Clean Day 8 & 9

Re-cap post from Clean Day 8 & 9

Thursday we started out day with Matcha green tea with some Meyer lemon zest and the juice and our Island Paradise shakes.

Lunch was mmm, mmm, gooooooddddd!!!! I made a really hardy salad. I think you will love this recipe. Especially any guys out there. Totally guy friendly hot salad.

Turkey Bacon, Butternut Squash and Spinach Salad:

1 butternut squash peeled, seeded and chopped into bite sized chunks
1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper
1 package of nitrite free, organic turkey bacon (peppered worked great!)
1 large shallot clove or enough to for 1/4 cup chopped
1 splash of grape seed oil
2 tbsp of water
1 tbsp of Dijon mustard
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
a few of cranks of a pepper mill
four huge hand fulls of organic baby spinach or hearty leaf salad mix
1 cup of cooked red quinoa( I make a batch about twice a week to add to salads or to use as a fast side)

Turn oven to 400 degrees.

Prep your squash and lay a piece of parchment paper. Toss your squash in cayenne pepper, some salt and lay spread out on paper. Set timer for 40 minutes

Grab another cookie sheet and lay more parchment paper down. Lay turkey bacon out on paper and add to the oven on a lower rack. Butter nut squash should bake for about 20 to 30 minutes. Bacon will take 20 to 40 minutes depending on how crispy you want it. Flip bacon about 10 to 15 minutes into bacon and flip the squash around as well.

Put your salad leaves together and add the quinoa and set aside.

Now add some grape seed oil to a pan and turn stove to about medium heat. Add the chopped shallots.

Once the shallots are soft and cooked down add two tablespoons of water and they should steam a bit then add the balsamic, Dijon and pepper and combine.

It should look like this. If you want it more runny add more balsamic and water and then when ready and comined turn off heat.

Bacon and squash should be ready. Top salad with the squash and then the dressing. Toss together.

Plate salad and top with bacon add a few cranks of some black pepper and serve.

Our shake was the same. We have been keeping it very easy and only be creative with lunch the rest is the same ol, same ol. Including our lite dinner. Hummus roll-ups packed with veggies. Easy quick and simple. 

Clean Day 6 & 7

Same old same old. In the morning. I did make Matcha Green Tea lattes with almond milk stevia and some vanilla extract. So good!

Lunch was a throw together for sure. I had some random things in the refrigerator so I just made a pretty rustic bean, veggie and pasta dish.

What you will need:
1 can of Cannellini Beans rinsed
1/2 head of cauliflower chopped
1 leek sliced into thin ribbons (just the white and about half way up the green)
5 leaves of Swiss chard remove rib and chop into thin ribbons
1 container of mushrooms cleaned and chopped
two cloves of garlic chopped
4 fresh sage leaves chopped into thin ribbons
1 pound of brown rice pasta
a couple of good pinches of white pepper
1/2 cup of veggie or chicken broth
salt to taste
Optional nuts or seed toppings 
1 tbsp of grape seed oil
*after you cut your leeks into ribbons add them to a bowl of cold water and let them soak for a minute or two and then drain them in a colander and rinse well under the faucet.

Add your oil to your pan and turn to medium heat. Add your leeks and let them soften a bit the add your garlic, mushrooms, white pepper, sage and cook four about 5 minutes stir and combine. Fill a large pot of water and place on stove to high and sprinkle with salt. Once boiling add your rice pasta.

Add the stock, Swiss chard and the beans and let them cook for about another 8 minutes stir and combine. Once your pasta is ready drain and leave a little of the pasta water in the pasta.

It should look like this when you are done.

Add some pasta to a dish and top with mixture. You will have quite a bit left over. Go ahead and combine the mixture and the pasta in a container and save for the next day or for dinner later on.

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We had our re-peat afternoon shake, so good! I made a simple salad for us for dinner.

This morning we had a Island Paradise shake. Basically, 1/2 cup of mango, 1/2 cup of pineapple, one apple, two tbsp of organic dried coconut, scoops of vanilla nourish, scoops of move, stevia, two tbsp of almond meal and two tbsp of chia seeds, 2 cups of water and 1 cup of almond milk.

Today I took the left overs from yesterday and warmed them up with some broth and heat through in a pan with the top on.  

I had some nice wile Alaskan cod in the freezer so I thawed it in the sink in some water for about 20 minutes and then sprinkled with some Organic Garlic Pepper blend from Costco and some grape seed oil. I placed it on some parchment paper in a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Cod takes not time to cook. Just poke and see it the juices run clear and you are ready. 

For or evening meal I just made the same salad as the night before and we had the same chocolate berry shake for out mid afternoon shake.

