Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

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Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby oneesotericgirl » Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:21 pm

I am having a terrible time with what to put on top of a baked potato or some cooked rice. All these recipes are fun but on a long day I just want to come home, steam some veggies and microwave a baked potato. BUT I have trouble making myself eat it. I thought I loved carbs. I could eat just a baked potato and be happy. I could eat a bowl of rice and be happy. WRONG! With out butter (or vegan alternative), it does not satisfy at all! They are soooo dry.
What do you put on your rice or your potatoes so that you aren't just eating a mouthful of dry starch?
I have tried salsa, yuck. I tried a little A-1 sauce. Mustard. Nothing has worked. I find myself not feeling satisfied because I don't want to eat the starch because it does not taste good. I plan on making the "cheese sauce" recipes, but I am looking for convenience.
It has been really difficult to realize that I only love my carbs with fat on them. Like goop! I miss goop. Sour cream, butter, avocado, creamed corn, mayo, etc.
Any tips on how to satisfy this craving? I am trying to majorly reduce my salt intake, which is also hindering my desire to eat bland, dry starches.

Thanks in advance to all!
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby vegyluvver » Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:34 am

I make a quart of gravy at a time. Water saute some onions and garlic and spices, add a can of chickpeas or white beans and mash. Add juice of half a lemon, a bit of soy sauce and 1/4 cup while wheat flour whisked into 2 cups water.cook and stir until thick. Optional: a few tablespoons of nutritional yeast.This is based on a gravy from The Post Punk Kitchen.
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby Daydream » Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:43 am

I'm fine with eating all of my veggies and starch without anything on them but my husband loves Mary's Fat Free Golden Gravy so I make that for him:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/educ ... lden-Gravy
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby VeggieSue » Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:53 am

I have a cardfile program I keep all these tidbits of information in. Here's what I found under the "Potato Toppings" heading. It was originally posted by Star McDougaller Jan Tz and added to by others at the time.

~~~
Here is an oldie but goodie list from the old Vegsource McDougall Board:

This list was compiled from Jan Tz’s November 20, 2001 posting, as well as the additions of others that same date and recent January 24, 2002 postings. Quite the list!
1) brown gravy
2) onion gravy
3) mushroom gravy
4) onion-mushroom gravy (good grief)
5) garlic-mushroom gravy
6) ketchup
7) BBQ sauce
BBQ onions
9) chili
10) creamed corn (thanks, Sandie!)
11) spicy beans of all sorts
12) sweet and sour sauce
13) chickpea gravy
14) taco sauce
15) mix the innards of a baked spud with pureed squash
16) mash spudz with cooked carrots
17) posole gravy
18) chili gravy
19) tofu sour creme
20) spaghetti sauce

These are additional suggestions that were not part of Jan’s list:
21) anchovie-free Worcestershire sauce
22) A-1 steak sauce
23) steamed broccoli and cheez sauce
24) cream-style corn
25) fatfree gravies
26) salsa
27) steamed veggies
28) veg bakon bits
29) thick soups (split pea is yummy)
30) Pot Roastless Potato--put steamed carrots and onions inside a baked potato and smother with vegetarian gravy
31) Black Bean Beauties (bbq onions w/pureed black beans
32) Martha Stewart Garlic Roasted Potatoes
33) mushroom stroganoff
34) Bragg's
35) balsamic vinegar
36) lentil sloppy joe
37) stir fry with sweet and sour sauce
38) coleslaw
39) fresh butternut squash with fresh pepper and vegan "butter".
40) Salad Potato--not quite the same as Potato Salad...I dice (really small) cucumber and tomato and let it sit in Seasoned Rice Vinegar while the potato is cooking--then add it along with a few sliced black olives (I'm like that kid in the commercial who finally finds his true family when he sees them with olives on all their fingers...)--salt and pepper. This is good because it's got the hot/cold thing going on--and the seasoned rice vinegar is sweet/salty. Yum!
I like this on taters and brown rice - try succotash (limas, corn, tomatoes) and maybe a little of the juice.

~~~~~~~
FAVORITE POTATO TOPPINGS

List compiled from all the wonderful people on the McDougall Board. (All the toppings need to contain McDougall approved ingredients.)

* brown gravy
* onion gravy
* mushroom gravy
* onion-mushroom gravy
* garlic-mushroom gravy
* ketchup
* BBQ sauce
* BBQ onions
* chili
* creamed corn
* sauerkraut
* stir fried veggies
* soy sauce
* spicy beans of all sorts
* sweet and sour sauce
* chickpea gravy
* taco sauce
* mix the innards of a baked spud with pureed squash
* mash spudz with cooked carrots
* posole gravy
* chili gravy
* tofu sour creme
* veg 'bakon' bits
* spaghetti sauce
* anchovie-free Worcestershire sauce
* A-1 steak sauce
* steamed broccoli and cheez sauce
* any fatfree gravies
* salsa
* steamed veggies
* thick soups (split pea is yummy)
* Pot Roastless Potato--steamed carrots & onions inside a baked potato, smothered with veg gravy
* Black Bean Beauties (bbq onions w/pureed black beans
* Martha Stewart Garlic Roasted Potatoes
* mushroom stroganoff
* Bragg's Liquid Aminos
* balsamic vinegar
* lentil sloppy joe
* stir fry with sweet and sour sauce
* coleslaw
* fresh butternut squash with fresh pepper and vegan "butter".
* mashed avocado on mashed potatoes with a little lemon, salt and pepper

* Salad Potato--not quite the same as "potato salad"...dice (really small) cucumber and tomato and let it sit in Seasoned Rice Vinegar while the potato is cooking--then add it along with a few sliced black olives-- salt and pepper. This is good because it's got the hot/cold thing going on--and the seasoned rice vinegar is sweet/salty.



