in I used regular whole wheat flour by mistake, here is the recipe as I made it:
In a large bowl mix together the following and stir really well, let set to rest for 30 minutes:
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon (pkg) yeast
2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 to 1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt (I used Celtic Sea Salt)
After the half hour add about 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and mix in until you have a nice sticky dough, the idea, I believe is not to build gluten fibers so don't knead this. Pour into a lightly oiled pie plate and press to cover bottoms and sides. Fill with fillings of choice, bake according to your filling recipe.
Filling for Artichoke Tomato Onion Pie
3 onions sliced into thin rings
3 to 4 cloves of garlic finely minced
1 fresh tomato sliced thinly
Fresh or dried basil (1 teaspoon dried)
1 can drained, lightly squeezed artichoke hearts cut in quarters
1 pound silken tofu
1 cube vegan vegetable bouillon
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
I prepared all of the vegetables while waiting for the crust rise the first time. Added the additional flour and pressed in pan, while waiting for the second rise I did the rest of the prep.
In a pan water saute/steam the onions for 8 to 10 minutes, adding a little water as needed, add garlic, saute for another minute, remove from heat add artichoke hearts, stir.
In food processor place the tofu, the boullion cube and hot sauce, blend until smooth.
(make sure your onion mix isn't too wet)
Add tomatoes on top of the crust, sprinkle with basil.
Mix tofu mix and onions together, spoon into crust over tomatoes (I left the edges of the tomatoes peeking out to brown a bit.
Bake at 375 for 35 minutes or more if needed until brown and wonderful... I will report back if this is long enough later in a comment. The filling was adapted from a recipe in a book called "125 Best Began Recipes" by Maxine Effenson Chuck and Beth Gurney - their original recipe was quite good but I wanted to add more to it so added the tomatoes, more onions and more artichoke hearts than they did. (Rachel gave me the book for my birthday! Thanks Rachel!)

What's for dinner?

Vegan Pizza Night! It is Friday after all, who wants to cook? Not me!
I bought ready-made, whole grain pizza dough at work and some pizza sauce.
I left the dough on the counter to warm up a bit, maybe for an hour or so.
I pre-heated my oven to 450 degrees and my pizza stone that I found buried under some old baking pans in the closet, I bought it about five years ago at a Pampered Chef party a friend had and so there it was, awesome and already seasoned!
On the cutting board I had some really finely sliced yellow onions (in rings), red bell peppers and some finely minced garlic.
I cut the dough into about six pieces and rolled them out individually (I need a pizza peel to build on, I had to make the pizza on the cutting board, manage to get it onto a plate and then off onto the pizza stone... not the easiest thing to do. A cookie sheet would have worked as well and been a ton easier!
I spread the pizza dough some of the minced garlic, spread on some sauce and loaded the top with sliced onions and sliced red bell pepper and baked them for about 10 - 15 minutes each.
Fabulous, simple and very inexpensive. Have a nice side salad with this and you are good to go!

As serious as a heart attack...

A very close friend today told me that her father had just suffered a heart attack, I was hoping to wait and talk about arterial health a little later on in my blog but here we are with an example all to close to home. Her father has had triple by-pass surgery in the past and now is on to having a second stent. After having been through Dr. McDougall's 10 day live-in program and sitting through his lectures I am confident that diet is the only "cure" available to us that really works, you can heal, your body knows how to heal itself. I'm certainly not an expert but I wish I had known this years ago, I would have taken a huge loan and sent my entire family to see Dr. McDougall. Here is what he has to say about the subject. I have taken this directly from Dr. McDougall's website as I couldn't find a better way to say what he has here, "An expected part of aging in Western societies is to have the arteries feeding your heart, brain, legs, and penis close down by atherosclerosis. Yet these problems are almost never found in populations of people who follow a diet low in animal-derived and processed foods, such as those living in rural Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. The matter that clogs the arteries is living tissue, (not concrete) and therefore, can heal given the right environment. To clean up your arteries (reverse atherosclerosis), a very low-fat, no-cholesterol diet must be followed strictly. Immediate benefits, such as relief of chest pains (angina) and tolerance for more exercise, are seen within days. Hearth surgery fails to prolong life in the vast majority of people and is fraught with serious side effects, including permanent brain damage - don't go this route unless you have no other choice."

About the McDougall Program...

