Asian Veggie Night

I made these two dishes from the newest Vegetarian Times for dinner last week, when we had a big group of friends over for games.

(hey, look, I found them online! I don't have to type them up! the internet is magic!) Vegetarian Times Bok Choy Recipes

Both dishes were great, but the Emerald Veggies with Honey Sesame dressing was the one people were especially excited about. I doubled both recipes easily, and it made enough for dinner for 8 plus leftovers for lunch... but the Honey Sesame dressing was good enough that I wish I'd quadrupled it so I could drench everything in it all week.

To keep kosher with the cleanse, I minimized the amount of honey, so it was juuuuuust a bit sweet, and added some miso to make it a bit more sweet-salty.

Sweet Potato & Tofu Mole

Theresa's post about lunch at Verde Cocina inspired my recipe for dinner.

Menu:
Sweet potatoes roasted in coconut oil, dusted with cinnamon
Stir fried firm tofu topped with mole sauce
Refried beans with lime, roasted garlic, and roasted pasilla chiles
Garnish with cilantro and scallions

It was delish. Even Charles wanted a bite:

Kelp Noodles

I made an amazing Asian salad last week with Kelp noodles and miso-peanut dressing.

Kelp Noodles are soft, water-based "noodles" made from sea kelp. They contain only three ingredients: Water, Kelp and Sodium Alginate (made from brown seaweed). You can generally find them in any supermarket next to tofu or near packaged salad products.

I know we're not calorie counting here, but a whole package has 12 calories. That's right, 12.

You can use kelp noodles to make spaghetti, stir fry, salads, soups and more. I personally like them best prepared with Asian flavors (they remind me of glass noodles).

They're water based and not starchy or gummy like wheat noodles, which apparently means you can boil them in soup and they stay crunchy.

I have yet to try heating them. I think I'll try stir fry next!

Week 3!

I'd like to post some of the recipes we've cooked this week -- until I do that, here's a tasty cleanse-friendly meal we had for lunch at Verde Cocina... tofu mole (my first time eating something that wasn't a fruit or veg in two weeks!) and a surprisingly beautiful salad with artfully sliced apples, strawberries and quinoa 'pearls' in the dressing.

In addition to this delicious food, and all the other healthful and exciting meals we've had this week, I've gone running three times!  Today, 3 10-minute miles in a row on the treadmill at the gym.  I registered for a 5K with my friend Kelly in March - the Shamrock Run.  Looking forward.

Feeling Cleaner Every Day

I'm noticing the effects of my cleanse. Especially after I reversed them this weekend (I allowed myself alcohol, but stuck to the food plan). I was actually really happy to go back off the booze on Monday.

Last night I made the Kale and Potato curry recipe I posted last week. It was delicious! For extra flavor I added a few tablespoons of Gillian's tomato chutney left in my fridge.

Where can I get more of that chutney?!

Day 5

So far, so good.

I'm feeling great, sleeping well, and not feeling as constantly hungry as I did the first few days of the cleanse.  Tomorrow morning I'm going to a three-hour yoga retreat, which will kick-start my fitness goals for 2013 -- I'm planning to start running again, register for a 5-K sometime this spring and then start setting my sights towards training for a 10-K sometime this summer.  I think it's totally doable.

Delicious meals I've eaten in the last few days:

This morning's smoothie.  Like Anna, no recipe really, but I started with orange-tangerine juice, then added a couple frozen bananas. Blended those, then added frozen peaches.  Blended those, decided it was too sweet, added frozen cranberries and a garnish of Shannon's fresh pomegranate seeds.

Gillian got a 'spiralizer' machine that looks like this:

Thursday night, in addition to Shannon's delicious sauteed green beans with caramelized onions and squash-apple-pear-potato mash (or something like that...?), we had a beet and carrot 'pasta salad' with olives, almonds and a delicious dressing.  The new spiralizer is a lot of fun.

Tomorrow for dinner I think I want to make some sort of Indian food.  Not sure what yet, but I think it will have a side of almond-milk mango lassi.  

