First day off the cleanse

Well, the day has finally come, I am done the cleanse!

After waking up early and tidying up a bit, I brewed my first cup of coffee in more than 3 weeks. I put a heaping teaspoon of raw sugar in there and a few tablespoons of Rice Dream rice milk.

It was a steaming mug of liquid gold.

Mmmm. I'm waiting until my boy shows up before I indulge in another cup. Dr. Rau's "Maintenance Diet" says I should limit myself to 1 cup of coffee or decaffeinated tea in the morning and then only herbal/decaf after that. I'm giving myself some leeway. I have no intention of following his maintenace diet religiously, but there is some good stuff in there.

Today in the Globe & Mail my horoscope said

Avoid trying to ram your opinions down other people's throats today. Not only wll you not succeed but you will almost certainly turn even your friends against you. You are entitled to your views, of course, but there are many other ways of looking at world.

I think that is both eye-opening and reinforcing to my current state of mind. I've definitely been a bit preachy while I follow this cleanse, because I feel strongly about what we as Canadians eat on a regular basis. I'm going to concentrate on toning down the gospel of Dr. Rau and not try to cut people off of cow's milk, get them hopped up on whole grains and reduce their intake of processed white flour and wheat in general.

My new method will be conversion through gentle coercion. That is, I will invite people to eat whole grain vegan/vegetarian with me and feed them awesome and wholesome food that is far beyond the realm of boiled veg and bread.

Today is the cook-a-thon! I started early so that the Boy and I could eat a lunch of fresh Mexican goodies: spelt (mixed with a bit of whole wheat and white flour) tortillas, Mexican rice, Guac (I have so many avocados!), refried beans (cooked overnight in my crockpot. I accidentally bought Romano instead of Pinto beans and it turns out that they look identical, but are slightly different. They taste fabulous though), and salsa.

I also roasted some veggies and boiled bejeezus out of them for veggie stock. It was a good way to use up veggie scraps (dying red pepper, asparagus ends, fennel trimmings) and have a healthier stock for the soup I'm going to make (probably Pea Soup).

I'm off for now, it's time to work on the tortillas!

Let them eat tarts!

Tomorrow is the last day of the cleanse. It isn't getting easier right now because the cleanse keeps giving me delicious things to eat like the spelt cookies, creamy polenta, risotto, lentils with feta cheese and sundried tomatoes. I have been eating extra cookies...

It's so close...on Monday I get wine (because I say so) and I'm spending a whole whack of time cooking and baking healthy but delicious food. The biggest annoyance with this cleanse is that all the recipes are for about 4-6 portions and the dips especially are inconvenient because we only get to eat it once, or in the case of dips, once and then not again until 4 or 5 days later, when it's gone off. Ergh! I feel like a lot of food has gone to waste :/

Anyhoo, on the bright side, I'm making a tart tomorrow! There is catfish on the menu for lunch, yuck. Not sure exactly what I will have, probably extra asparagus and a little bit of feta or goaty gouda! Mmmmm

I bought grapefruit juice to finish up the week, instead of buying another grapefruit (I'll wait until they go on sale). It's not as delicious at all but it'll make for a quicker breakfast.

The cooking has been wearing me down, I am so ready to clean my fridge and start a new, college-style healthy eating. I'm excited to sign up for The Good Food Box, it's SO cheap and the drop off is super duper close.

And as I've mentioned before, I bought 3 cookbooks, and there is a plethora of opportunities for eating too too much.

But honestly, I do intend to stick to these large doses of vegetables and whole grains. FYI: Quinoa is tops!

Plus, it's about time that the boy and I go to Buddha's Veggie or some such place of deliciousness.

It's time for bed, happy munching!

Spelt Flour

Holy crap, formatting photos on this blog is a huge pain in the ass. Here are more anyway:
Kneading the dough for my spelt bread. It was a long baking day.

And voila!

Here are the maple pecan-walnut cookies I made today:

Quick Peek

Some breakfast shots:
Steel-cut oats and organic banana

















Half a grapefruit (on sale!)















Home-made spelt bread with delicious goat gouda!

















Asparagus stir-fry with carrots, swiss chard, kale and
brown rice (it was FABulous).
And $12 of organic asparagus, oh dear.

Baked

The stress!!

I think I spent 8 hours cooking and/or eating and/or planning week 3's cooking today. Breakfast, as usual. But I woke up late so it wasn't long until I was shredding greens for salad, then prepping asparagus, chard, kale and carrots for a stir fry. Also cooked brown rice at the same time. But before that I started baking a couple loaves of spelt bread. Then ate with mum and figured out next week's food decisions. Then I went to the post office to pick up a package from Amazon (Vive le Vegan; Eat, Drink & Be Vegan; and Veganomicon). Punched down the bread and let it rise again.

Something must have happened for the next hour, anyway, and I baked the bread.

Toasted cumin seeds for lemony hummus, and made that recipe. At the same time, prepped and cooked tomorrow's lunch: braised kale with carrots and potatoes.

Finally, I ate dinner around 8:30. It was a steamed Artichoke and a slice of fresh baked bread with (goat) feta cheese. I've never had artichoke that wasn't from a can, but it was pretty tasty, although I ate it upside-down and got poked by the little thorns...

Anyhoo, I didn't get anything done other than cleanse-related stuff which was quite disappointing considering my to-do list at present. Ah well though, everyone needs at bit of stress to keep things a-hoppin'!

Or something?

There are plenty of food photos from the last few days, but I really ought to be reading my ethics textbook right now. They'll be up laterish!