Detox diet & a recipe!

Trying to do some sort of detox diet for the next week or two. Nothing radical or anything…like no living off nothing but watercress and grapefruit juice. But for the last several months (years? My whole life maybe?) I have felt sluggish and bloated, and totally without energy. My acne is as bad as it ever was in high school, and I seem to be losing more than the usual amount of hair every time I wash it. I have to do SOMETHING.

So…for the next week or so, trying to cut out:
· dairy (not that I have very much..really just cheese),
· wheat
· gluten
· sugar
· excess fat (which I try to do anyway)
· processed foods
· yeast
· artificial sweeteners.

As I said, dairy is not really a problem, I very seldom have any dairy. In fact, I’d like to stop dairy altogether permanently…but I really am rather fond of cheese. The wheat & gluten though…that’s going to be a bit harder. It also means that I will have to get my shit together in the morning and actually make sure I have a lunch made every day. Lately I have been lazy, and just running over to the cafeteria for a veggie wrap. Healthy, yes. BUT, the wraps (as far as I know) are made with wheat flour. I’ve found a couple of gluten-free flatbread recipes that I’ll try out this week. Another difficult one to give up is the sugar. I can still have stevia..but to be honest, I don’t really like it. I suppose if I were to cook with it, it might be alright, but in my tea? Yucky.

Oh, the other thing I’m not sure I can give up just yet…diet coke. I LOVE it. I drink it every day. Every. Single. Day. I know…I’m probably poisoning myself with it. Hopefully, if I can gradually cut out sugars, then maybe I won’t crave it so much?? That’s the hope, anyway.

So, I’m supposed to drink a cup of warm water with lemon in it when I first get up in the morning. Have no idea why I’m supposed to do this..but I did it this morning. I’m also supposed to drink a glass of water with a tablespoon of ground flax in it in the morning, and again at night. This is for the fiber. But for me, it’s also has the extra benefit of getting my omega fatty acids that I don’t get from fish anymore. It’s not very palatable, but really, it’s just one glass, I just chug it down. But then, for breakfast, I’m also supposed to have a smoothy! Not a problem, because I love smoothies…but that’s rather a lot of liquid in my belly first thing in the morning! So I’m sitting here right now feeling rather bloated and….sloshy. also, I’ll probably have to pee about 400 times today.

I’m supposed to have a midmorning snack, and a midafternoon snack. But, I wasn’t very organized about this whole detox diet thing, and just spontaneously decided to do it. So I don’t really have any proper groceries in right now….no fresh fruit or veg. oops. Luckily there was some spicy bean soup left in the freezer from the last batch Husband made, so I’m set for lunch, and I do have some apple slices in the fridge here left over from yesterday. Hopefully I’ll remember to stop at the store on the way home and pick up some veggies & chickpeas and I’ll make some delicious hummus to bring for tomorrow.

So, supper last night was pretty fantastic. Didn’t turn out exactly as I pictured it in my head..but considering I made it up on my way home from work yesterday, it turned out pretty damn good. So good, in fact, that the leftovers I’d planned to have for supper tonight um…got eaten. No leftovers. Damn. Mostly though, I’m just glad that both my guys liked it. (they even ate my “weird grain concoction”!)

So…Sue’s Curried Lentils:

· 1 medium yellow onion, diced
· 2 stalks celery, chopped
· 3 cloves garlic, chopped
· 1 TBS EVOO
· 1 small can chopped tomatoes (juice included)
(turns out I didn’t have any tomatoes, so I used about 1 ½ cups V8 juice)
· ½ tsp crushed coriander
· 1 tsp garam masala
· 1 ½ TBS curry powder
(mine was mild/medium, but that’s cuz I’m a sissy & don’t like it hot)
· 160 mL can of light coconut milk
· 1 can lentils (drained)
(I usually use dry lentils, but I had a mystery can of lentils in my pantry, and was feeling lazy, so I used that instead, and cut the cooking time WAY down)

Cook the onion, celery & garlic in the EVOO until transparent. Add tomatoes & spices. Add coconut milk. Add lentils. Cook through. Serve over rice.

I actually did a mixture of brown rice, quinoa, & amaranth. I love the mixed grains, but I’m actually surprised my boys ate it…they always make yucky faces when I try to get them to eat different grains. Weirdos. (I used 1 cup brown rice, ½ cup quinoa, ½ cup amaranth, and just threw everything into my rice cooker).

It was really delicious. It needed salt, but I don’t usually add that when I’m cooking for all of us, because while the Boy likes his food salty, Husband doesn’t like it. So I figure everyone can add salt after, if that’s what they want.

Also, next time I really do want to use the canned tomatoes, and maybe thin out the coconut milk with some soy milk to make it more “saucy”. I also would add peas & cauliflower to it, but I didn’t have any cauliflower (I always add the peas separately, because the Boy hates peas).

So, there you go…a new recipe to try! Hehe. Pretty basic, but not a lot of steps, and pretty easy to follow. It’s also very adaptable..you could add chicken, or tofu, or any number of vegetables to it. You could also make it super hot if that’s what you like. And if you’re not really concerned about fat content, you could go with more coconut milk, and cook the onions etc in actual BUTTER.

I’m hoping to start cooking more. I don’t really cook very often, but I really enjoy it when I do.

So…next up: gluten-free flatbread.