Master Cleanse Day 13

I think it's safe to say that I am pretty much done with the cleanse process, but I am determined to write about it until I get my quesadilla on Wednesday. Both Joey and I feel great and coming off this was not bad at all. I have not had meat yet, nor have I had alcohol. I am not really craving meat that much, but I really would like a glass of wine. However, I am not going there. I feel much better not drinking.

On the food front, I am totally discovering vegetarian cooking! I have so many cookbooks and all of them have some sort of vegetarian dish or another. Over the weekend we didn't want to have dairy so we ate a lot of vegan desserts, snacks, etc. All were yummy, but high in fat! I will be blogging about some of them this week.

Right now, my obsession is about updating my blog and I have been spending a ton of time doing that! I am ready for a new start on all fronts!

New Blog Format

Today, I completely obsessed about finding a new format for my blog. I have found some great templates to start out with, but I am not sure which one I am going to use as my base. I need to look at functionality as much as design. I have narrowed down to these 8 designs. I am listing them below and I would love your feedback in the comments!

• Option 1 - This is very clean and I like the tabbed recent posts area. I am not thrilled with the grey header on top. Maybe too corporate.
• Option 2 - This one has some really cool functionality. I just wonder if it's too blue.
• Option 3 - This one is really cute and I like the tree columns. It kind of says food to me. Well especially since I added the cute header!
• Option 4 - This is a very clean blog format. I really like it. I would just need to come up with a clever header design.
• Option 5 - This is very simple and clean.
• Option 6 - This is pretty clean and pleasing to the eye
• Option 7 - This is so ideal for cooking, but so lacking on the functionality front. I would like to combine the graphic of this design from Option 3
• Option 8 - I like this design and even fiddled with making my own header. There is a lot of functionality that I haven't implemented yet.

So what do you think? I would love to hear your opinion!

Master Cleanse Day 12

Well, I think it's almost time for me to write a conclusion on this. Today really was a pretty normal day. I made Tofu Curry in the slow cooker which I will post tomorrow. It was pretty good. I actually feel pretty back to normal today. I am really trying to eat carefully. Still no dairy products. It's also been twelve days since I had meat! Coming off this thing wasn't that hard.

I cooked a ton of food today, so I have lots to blog about this week. Can't wait!

Master Cleanse Day 11

Well, I finished the cleanse on Thursday and I have to tell you I still feel great. I probably ate more food than recommended in the book, but what I had was just fine. I feel very good.

We started out the day with orange juice and fruit. The fruit is very satisfying. For lunch we had the Lentil-Veggie Soup I started preparing last night. It turned out heartier than I expected, but boy was it delicious! This soup has lots of fiber, so I am hoping it it good for me. We are trying to stay off dairy for the next few days since it's hard for the body to process that right after the cleanse apparently. I must say it filled me up very quickly.

For dinner I made my first vegan dish - Creamy Asparagus Soup. Oh my! That was delicious. I really enjoyed it and even had seconds, which I kind of regret since I felt stuffed afterward. Still no bad side effects.

For a treat we had fruit with soy yogurt. YUM! I am kind of ready to get back to dairy, though, since vegan dairy substitutes seem to be really heavy on the fat front. I will say, however, that they certainly are tasty!

I still have no craving for meat or alcohol, which is good. I feel like my body is kind of getting back to normal. I lost about 15 pounds on this cleanse and I sure hope I don't gain it all back!

You can see both my recipes below this posting, or just click the links below to go directly to them. Once again, they may be too heavy but I had not problem and I actually think the asparagus one would be just fine for anyone.

Lentil-Veggie Soup

Creamy Asparagus Soup

Lentil-Veggie Soup

From Slow Cooker Favorites Made Healthy (Better Homes & Gardens Cooking).

This was a surprisingly delicious soup. It was actually much thinker that a soup, but thinner that a stew. As Rachel Ray would say, a "stoup." This soup has 0 grams of fat and 12 grams of fiber, so it's very healthy! It takes a long time to cook so you have to kind of plan when you are going to make it. I made it around 8 pm the previous night and we had it for lunch the next day. It reheats wonderfully.

I have a huge slow cooker, so I doubled the recipe. I makes A LOT so be prepared! Also, while it doesn't call for it, I added salt and pepper. It was just to bland without it.

Note: I planned on this being my first soup after my master cleanse. It may be a bit to hearty for most, but we had it with no troubles.

