3-Day Mini Cleanse: Day 2

My sixteen year old son, Zack, decided he wanted to join me on the 3-Day Mini Cleanse - I am so excited! He's doing a modified version that looks something like this:

Breakfast: Green Smoothie
Snack: Fresh Fruit and/or Superfood Fruits (Goji Berries, Golden Berries)
Lunch: Avocado & Veggies Sandwich on Sprouted Grain Bread. Raw Veggies.
Snack: More Raw Veggies or Fruit, as desired
Dinner: Large Raw Salad with choice of seed cheese, raw goat cheese, baked sweet potato, sprouted grain toast, flax crackers
After Dinner: water, herb tea, fruit if desired
All Day: plenty of water or herb tea

So basically, he's just having more food than me, plus the sprouted grain bread for school lunches (providing ease and normalcy). So far, he's doing great, despite reporting feeling more hungry than usual. (He is a teenage boy, after all, which is just one step removed from a bottomless pit when it comes to food.)

Here's the skinny on Day 2.

My green juice was extra yummy thanks to this fresh pineapple I happen to be working on. I cut fresh pineapple from the bottom up in big round slices, trim off the skin and store the remainder standing up on a plate in the fridge. I like to see its sturdy, cactus-like plume top descending towards the plate with each subsequent slice.

Pineapple Green Juice
one inch thick slice fresh pineapple, skin removed
one crisp red apple (honeycrisp, fuji, braeburn)
one bunch celery
one bunch collard greens
one lime, peeled

This recipe makes a quart of juice. In the photo, the jar is not full because I already drank one glass before I took the picture! Isn't the color completely gorgeous?
A few hours after the juice it was smoothie time. Today's smoothie was grapefruit-blueberry-banana-kale with acai, stevia, bee pollen, chia gel and maca. I made enough so that Zack could have his for breakfast and I could have mine at lunch. I stirred some cayenne into mine, also. Very filling.

Truth be told, I hardly get hungry at all on these mini-cleanses. I find the food so tasty and satisfying. It's so nice to simplify my intake...and not have to give up enjoyment, since I do love making and eating yummy food.

To that end, I got creative at dinner and made a Creamy Cabbage Salad using Pumpkin Seed Cheese, thinned down with a little water, for the dressing. This was served on a bed of red and green oak leaf lettuce. Zack proclaimed it tasted like chicken salad, which I guess is a good thing. I thought it was divine. Here's the basic recipe with some photos that I'm afraid, don't do the living colors justice.

Creamy Cabbage Salad with Cilantro Pumpkin Seed Cheese Dressing
1/2 green cabbage
1/8 red onion
1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
generous pinches of thyme, sage, celery seed
1/2 box cherry tomatoes
1 package white button mushrooms
1 clove garlic
teaspoon or so wheat-free tamari or nama shoyu
about one third cup pumpkin seed cheese (click here for recipe, but substitute cilantro for the parsley.)
water
small handful dulse seaweed

Juice lemon into a large bowl and add sea salt. Slice cabbage thinly, add to bowl and toss well. Mince red onion and add this to cabbage along with thyme, sage and celery seed. Stir well and allow to marinate for one to two hours, tossing occasionally.

Mince garlic and combine in a medium bowl with tamari. Slice mushrooms and add to garlic-tamari. Stir well and allow to marinate for fifteen minutes or longer.

When ready to assemble salad, add marinated mushrooms and cherry tomatoes to cabbage and toss. Combine pumpkin seed cheese with a little warm water and stir into a thick paste, the consistency of blue cheese dressing. Add this to the salad and toss well. Tear dulse into small pieces and mix in. Let salad sit a while so flavors can marry. Serve on a bed of fresh crisp greens.

So that is Day 2 of the 3-Day Mini Cleanse. Oh - I had dessert: 2 dates dipped in maybe 2 tablespoons of raw almond butter. (What a splurge!) Followed by a nice mug of medicinal herbal tea - an echinacea blend from Traditional Medicinals, one of my favorite packaged tea companies.

I'm feeling pretty energetic - had a great yoga class today with snow falling outside the studio window...tomorrow I plan on rebounding to help move any released matter through my lymphatic system for elimination. (Always remember, a cleanse requires that the waste leaves the body - otherwise it's just a potential cleanse!)