Dinner Tonight

Spaghetti Squash with Chanterelles Sauce

Roast Spaghetti Squash, top with Chanterelles sauteed in olive oil with shallots, herbs, nutmeg, veggie broth, and maybe some almond milk. I don't know, I make it up as I go along.

Bought a beautiful head of red kale today and tomorrow I want to make this with it: Kale & Potato Curry

Except I will prepare it as a soup. It looks like these people put it atop noodles, which seems weird.

Twinges & syringes

The resolution has begun.

I'm similar to housemates in that I eat healthy foods day-to-day.  I'm different in that I have type 1 diabetes.  Having diabetes complicates meals because eating becomes a balancing act.  On one side of the scale, you have food.  On the other side, you have insulin.  It's a holy war with no end.  Body of Christ, amen.

My goal in joining my housemates in healthy eating is not to cleanse, but rather to balance.  I wish to gain consistency in blood sugars, balance the scale at a healthy weight, and stabilize hunger to remove peaks and valleys.  There are ways to do this and it's just what you've read before (if you're up-to-date on your health research).  Consume a diet that is high-veggie, high-fruit, high-fat, and low-carb.

Why high-veggie and high-fruit?  These things fill you up and provide you mighty nutrients.  ALL GOOD.

Why high-fat?  First, fat is a basic building block for many parts of your body.  Liver, enzymes, skin, each and every cell wall in your body, and all the necessary hormones floating around.  I like my estrogen!  Second, a body converts fat to energy, though the chemical process takes longer than converting carbs into energy.

Why low-carb?  To remove the swings between high and low blood sugar.

     This question is the big one for diabetics.  Us diabetics are always trying to watch our sugar.  A body processes all carbs -- complex and simple -- into sugar.  Sugar gives a body energy!  So that's good . . . but sugar causes problems too.  (And a body can get energy from other places, like fat.)

     Once sugar is in the body, roughly, the sugar sticks to hemoglobin (red blood cells) and floats around in the blood.  Too much sugar stiffens the red blood cells and creates a slight chemical imbalance in the body that leads to long-term damage.  The carbs / sugar cause spikes in the blood sugar, and then the insulin counters the spikes and sometimes creates lows.

     All of this swinging-around sends my emotions and moods into a kerfuffle.  I want to be able to create my life, rather than having to react to high and low blood sugar mood-swings.  

     LOW CARB IT IS.  Down with starch.  Bugger the flour.

     Except it tastes so good . . . .

Fun fact: perusing the internet today, I found out that the first low carb book is 149 years old.  William Banting was not a dietician or a doctor -- he was an undertaker.  After he lost weight, he wrote a zine (or "small booklet") entitled Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public (the first few pages of this PDF appear black).  First published in 1863, it went into many editions and continued to be published long after the author's death.

Renewing the Cleanse

2013 kicked off yesterday with a lazy afternoon watching bad horror movies with friends over mimosas and pizza. Needless to say, my cleanse kicks off TODAY and I am feeling very motivated! Ben won't be joining me, so I'm glad to have the blog available for moral support.

I started the morning with two cups of decaf coffee and am now contemplating my lunch plan. During the work week, convenience and eating out are the biggest challenges. I need to prepare the fridge at home, find good cleanse food accessible to me at work, and be prepared to resist the urges of lunch and happy hour outings.

Exercise will also play a role. Ben and I have plans to go running tonight and look forward to making a more regular commitment to run as we approach our first race (for Kitten Rescue!) in March. I also just bought a 20 class package at a spin/yoga studio in Silverlake, and I'm excited to put my new spin shoes (a Christmas gift from Ben) to use.

Made this great kale salad that I plan on living off of this week... Orange and kale are such a great combination!

Salad:
1 head of Kale
Handful dried Cranberries  
Handful chopped Pecans
1 Orange, peeled and sliced

Dressing (makes extra - enough for 2 salads):
2 tbsp white balsamic
2 tbsp orange juice (freshly squeezed)
Orange zest to taste (the more orange the better!)
Pinch ghost pepper salt OR red pepper flakes
1 tsp. honey
1 tbsp. Olive Oil

Enjoy!

