The First Day of Freedom

Thursday, January 26

We started our first day of being done with the cleanse with a super delicious smoothie that had not been in the set of recipes from Whole Living. It did, however, only use "cleanse-friendly" ingredients. That was partly because we already had them on hand, and partly because we like them!

The deliciousness was in the form of a Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie, the recipe for which a friend had pinned on Pinterest. 

We used 2 ripe bananas, 3 Tbsp. peanut butter, 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder, 1 1/2 c. almond milk, and about a cup of ice. HEAVEN! In fact, just writing about it makes me want to make it for breakfast tomorrow!

We also made COFFEE for the first time in three whole weeks! It was a delicious morning.

For lunch, we ate at the cafeteria, but I still mostly ate veggies and such, with just a little chicken salad and a few tortilla chips as "new" foods.

I didn't feel too different after lunch, but after school things changed. I tutor a boy every Thursday afternoon, and his dad always offeres me some sore of snack, which I have had to turn down the past few weeks. This week, he knew I'd be done with the cleanse, so he had a brownie and ice cream ready for me, which was very thoughtful. I asked for just a small amount, because I wasn't sure how my system would react, ans so I had a small brownie with a scoop of ice cream.

It was yummy.

An hour later, I was shaky, flushed, sweating, and overall feeling pretty strange. I did not like it! I guzzled some water, and as soon as we got home I scarfed down a handful of walnuts for energy...

We had decided to make the Rice Noodles with Broccoli Pesto for dinner, since we had the ingredients, and it was so yummy, even though we didn't "have" to eat the "cleanse food" anymore. It's just so darn tasty! 

Anyways, as soon as it was done, I dug into mine, hoping that the "real food" would settle my system down a bit. I felt much better after having dinner and more water, but the brownie experience shook me up a bit!

Dinner: Rice Noodles with Broccoli Pesto:

Dessert: Cookie Dough

We were having friends over for dessert on Thursday night, so I decided that would be a good time to test out a new recipe that I had been wanting to try. I had found a recipe for healthy chocolate chip cookie dough on a blog recently, and it looked both intriguing and promising, so I figured it was worth a shot!  =)

Basically, you blend chick peas, vanilla extract, nut butter, soaked pitted dates, and a little almond milk (and a few other minor things) in a food processor until really smooth, then stir in chocolate chips! It's SO yummy!

We served it with apple slices, but it's also good with graham crackers, and I'm sure many other things (Toast? Pancakes? Pretzels?)...it's also good just by the spoonful!

I've been having a lot of fun searching through a variety of blogs and on Pinterest, gathering a collection of yummy-looking treats and such that are either vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, or all of the above. Some of my favorites so far include:

chocolatecoveredkatie.com
loveveggiesandyoga.com
spoonfulofsugarfree.com
glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

Some of the things I've made so far since we've been done are:

• Healthy Chocolate Chip Blondies 
• This one isn't sugar-free, but I think it would be really good with agave instead of sugar!
• Homemade Oatmeal-Raisin Larabars
• I made a double batch of these, but it was tricky to figure out how to make 6 equally-sized bars, so I formed it into balls instead.
• Quinoa with Butternut Squash, Cranberries, and Pecans 
• we used sweet potatoes and walnuts instead of butternut squash and pecans, and it was very yummy!

All  of them have been SO good! We also made up a soup with leftover veggies that we had lying around...it was pretty good! We called it "Purple Soup" for obvious reasons....=)

Purple Soup

In a pot of water, I added 1 yukon gold potato, scrubbed & cubed, and leftover white beans (cooked), about 1.5 cups
I boiled the potatoes until they were soft (10 min.).
In a skillet, I sauteed 2 small onions, 2 cloves of garlic, and fresh ginger.
On top of that I added shredded red cabbage (as much as we had leftover...maybe 2 c.?)

I ladled about half of the cooked potato and beans into a blender, with some of the cooking water, then added about half of the sauteed veggies. 

 I blended it until smooth. That's when I noticed it become a cool light purple color! Mmm!

 

Once the mixture is smooth, add it back into the pot, and stir in the rest of the sauteed veggies. I wasn't sure what spices to add, so I tried cumin and a dash of cinnamon. I decided that some lemon juice would help the overall flavor, but then when I squeezed it in, the acid turned the purple soup pink! Another color surprise!

I think that it needed some other flavors, maybe more salt, but hey, it was a fun experiment!

I hope you go out and pick up some interesting ingredients, and enjoy being creative with your fruits, veggies, and all the amazing tastes and textures that God has blessed us with! We are so blessed to live on a planet packed with so many colors, flavors, textures, etc. that are so fun to experiment with!