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Breakfast at 9am
Blackberry Kiwi Blend
1/4 large Pineapple, core removed and roughly cubed
1 cup Blackberries
1 Kiwi Fruit
1 Banana
1/2 Comice Pear
1/2 cup Coconut Water
30 Mint leaves
1 Tbsp. Flax seed oil, optional
Add all ingredients to blender and liquify.
Calories: 458 kcal
Protein: 6 g
Fiber: 18 g
I didn't add any oil, A( because I don't have it and B) because ew. Oil. I'm sure it's all good for you and everything, but meh.
Let me start this one by saying I WANT THIS FOR BREAKFAST EVERY DAY. Check out this stack:
Doesn't that just scream, "I'm gonna be darn tasty!" (It also seems to say "Someday in the far future you could possibly add a little alcohol to me and make a nice drink" ...just sayin...). So yes, this was delicious. Technically I should say IS delicous cause true to form it make a whooooole flippin lot.
It's also pretty thick and chunky. Whoa, that sounds really gross. Ok, not chunky, but..pulpy? I mean, there ARE blackberries in there with their little seeds, and the kiwi has those tiny seeds and the pineapple is fibery (my world, my words..I tend to make up a lot of them), but thankfully I don't have texture issues when it comes to fruit blends, so I'm good to go on this one. Hindsight tells me I should have thought ahead and put all the stuff in the fridge last night so it would be nice and cold this morning, but as it is, I thought of this about an hour before I had to make it so it only got about 45 minutes of fridge time and it's just cool. STILL GOOD! My only main concern now is that it's been 30 minutes and I've only managed to drink just under 1/2 of of this and it's not like the green juice yesterday, where it took me so long because of the flavor.This is just so thick that I'm starting to wonder if I'll need that mid-morning juice. It's going to BE mid-morning by the time I finish this.
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Mid-morning drink at 1pm
V28
3 large Red Beets
2 medium Carrots
2 stalks Celery
4 Plum Tomatoes
4 cups Parsley, leaves and stems, roughly chopped and packed into the measuring cup
1 Jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed
12 Red Radishes
Calories: 340 kcal
Protein: 17 g
Fiber: 2 g
Heaven almighty this is HORRIBLE. I mean..just beyond bad. This juice will deceive you with the smell of tomatoes, but the taste is less like eating from a garden, and more just plain eating the garden, minus the vegetation. Yes my friends, it tastes like dirt. Not that I have a whole lot of experience in that flavor, but if you go out to your garden (or some random strangers, your choice) on a nice spring day, and dig you hand into it, pull up a handful (worms and all), shove your nose in it and breath deep, you'll not only get a nose full of dirt, but the general idea of the flavor that is involved in this concoction.
Oh and it looks like blood.
I don't know if it was the beets? I made sure I peeled them first. Maybe I didn't peel them well enough. I don't know. I didn't even use large beets really. They were more small, medium, AND large. I've only eaten beets once in my life, and I have vague recollections of them tasting like the background notes of this 'juice'. The only way this was going down was to hold my nose and chug like there's no tomorrow. No joke. Every man for himself on this one. What's that lungs? You need a breath? Yea well SUCK IT UP PRINCESS cause we have 48+ oz of BLOOD RED MESS we have to get into our systems! YEA! *pumps fist*
I managed to get half down and threw up the white flag. I am not ashamed to admit defeat and I was all about kowtowing to this one. I tried. That's a win.
I want some chocolate.
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Lunch at 3pm
Carrot-Dill Salad
3 cups Greens (spinach, arugula, romaine, red leaf, etc..)
Shredded Carrot, Fennel, Radish, Cabbage, Celery Salad with Fresh Dill, Lemon
1/2 of an Avocado
Add Ginger honey soy dressing
Salad and 2 Tbsp. Dressing:
Calories: 278 kcal
Protein: 3.5 g
Fiber: 9 g
Dried Apple Rings
6 pieces Dried Apple Rings
Calories: 110 kcal
Protein: 0 g
Fiber: 3 g
This...totally didn't happen. I was feeling far too "meh" to attempt to get fancy. Instead I just had a romaine salad with a bit of onion and chopped dried apple rings, steamed some green beans, and used the dressing over both. I've accepted the fact that if I don't do all this by the book that I'm actually not going to die, and in fact substituting with an equally healthy meal will, in fact, suffice.