Almost Spring Salad with Crimini Mushrooms, Avocado and Cilantro

March is staying true to form this year, coming in like a proud lioness. I'd say this first week of consistently-below-freezing temperatures has succeeded in keeping most of us well-chilled! But despite the lack of heat outside, our bodies still crave freshness. As much as I don't want to put anything cold into my body, I can feel my cells crying out for raw and living food. After all, raw food is their natural, high vibration preferred fuel. Fortunately, not all raw food has to be cold, and that goes for salads, too. This simple winter salad provides the salty meatiness of shoyu-kissed crimini mushrooms, the creamy comfort of spiked avocado, the sweet zip of cilantro and the hearty scrub factor of strong-leafed lettuce. Prepare with room temperature ingredients to keep your fingers nimble.

Almost Spring Salad

Green Leaf Lettuce - several leaves
Cilantro - 1/4 bunch or to taste
Crimini Mushrooms - 1/2 package
Avocado - 1/2 to one whole
Nama Shoyu (or equivalent), Balsamic Vinegar (or equivalent), Olive Oil, Spike or Sea Salt

Wash and tear as many green lettuce leaves as you want to eat, and add them to your favorite salad bowl.
Roughly chop about half a package of crimini mushrooms, put them on top of the lettuce and sprinkle with nama shoyu, tamari or Bragg's liquid aminos.
Halve an avocado and slice one half into cubes (use the whole thing if you are really hungry or it is a small avo). Put avocado cubes on top of the mushrooms and sprinkle with Spike (surprisingly great on avocado!) or your favorite sea salt.
Mince a good sized handful of cilantro stalks (stem and leaves) and put on top.
Shake some balsamic vinegar over the whole thing (or if you prefer, use apple cider vinegar, lemon or lime juice) and drizzle with high quality olive oil. (I used an incredible Italian Novella oil that I just discovered. It's made from the first pressing of this season's coming harvest and is out of this world–so alive, it continues to decant and ripen in the bottle! Note: Local readers can find Novella olive oil at Cooks Shop Here in Northampton.)

Finally, toss, admire and EAT! Your body will love you for it. Promise.

In joyful anticipation of the Equinox,
Diana

To Prep With Love

To follow up on the "eating raw/healthy takes so much time" issue...I have to say, it depends on what you mean by "so much!" It also depends on what you are preparing. Some prepping is quick, some is not. Either way, I feel like it is time well spent.

On days that I work outside of the home, I usually “brown bag” both breakfast and lunch. (Actually, there’s no bag involved – it’s a willow basket - but you get the idea. The basket part is sweet – almost makes me feel like I’m off to a picnic every day. And what could be more fun than a picnic?!)

Anyway, I never eat first thing in the morning, so I must pack both my lunch and my break-fast meal. Typically, the break-fast (first food of the day) is either veggie juice or a green smoothie (although in winter, I’ll sometimes have dried fruit, such as figs or dates, with nuts. That's an instant breakfast - no prep time needed.) So usually, I need to allow about thirty minutes in the morning to make both the breakfast drink and my lunch (most often a beautiful raw salad with avocado, nestled in a covered Pyrex bowl), like this:



In the spirit of playing in the kitchen (see previous post), I must say I really enjoy my half-hour prep time. First of all, it’s quiet time alone in the house (yes!). Secondly, I love "handling food" (thank you, Grandma Ruth, for bequeathing me this gift) - in itself, pleasant and creative.

For me, handling food involves all my senses. Of course, first is TOUCH. I love feeling the different textures on my fingers and palms: hard cool root vegetables, tender green leaves, tangled life-filled sprouts, soft yielding avocado, smooth-skinned crispy apples. I also love absorbing the healing light wavelengths of rainbow colors through my EYES, smelling the various aromas of the different ingredients with my NOSE and hEARing the snap, slice, grate and tear of fruits and veggies as they transform shape and become something entirely new and yummy that I get to TASTE later!

Prepping with love means there is no sense of pressure, rush or tedium. (Plenty of time for all that later!) Instead, this is a calm and joyful time of day. It’s also one of the few times of day when I get to be fully focused just on taking care of me, which I believe is really important for everyone to do: set aside time for self care. So I pour my love into the food, knowing that when the moment arrives to consume my juice, smoothie or salad, I will be eating love. This is sacred food. First, the sun blessed the plants, and then, so did I - blessed them with my love, patience and positive intention. What could be more healing? What could be more worth a half an hour of my morning?! Or yours?

May all your food nourish you deeply.
May all your food serve to cleanse, heal and energize your body.
May everything you eat turn to health and beauty!