January 2!

One of the things I always find difficult about shifting my diet or 'giving up' foods and drinks is how to deal with social situations.

Last night Gillian and I went out first to our friends Ann and Kelly's house for games -- we told them ahead of time that we were 'cleansing' and they prepared a wonderful fresh fruit plate.

After that we headed over to my friend Cyndi's for -- ironically -- pub songs. Of course we were immediately offered wine and beer, and throughout the evening the liquor kept coming out of the cabinet.  But a simple 'No thanks, I'm holding off on liquor for the month of January' was easy enough.

Of course, making social plans for the weekend, I keep telling friends -- how about a walk? Hike? Movie?  Something that doesn't involve going out for food or drink?

Shifting mindset and tastes

Yeah, so, Jan 1st and we are easing into the cleanse, or I am at least, using up some leftover healthy but not cleanse appropriate foods (miso and tofu for example as Theresa mentioned). But for the past few days I've been stocking the kitchen with fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds in eager anticipation! Week one tips: Homemade almond milk. Soak 1 cup raw almonds overnight in a quart jar full of water. Drain, rinse, and return almonds to jar and fill to the top with fresh water. Blend contents of jar in a strong blender for 1 minute. Strain the mixture through a piece of muslin (I put the muslin in a sieve, the sieve in my canning funnel, and the funnel in the jar mouth) back into the quart jar and squeeze all the milk through. It's great in smoothies, tea, and "cereal" of chopped fruit with slivered almonds. Fresh fruit. Kiwis, citrus fruits, pineapple, papaya...nothing much local is in season (in Portland anyway) so I plan to indulge in lots of tropical fruit. If you're hungry, ants on a log is a really good quick snack. It's crunchy, salty, sweet, and rich. Theresa loves a banana split...it's a split banana topped with peanut butter, chopped nuts, toasted coconut, and maybe a few raisins. Warm vegetable soups with ginger, yum. Hearty tomato fennel carrot soup is always good. Roasted mushrooms are filling and satisfying, and great in a salad the next day. Kale salads both raw and cooked! Tahini sauce with lemon and garlic...veggie dip, salad dressing, and more.

New Year's Day

I started this blog this morning, January 1 2013, so we can communicate during the cleanse even though some of us don't live together... or even in the same state!

Gillian and I started the morning with a bowl of Gillian's Amazing New Year's Day Miso Soup, and a cup of hot water with a squeeze of meyer lemon.  I also had a grapefruit, which was so tart and juicy it made me want to run to the store and buy ten or twelve more grapefruits.  I just might.

I am so ready for this cleanse that when Gillian suggested starting next week, so we could clear out our kitchen first of all the 'off-limits' items like cheese, yogurt, ice cream, chocolate... I decided I'd do week 1 for two weeks rather than do that. I didn't even feel tempted for a glass of NYE champagne.  We brought over a bag of groceries to our friends Ann and Kelly last night, and they eagerly accepted it -- although we may have talked Kelly into joining us.

Gillian is downstairs right now using our new Japanese kitchen gadget -- I don't know the name of it but it's some sort of vegetable shredder.  I think Judy got it for her for Christmas.  She is enthusiastically calling up "Yay!  Beet noodles!"

I'm looking forward to lunch.

Also to this day warming up a bit.  I'm sitting in the big armchair near the window in our bedroom, and it's notoriously drafty.  I'd like to go for a run this afternoon, if I don't freeze my butt off doing it!

The Plan

OFF LIMITS DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY
* processed food and beverages
* added sugar
* dairy products
* gluten
*caffeine
* alcohol

What you're eating during week 1:
* fruits
* vegetables
* plant-based fats (nuts, seeds, oils...)

What you're eating during week 2:
* above, plus:
* beans, lentils, soy (tofu/tempeh, soy milk)
* seafood if you want

What you're eating during week 3:
* above, plus:
* gluten-free whole grains
* eggs if you want

Feel free to repeat any of the weeks if you're feeling great and not missing the 'off-limits' foods.