Day 12 - My Wife is Brilliant

After 11 full days on the cleanse my wife made a shocking discovery this morning.  Turns out that the reason that we feel like there is to much food to eat on this cleanse and keep having leftovers is because all the recipes in the book are 2 servings.  One little sentence at the beginning of the entire recipe section meekly proclaims ...all recipes are 2 servings.... that's it.  I should mention that I had previously looked all over the recipe section for some sort of indication as to how many servings was provided in each recipe.  Some of them seem larger than others, but there it was buried in a paragraph at the beginning of the recipe section.  I should point out as well that I read the entire book and that the rest of the book was very well layed out but I personally think that the recipe section leaves much to be desired.  So I drank 2 full glasses last night of that disgusting seaweed crap and I only had to drink one.... Oh well.   I am rewriting most of the recipes anyway as the directions are presented in an easy to follow format.  For example, the Big Green Salad recipe jumbles all of the ingredients for the prep, salad and dressing together.  I am going to segregate things so that you can have a better sense of what order things are going to happen. 

Having an order of operations helps me so that I cna get the almonds soaking in water first thing, chop all of the salad stuff at the same time, place it in a bowl out of the way while I prepare the dressing or visa versa. The recipe in the book reads like this:

Big Green Salad

·        ½ head of Romaine lettuce, leaves washed dried and torn into bite size pieces

·        1 bunch of Arugula washed and dried

·        Dandelion leaves, washed and dried

·        1 carrot shredded

·        6  Radishes, cut into 4 pieces each

·        1 cucumber, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise, then cut into half inch chunks

·        1 avocado, cut into slices

·        Handful of sunflower sprouts

·        3 scallions sliced thin

·        ¼ cup of soaked almonds, chopped

·        1 clove garlic, crushed

·        Juice of ½ lemon

·        1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

·        1 tablespoon agave syrup

·        Fresh thyme, basil and parsley, chopped fine

·        ½ cup grape seed oil

·        Salt and pepper

OK I am going to interrupt here to comment on a few things.  According to this ingredient list, after the dandelion leaves, nothing needs to be washed and dried. Some of the quantities are nebulous and do not give a start point.  I.E.  I am sure that arugula comes in bunches, but I have not been able to buy it that way, fresh thyme, basil, parsley, salt and pepper, no reference whatsoever. But continuing on…

1.      To make the dressing, put the lemon juice, garlic, agave syrup, herbs and grape-seed oil into a glass jar with a screw-top lid and shake vigorously.  Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

2.      In a large bowl toss the greens, carrots, radishes, scallions and cucumber with the dressing. ( You can use individual plates if you choose.)

3.      Decorate with avocado, sprouts and almonds.

If desired, you may add 2 ounces of shrimp or chicken per portion.

Soaked almonds are easier to digest.  To soak almonds cover in pure water and leave for at least 2 hours or overnight.

That's it.  All of the directions are there aside from the fact that I have 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar unaccounted for and I am not sure what to do with it, if I follow the directions to the letter and of course some quantities that are a bit nebulous.  I will just have to throw in handfuls of thyme, a pinch of Basil, and a big bunch of parsely then stand here holding this measuring spoon trying not to spill the apple cider vinegar.  The following is how I would present this recipe.

Big Green Salad

Makes 2 servings

Garnish

·        1 avocado, cut into slices

·        Handful of sunflower sprouts (can substitute alfalfa sprouts)

·        3 scallions sliced thin

·        ¼ cup of soaked almonds, chopped – soak almonds overnight, to make them easier to digest

Dressing

·        1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped fine

·        Juice of ½ lemon

·        1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

·        1 tablespoon agave syrup

·        Fresh thyme strip leaves from 2 sprigs

·        Fresh basil ½ tbsp chopped fine

·        Fresh parsley ½ tbsp chopped fine

·        ½ cup grape seed oil

·        ½ tsp Salt and pepper

Salad

·        ½ head of Romaine lettuce and torn into bite size pieces

·        1 bunch of Arugula

·        1 carrot shredded

·        6  Radishes, cut into 4 pieces each

·        1 cucumber, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise, then cut into half inch chunks

Preparation – start the night before by soaking ¼ cup of almonds in pure water soaked almonds are easier to digest. 

1.      To make the dressing, put all dressing ingredients into a container with an airtight lid and shake vigorously.  Set aside.

2.      In a large bowl toss the greens, carrots, radishes, scallions and cucumber with the dressing.

3.      Garnish with avocado, sprouts and almonds.

For a non-vegetarian version you may add 2 ounces of shrimp or chicken per portion.

After reading this recipe, I am sure that you can see how wonderful that I actually am.  I fully intend to re-write this entire section of the book and add a few of my own tweaks.

So moving right along, this morning I woke up with a significant amount of GI distress and apparently had a little taste of that stomach virus that has been going around, so I did not go to my spin class as I was afraid that I might shart.  So wisely I went back to bed for a bit and then got up and helped Melissa make our morning peach and almon

d butter smoothie.  It was pretty good! Melissa started an azuki bean concoction and some rice for our lunch, unfortunately the beans were not ready but will be delicious tomorrow I am sure. So for lunch, I had rice, mandarins and a pear.  It was delicious and very filling. 
So moving forward, I am very happy that we got that serving size thing figured out so that the portions will be a bit more reasonable from here on in. 

Did I mention that I am drinking a lot of water?  The good Dr Junger says that if you are not urinating at least once per hour, you are not drinking enough water for this cleanse.  Well I do that all day long, but at night I only have to get up 2 times to go, but I will be happy to go back to sleeping through the entire night. At the same time, while I am sleeping I am sleeping deep deep sleep.

So for supper tonight we had a yummy cashew and squash warm soup.  The end of a perfect cleanse day!

See You Tomorrow!

Michael