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viewtopic.php?p=416597#p416597
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby oneesotericgirl » Thu Aug 20, 2020 7:38 am

Oh VeggieSue thank you so much! I tried to look for a post about this, with no luck.
I will definitely save this! Fantastic information. Here I am running out of ideas and this list is crazy long!

And thank you Vegyluvver! I didn't think of making a large batch to be able to reheat. I did look up a few of their gravy recipes too. And Daydream I will certainly make that too!

Thank you all so much!
I was looking for support like this, and I am so glad I stumbled on this discussion forum! :nod: :D
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby wildgoose » Thu Aug 20, 2020 7:44 am

@oneesotericgirl I think you’re on to something. You need to separate out two issues here.

1. You don’t like dry starches. Understandable. VeggieSue in particular has give you tons of great ideas to remedy that. There are all sorts of things you can try. I use some of them and find they really help. Just be aware that you may, despite all efforts, find yourself running up against......

2. You miss having fat with your starch. Of course you do. The human animal was designed to seek out the richest, most calorie-dense food in the environment. This was an advantage in times of scarcity — it kept us from starving to death! Unfortunately, that’s no longer applicable in modern times, but our instincts remain the same.

But what to do? You'll get varying advice on this. My opinion is that "cheese" sauces, fake sour cream, and all manner of "creamy" dressings made from tofu, cashews, nutritional yeast and the like have several problems. They’re too fiddly and time consuming to make (not at all convenient!). They’re often full of high-fat plant ingredients that will stall your weight loss. And, most importantly for me, they’re poor substitutes in taste and texture for what they’re replacing, and they leave me sadder, wanting the real thing even more. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

So my advice, and what I did, is to get through the time of missing fatty toppings until you no longer miss them. Not an easy or pleasant suggestion, I know. It can take up to 3 months to neuroadapt to very low fat (adapting to no salt on food takes less time — about a month), but you have to be consistent. No cheating! If you cheat, you keep your taste buds used to fat (or salt) and slow down the adaptation process.

I know I’m often the grim Goose here, advising the "hard way." Some people find it works better to taper off the high-fat stuff, using plant-based substitutes. But that’s probably not MWL compliant, and it will definitely slow your weight loss. You get to choose. For me, just getting through the time of missing and craving fat and salt, and then being done with it, worked best. I tried the slow tapering approach and found myself stuck in the pleasure trap, for years! Now I’m thin and enjoying my starches either plain or with fat-free toppings. Hard to believe, but it can happen.

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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby oneesotericgirl » Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:35 am

I appreciate the honesty and "tough love," Wildgoose. I prefer doing things cold turkey and not in moderation. If I could do moderation, then I would not have a problem with obesity and binge eating. I know my salt intake is way too high, pre MWL.
I was a raw vegan many years ago. It lasted about 8 months, very hard to do when you live in a household of discouragers. But I remember after breaking through all the cravings, food tasted and smelled better. Driving by or going into restaurants no longer smelled good, in fact they smelled like burnt oil lol.
I am an emotional eater, I know this. So I think that is why this has been especially hard for me. Carbs + fat have always been my comfort. I am working on that, thanks to many suggestions I have read in the books and advice on this forum.

Can your tastebuds actually eventually adapt to no fat and no salt? Is it a pipe dream to hope that one day I will get as much satisfaction from eating a baked potato as I got from french fries? :shock:




wildgoose wrote:@oneesotericgirl I think you’re on to something. You need to separate out two issues here.

1. You don’t like dry starches. Understandable. VeggieSue in particular has give you tons of great ideas to remedy that. There are all sorts of things you can try. I use some of them and find they really help. Just be aware that you may, despite all efforts, find yourself running up against......

2. You miss having fat with your starch. Of course you do. The human animal was designed to seek out the richest, most calorie-dense food in the environment. This was an advantage in times of scarcity — it kept us from starving to death! Unfortunately, that’s no longer applicable in modern times, but our instincts remain the same.

But what to do? You'll get varying advice on this. My opinion is that "cheese" sauces, fake sour cream, and all manner of "creamy" dressings made from tofu, cashews, nutritional yeast and the like have several problems. They’re too fiddly and time consuming to make (not at all convenient!). They’re often full of high-fat plant ingredients that will stall your weight loss. And, most importantly for me, they’re poor substitutes in taste and texture for what they’re replacing, and they leave me sadder, wanting the real thing even more. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

So my advice, and what I did, is to get through the time of missing fatty toppings until you no longer miss them. Not an easy or pleasant suggestion, I know. It can take up to 3 months to neuroadapt to very low fat (adapting to no salt on food takes less time — about a month), but you have to be consistent. No cheating! If you cheat, you keep your taste buds used to fat (or salt) and slow down the adaptation process.