______________________________________________________________________________Afternoon snack at....well...never
Seaweed Salad (Make it Easy! Save half for a ready made meal on Day 3)
1 cup Soaked Arame Seaweed
2 Tbsp Flax Oil
1 Avocado
1 Tomato
1/4 Red Onion, finely chopped
1 Carrot, chopped or shredded
Parsley, finely chopped
Fresh Lemon Juice
Sea Salt
Dash of Cayenne
Add all ingredients together in bowl, mix and enjoy.
Calories: 326 kcal
Protein: 6 g
Fiber: 13 g
Sadly Kroger doesn't sell Arame Seaweed and I didn't have time to hit up the natural food store to see if they had it. I skipped this meal. I had lunch at 3 pm so I felt safe in holding out till dinner at 6.
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Dinner at 7pm
Roasted Acorn Squash Stuffed with Mushroom and Sage
1 medium Acorn Squash
3/4 tsp. plus 1/4 tsp. Sea Salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground Black Pepper
6 Tbsp. Olive Oil, plus extra for brushing
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1 large Portobello Mushroom, chopped
1 small Onion, chopped
2 tsp. Fresh Sage, finely chopped
Pinch Red Pepper Flakes, optional
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Trim off each end of the squash. Stand the squash upright and halve lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp and the seeds and discard. Brush each squash half with olive oil, and then sprinkle with 3/4 tsp. salt and the black pepper. Arrange cut sides down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast the squash until the flesh is tender and the edges are golden brown, approximately 25-35 minutes. Remove from the oven, flip the squash halves over and set aside.
While the squash roasts, heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic and saute 2 minutes, or until the onions begin to turn translucent. Add the mushrooms, sage, 1/4 tsp. salt and the red pepper flakes if using, and saute until the mushrooms begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Fill the roasted squash halves with the mushroom mixture and bake again for another 10 minutes.
Makes 4 servings
Per serving:
Calories: 254 kcal
Protein: 2 g
Fiber: 2.5 g
Green Vegetable Soup (save a serving for snack Day 3)
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
3 cloves Garlic, minced
1 head Broccoli, trimmed to small florets
2 medium Zucchini, cut into half moons
1 head Spinach, roughly chopped
4 leaves Basil
1 tsp. Sea Salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground Pepper
6 cups water
3 Tbsp. fresh Basil, chopped
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the leeks and garlic and saute for 3 minutes. Add the broccoli, zucchini, spinach, basil, salt and pepper. Stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped basil.
Makes 4-6 servings
Per serving:
Calories: 126 kcal
Protein: 5 g
Fiber: 4 g
Acorn squash was pretty good. It would probably have been freaking awesome if I hadn't burned it. As it turns out, trying to cook 3 different things that all require chopping and stirring and timed cooking on the stove while simultaneously baking something in the oven and shouting at your children to "Clean that mess up or you're (choose you're own adventure time!) A. not eating! B.going to bed early! C. being sold to the gypsy's! doesn't go over to well, and in the end, something must suffer. It's the law of life. Unless you're one of those really good cooks who's just a natural in the kitchen, in which case I deem you imaginary. Probably not the best thing for me to do since I do actually know a couple of people like that. I do believe I've just given myself imaginary friends.
I had only a small acorn squash and knew my hubby really likes them too so I let him have 1/2 of it. I figured I had the soup to fill in if I needed more food. The soup as it turns out is...kinda...really just vegetable water. I mean, you saute some of them with a little oil at first, and then you just dump in water and simmer the tar out of them. It was a bit disappointing when I ate it with the squash. Curious thing though! I only had a small bit of the soup at dinner, and when I was done cleaning up the disaster I made in the kitchen while cooking, I decided I'd have just a bit more since I didn't eat much at dinner. I sprinkled a little more sea salt in my serving, and gave it a couple more cranks of pepper, and it tasted WAY better. So maybe just the fact that the acorn squash had MORE flavor, drowned out the simple flavor of the soup. Or maybe it's just that salt fixes everything. Who knows.
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So here's my recap:
~Lovely breakfast, but next time I'll put the fruit in the fridge the night before to make a nice cold drink.
~V28 juice is just as easily made by scooping up the dirt in your garden and eating it, though admittedly probably not as healthy.
~Some salads are just too fussy sometimes and a simple salad will work just as well.
~Arame isn't common enough to find in Kroger. Plus it's seaweed. Just...you know. Keep that in mind.
~An excellent tip is to precook or plan super easy meals for the rest of your family because sometimes the meals you eat in this program are way more involved than you might initially think. SAVE THE ACORN SQUASH! *holds up her protest sign*
~Vegetable water isn't half bad if you add enough salt and pepper.
....i still want some chocolate...
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