Ingredients

• 1 cup brown lentils, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup chopped carrots (2 medium)
• 1 cup celery (2 stalks)
• 1 cup chopped onion (1 large)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans vegetable broth or chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 (14 1/2 oz) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes, undrained
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley

Instructions

1. In a 3 1/2 to 4-quart slow cooker place lentils, carrots, celery, onion, and bay leaf. Sprinkle with basil, oregano, thyme and garlic. Combine broth, water and undreained tomatoes. Pour over all.
2. Cover and cook on low-hear for 12 hours or on high-heat for 5 to 6 hours. Remove and discard bay leaf. Stir in parsley.

Creamy Asparagus Soup

From The Vegan Chef - Vegan Recipes - Beverly Lynn Bennett

This was my first vegan recipe ever! It was simply delicious! Not hard to make at all and I followed the directions very closely. The next time I may cut the water just a tad, but besides that the soup came out perfectly. This makes a lot of soup, so plan on having it for while. It was so delicious, though, I even had seconds!

Note: This was our second soup the day after the master cleanse.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs. asparagus, tough ends trimmed
• 3 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 cups onion, diced
• 1 T. garlic, minced
• 1 T. lemon juice
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 1/2 T. cornstarch or arrowroot
• 1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley
• 3 T. freshly chopped basil
• 1/2 t. sea salt
• 1/8 t. white pepper
• 1 cup soy milk, rice milk, or other non-dairy milk of choice
• 3 T. nutritional yeast flakes
• Garnish: thin slices of lemon
• 
  

Instructions

1. Cut the tips off the asparagus, place them in a steamer basket, steam them for 2-3 minutes or until tender, and set aside.
2. Thinly slice the stems diagonally, place them in a steamer basket, steam them for 4-5 minutes
3. or until tender, and set aside.
4. Measure the water left over from steaming the asparagus, add additional water to measure 7 cups, and place it in a large pot.
5. Add the potatoes, onion, garlic, and lemon juice, and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
7. In a blender or food processor, place the cold water and cornstarch, and blend well to combine.
8. Strain the cooked vegetables from the broth, reserving the cooking liquid, transfer the cooked vegetables to the food processor, and return the cooking liquid to the pot.
9. Add the fresh herbs to the cooking liquid and stir well to combine.
10. Add half of the reserved steamed asparagus stems to the food processor and puree the mixture until smooth.
11. To the pot containing the herbed cooking liquid, add the pureed mixture, reserved steamed tips and stems, and the remaining ingredients, and stir well to combine.
12. Remove the pot from the heat and set the soup aside for 5 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.
13. Taste and adjust seasonings, as needed.
14. Serve hot or cold and garnish individual servings with a thin slice of lemon.

Master Cleanse Day 10

Success!!! We did it! Ten days! I am really excited that I accomplished this and I really feel great. Now, I must be honest and admit that I did kind of end a day early since I started the orange juice today, but we will get to that later.

I drank the tea for the last time last night and was able to sleep until about 5 am when I started having cramps. Not horrible cramps, but annoying. They were pretty bad in the morning when I got out of bed. I passed some strange stuff. It looked like squid ink. It was weird. Once I did that I felt much better. Those must have been some serious toxins. Blech! I did the salt bath just because I wanted whatever was in there to get out! That went fine. Since I was passing this I probably should have stayed on the cleanse another day or to, but I have to tell you the thought of it was too gross. For the first time the thought of drinking the lemonade was really unappealing. I guess once my mind was made up to stop, I just really need to stop. I just can't drink that again for awhile.

So, I had orange juice today! YUM!!! This is what is recommended when you first stop the cleanse. I drank it all day and it was cold, delicious goodness. I felt pretty good all day, but I have to admit I was getting pretty hungry. The lemonade does really fill you up.

I walked to the produce market to get everything for our weekend. It was a good walk and it was so fun to go shopping for food and have meals to prepare. I prepared our soup for tomorrow. We are having a vegetable soup that simmers in the slow cooker for 12 hours. It felt so good to be back in the kitchen and even better to know I was cooking a really healthy meal. I will post the recipe tomorrow once I have tried it.

Tonight Joey and I had fruit. Now, that wasn't recommended in the book, but we wanted to chew. We both just really wanted real food. We had kiwi, banana and mango. It was smart that we had to peel it all ourselves because it took up time and filled us up. It was very satisfying! The fruit tasted amazing. Right now, I feel totally fine, so I don't think it was a mistake. We ate very little and chewed very carefully. We wills see how we feel tomorrow!

There is one thing that is kind of interesting. I am a bit sad that the cleanse is basically over. It really has been a big part of my life the past ten days and I think I will miss it a little. Not the lemonade, but doing it. I guess I will need to set a new challenge for myself!