I know I’m often the grim Goose here, advising the "hard way." Some people find it works better to taper off the high-fat stuff, using plant-based substitutes. But that’s probably not MWL compliant, and it will definitely slow your weight loss. You get to choose. For me, just getting through the time of missing and craving fat and salt, and then being done with it, worked best. I tried the slow tapering approach and found myself stuck in the pleasure trap, for years! Now I’m thin and enjoying my starches either plain or with fat-free toppings. Hard to believe, but it can happen.

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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby wildgoose » Thu Aug 20, 2020 1:41 pm

oneesotericgirl wrote:Can your tastebuds actually eventually adapt to no fat and no salt? Is it a pipe dream to hope that one day I will get as much satisfaction from eating a baked potato as I got from french fries? :shock:

Yes, your tastebuds eventually adapt to no added fat and no added salt. I make this distinction because whole natural foods contain a certain amount of fat and sodium. We're just trying to eliminate added oil and reduce (or in my case, eliminate) added salt. We're also trying to minimize the consumption of highly processed food, which is another common source of both fat and sodium.

As I said earlier, adapting to no added salt can take about a month. Adapting to eliminating added fats/oils from your diet can take up to 3 months. Longer if you give in to the cravings.

When you first make the decision to cut the added fats and salt, you can get an increase in cravings for the first few days. This is called an "extinction burst." It's temporary. (That’s important, because you’ll be very tempted to give up at this point.) Then, gradually, over the next few days and weeks, the cravings taper off.

However, you may later experience what’s known as "spontaneous recovery." That’s when a craving hits you, out of the blue, months or even years after you've settled into a good pattern of eating right. It could be a smell, or a situation, or a bad day....anything can trigger it. The important thing with these episodes is to ignore them. They’re very short-lived, sometimes just a few minutes, and if you ignore one, then any later ones get weaker and weaker.

Dr. Doug Lisle explains this in a webinar about the Cram Circuit. The whole webinar is very good and I recommend watching all of it, but the part about the extinction burst and spontaneous recovery starts at about 24:40 in the video.

Your second question, about getting as much satisfaction from a baked potato as you do now from French fries — I’ll answer that with a qualified "yes." Qualified because the satisfaction is different. It’s not that dopamine rush that you get from a big hit of "comfort food." It’s simpler, more functional, but still very satisfying. The fatty stuff wouldn’t taste good to me now anyway, so I’m very happy with my food as it is.

I had a meal of baked potato last night. Smothered with water-sautéed mushrooms, onion and garlic. Really tasty. I had a big helping of broccoli with it, and fruit for dessert. It was a great meal, and I was very satisfied.

I baked a whole oven rack full of potatoes and sweet potatoes, which means I have lots of them on hand in the fridge. So today, I took out a couple of cold baked Yukon Golds, sliced them into thick wedges, and air fried them. Crispy outside, soft inside. I ate them with homemade ketchup (easy to make, no salt or sugar). So I still eat French fries, in a way, and I really like them. :-D The Gander took a couple of cold Yukon Golds, sliced them in half, heated them up, and smothered them with leftover (homemade) marinara sauce. We both had big helpings of green beans, from the garden. Yum!

Hope that helps.

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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby VeggieSue » Fri Aug 21, 2020 4:07 am

I suppose by now you all got the email from The McDougall Kitchen about bowl meals sent out yesterday?

https://mailchi.mp/drmcdougall.com/from ... 49f0e984a7
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby Creaky » Mon Aug 24, 2020 11:14 pm

I'm a one bowl person. I mix my starch with my vegetables and sprinkle some lemon pepper on it. The lemon pepper has salt in it 200 mg Na per 1/4 teaspoon.

Do you have an Instant Pot pressure cooker? It is the BEST way to cook potatoes and rice. The potatoes come out moist and good. Or do you have an air fryer for the potatoes?

What about a bean gravy? I've been thinking about blending my black beans with some salsa to get a gravy like sauce. Or using a bland bean with spices to make a gravy like sauce.

It takes a while to like the simplicity of the food and get out of that 'everything has to taste GOOD" idea.
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby josietheschnauzer » Tue Aug 25, 2020 7:41 pm

Dear Wild Goose, I just found this by accident. What is your easy home made recipe for ketchup? I hope I can find this section of the discussion board to see your response :-D
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Re: Toppings for Rice and Potatoes

Postby wildgoose » Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:32 am

josietheschnauzer wrote:Dear Wild Goose, I just found this by accident. What is your easy home made recipe for ketchup? I hope I can find this section of the discussion board to see your response :-D

@josietheschnauzer The ketchup discussion where I posted the recipe was back in the March MWL thread. The long monthly threads aren’t easy to find individual posts in, I know. Hope this link helps.

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