Finally! I'm back on line and ready to begin telling you all about the Health Immersion program in more detail. I left for California on the afternoon of February 24th, 2010. I flew into San Francisco Airport and took the airport shuttle to stay with Joyce, a friend from work who wanted to see San Francisco for a day or two before heading to the program. Both of us had been following the program, Joyce since Nov. 30th and me since late December. Both of us were have significant improvements in our health besides the happiness that losing some weight also brought us. On Thursday we ran all over San Francisco, taking pictures, being crazy tourists and loved it. Joyce was so easy to travel with! We had an 'off plan' lunch at Fisherman's Wharf after running like mad around the city and then took a bus out to the Golden Gate Bridge, where we proceeded to walk all the way across and back again! Holy Bus Smoke Batman! We can both check that off of our lists of things to do before we... GROW OLD and HEALTHY on the McDougall plan. Friday we headed up to Santa Rosa on the bus, what a beautiful ride. We took a cab to the Flamingo Resort, Joyce nearly died from the ciggarette smell in the cab... it was pretty gross! We both checked in and then went and checked out the hot tub and the pool, we had a pretty great time swimming in late February.

So, here we were, exhausted and not feeling too hot from our off plan lunch of the day before when we had our first lecture/welcome with Dr. McDougall... he was fantastic right out of the gate and then we had an on plan dinner that was fantastic and then orientation with Mary McDougall and the instruction to fast after 8PM for bloodwork and urine tests in the morning. From then on out we were involved in the program from the time we got up, testing was early and every morning we had our blood pressure taken as early as 5:30AM... crazy! Lectures went until 9PM most nights. We had two days that included outings that were incredible, I will tell you about them as I go along. I want to start giving you the lecture information from the program. See the next topic: Lectures

Where I started...

In December I went to see my primary care physician to get my "numbers" for my application to the McDougall Program. I'll never forget what happened. My PCP, who I love, knew what the visit was for, she came into the room and said to me, "with your height and weight your BMI is 41 and you are a candidate for gastric bypass surgery." I laughed it off and then when I got to my car I just started sobbing. I had shrunk two inches to 5'7" and weighed in at 258 pounds. Holy crap! So, I decided then that I was going to follow Dr. McDougall's program as I did not expect to get into the program, I thought there would be hundreds of people applying. So follow it I did for the most part, there was a little messing around over the holidays but then I jumped in with both feet. Here is the progression of my "numbers" since December 16 and their improvement... and if I can do this anyone can and we were shown that at the program!

December 16th, 2009

Cholesterol 192, HDL 65, LDL 109, triglycerides 89

Blood sugar 101, Blood Pressure 140/84

Weight 258, BMI 41

January 26, 2010 - trip to PCP

Weight down to 250 - an eight pound drop

February 19th - WFM testing for tiered discount

Cholesterol 171, HDL 61, LDL 71, triglycerides 190

Blood sugar 98, Blood pressure 124/82

Weight 245.2 (almost another five pound drop), BMI 38.4

February 27, 2010 (begin McDougall 10 day program)

Cholesterol 150, HDL 55, LDL 78, triglycerides 87

Blood sugar 106, Blood Pressure not on sheet but was near 111/78 or so...

Weight 245, BMI still around 38.4 (oh the sins at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco)

March 5, 2010

Cholesterol 143, HDL 47, LDL 75, triglycerides 103

Blood sugar 91, Blood pressure still fantastic, near platinum in WFM standards!

Weight 243, don't know the BMI for that

Today, March 12, 2010

The only measure I will have until I go for blood work for the research study will be my weight.

Weight 235

So, the numbers are boring but they tell the truth and the truth is that this program really works, I can't wait for June to go clothes shopping!

McDougall Program

Whole Foods Market offered a chance for 300 team members to go to a second round of health immersion programs in support of one of our new core values - Healthy Eating Education (I don't have the exact verbage in front of me right now, I'll update later) and I jumped at the chance to go. I had heard of Dr. McDougall's program in the past but it was financially out of reach for me, I hadn't realized that Dr. McDougall offers his program for free on his website. I also really felt like I needed to break away from home to focus and get well, I was also worried that 10 days would not be enough. It was and I want to share the information I learned while I was there as well as my successes (or failures) as I go along. The program is amazing and I, along with most of the other participants have seen significant improvements in their health in as little as ten days, seriously! I do think that doing the program on your own without the corresponding education at the program might prove to be difficult. Dr. McDougall and his team are really convincing and have the science and research to back it up. So, here we go... my story and trip back to health, I hope you don't find it too dry!

Health Immersion Program - Dr. McDougall

Intro page only, posting will begin later tonight about the life changing experience that was gifted to me by Whole Foods Market, Inc. A 10-day Health Immersion program in Santa Rosa, California with Dr. John McDougall. (www.drmcdougall.com). Until then, have a great day!