Soups

It's warm here in Portland but I"m making soups anyway. I enjoy them and they are filling. I made a barley-mushroom-kale soup and a black bean soup. I made some baked corn tortilla chips this morning, before it got too hot.

My black bean soup has evolved. I take one or two cans of Trader Joe's black beans and rinse them. Put in a pot with this small cube of frozen cilantro I have, some veggie broth (mine is from Pacific Foods), chili powder, onion and garlic powder. Let that warm up on low. Take about half the beans and enough liquid to cover and put in a blender. Blend well then put back into the soup. This thickens it. I like to have whole beans in the soup as well, so I don't blend up all of it. Add some salsa (I use Pace Picante) and corn. I had some leftover mushrooms from the barley soup so I tossed those in too. Heat and store for delicious meals! I heat up the soup then put in the baked chips.

Barbara

Diabetes

I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I’m still trying to get my medication sorted out. I haven’t really done much with my diet yet. I am moving slowly (as usual!) toward the McDougall lifestyle. I do know I do better, blood pressure and health wise in general when I do that. I’m just stubborn about changing completely over to a full vegan diet. The strange part is I do enjoy the vegan food I make/eat.

I recently made a new dish, got the recipe from recipezaar.com. It’s called barley casserole and it’s vegan and easily made McDougall friendly. It is just soo good! I love barley and I’m going to try some new barley recipes I found there.

Barbara

Creative cooking

The other day I made pizza dough. I took what was left, cooked up some ground turkey I had and planned to make calzones. I have to admit, it didn't turn out too well. So I had a lot of cooked ground turkey left. I had already mixed in the little bit of pizza sauce that was left. So today, I cooked up some angel hair pasta, added some jarred pasta sauce and the turkey and had that for lunch at work today. Very tasty. Never used angel hair in spaghetti before, but it worked very well.

Still working on the pantry oversupply and it's slowly being eaten away.

Barbara

Pantry cooking

I recently realized that I have a LOT of food in my pantry (shelves, refrigerator and freezer). So yesterday I wrote up a week's worth of menus using only what is already in the house. It was easy to come up with 3 meals a day and I have a lot of ideas for at least another week. I shop way too much. Maybe a way of feeling secure, I think. Anyway, we need to continue to economize and this is a good way, getting rid of what we already have.

Health update

Well, I recently got diagnosed with diabetes. My A1c test came back at 11.1 which is quite high. My blood sugars were in the 250 range.

Of course my doctor wanted to put me on statins, for no apparent reason, my cholesterol is 197 which is fine. I refused. He put me on metformin, which I've stopped taking because of the side effects. I'm taking various herbals and eating a completely vegan low fat diet (Dr John McDougall's diet). It's working well, my blood sugars are down and my blood pressure is amazing.

More later.

Words to Remember

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

President Barack Obama, Inaugural address, January 20, 2009

Bravo, sir, bravo.

Tasty Soup

I made soup today with veggie broth, some frozen kale I had steamed, and pearl barley. I love barley. No pictures, I ate it up, it was so good and just hit the spot on this cold day. Made some generic muffins which were very tasty as well.

Barbara

Free workouts

I use a system called Turbulence Training for a lot of my workouts. As an early Christmas present, the guy behind the system has provided a free pdf of 10 minute workouts to do when stressed for time, like now during the holidays. You can get it here and there is no need to buy anything or sign up for anything. It's a 20 page pdf and it's free!

Barbara