We are both really in the thick of dropping the weight. Man going to the bathroom a lot. This is a great sign that we are loosing all the pollution we have absorbed since out last detox. I have been reading a lot on the Clean forum about wanting to loose as much weight as they can. So I am seeing people eat just like a bowl of soup for there lunch. Now the point of the detox is to detox and not just loose weight. Your lunch is supposed to be a balanced meal not just a bowl of soup only. You are will loose sugar and bad fat on this detox but you will loose the pollution first and for most that has built up in your belly, hips, thighs, blood, kidneys etc, etc the most. Keep that in mind Kiddos!;)

Clean Day 4 & 5

We started off the morning with another Thanksgiving themed shake. I know from my nutrition training it is better to keep things consistent. When I get sick of the shake I will switch to my Island Paradise shake recipe. So lunch was another "make enough for two days" which again is from the same school of thought. So this recipe is all my own. I make these with meat and also without some times and totally vegan. These are my meat loaf balls. Same principle of making a meat ball but adding things that go in meat loaf instead and some things that you may never thought to add. I pack mine with lots of vegetables so the are nutritionally dense. Ben eats them right up so that is what counts. I make them tomato free or with because of the clean limitations these are tomato free and the cheese I am using is a Almond milk cheese that I was trying out before the diet. It actually taste like real sharp cheddar and melts really well. It is by Lisanatti Foods and called The Original Almond Cheddar Style. Now this does have casein in it and some expelled pressed canola oil(already e-mailed the company about using grape seed oil instead and finding a different protein besides casein or whey as well). I would actually use Daiya usually because of the diet also that it is casein free as well, but this bag was already open so I wanted to use it up. You can leave the cheese alternative out and add four tablespoons of nutritional yeast instead to get that cheesy flavor and loads of B vitamins as well if you are fallowing Clean to the letter.

What you need to make them:
1 1/2 or a little less pounds of extra lean(99% fat free) organic ground turkey (basically a package)
1 cup of shredded carrot
1 cup of finely chopped kale
1/2 cup of finely chopped red onion
4 chopped garlic cloves or 1 tsp of garlic powder
1 cup of finally chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup of Daiya cheese or whatever you like  (four rounded tablespoons of Nutritional Yeast)
1/4 cup of brown rice flour
2 tbsp of Dijon mustard
about 7 cranks of a pepper mill
1/2 tsp of kosher salt
1/2 tsp of Creole Seasoning
*I used 1/2 tsp of each organic blend of pepper and garlic seasoning and Organic No-Salt seasoning from Costco as well.
3 flax seed faux eggs (three rounded tablespoons of flax seed meal with six tablespoons of water)
2 tbsp of grape seed oil
1 tsp of tapioca starch if you have it

Turn oven on to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and make your faux flax seed eggs in a small bowl and set aside.

I have a mini prep food processor and I finally chopped my onions, carrots and kale in it. If you do not have one just chop the veggies as small as you can and add to a large bowl. Add your faux flax seed eggs and don't for get the oil!

Add your meat and the rest of your ingredients and mix well. Then take about a little more then a 1/2 cup of the mixture an shaped into tight balls.

Place on parchment paper and put the tray in the oven for about 20 minutes. If you are using ground Turkey with more fat then the balls could take about 30 minutes, maybe 40 depending on your oven.

They will be darker in color and hard when pushed when done. Also you could cut one in half a bit if you are not sure. They should be cooked all the way through and no pink!

I made some quinoa with veggie broth, some spices in our rice cooker. Also a  nice dark leaf side salad with a a simple lemon, olive oil, Dijon mustard, pepper and Organic no-salt spice blend dressing. Ben at it before my eyes!


We had our after noon shake which was a repeat from yesterday. The we went to the gym and came home had humus roll ups and some coconut water mixed with sparking and a wedge of lime. The roll ups where Brown rice tortillas, dark leaf lettuce mix, slices of avocado. Dijon mustard, Fallow Your Heart Grape seed Vegenaise and some Cajun spice. These are great for a quick lunch as well and they make a great lite dinner option for the Clean diet.

We are doing well and feeling great.

Clean Day 2 & 3

Day two was not bad as last year, tired but not zombie like at all. I did not make anything different from day 1 and I planned it that way. I was prepared for it to be just horrible and cooked enough on Day 1 for Day 2 to keep it easy except for our little evening meal. I picked up my CSA box from NTC and we got a huge share this week that included Jerusalem artichokes(sun chokes). I was so excited to see them. I can never find them when they are in season so this was great. I figured I can make a hot salad with them with all the kale and collard greens that I got.

Basically, I peeled them then cut them into chunks. Added some grape seed oil to my pan and pan fried them until golden. The add a some white balsamic vinegar, pepper and two bay leaves then turned down the heat to low and covered the pan for about ten minutes. Then I chopped up a few huge hand fulls of kale and collards, chopped two cloves of garlic, and used some killer brown clam shell mushrooms and threw it all in with the Jerusalem chokes and combined and add a few splashes of chicken broth and turned up the heat a bit and put the cover back on for about 15 to 20 minutes checking and tossing every five and BAM ready to go. I tossed in about 1/2 cup of slivered almonds at the end and served hot. YUM!

We had the same afternoon shake. We went on a hour long walk around the neighborhood at night to burn more calories becuase we power walked in 34 degree weather rather then a indoor gym tread mill walk. Good fitness tip to remember want to burn more calories in a shorter period of time do it in cold weather or in cold water.

Day three we had the same morning Thanksgiving themed shake and a mint green tea late made with almond milk and some stevia. I found this great recipe on GOOP under the Clean program section. I altered it a bit because I hate fennel! Not dislike, but HATE it, and actually it takes a lot for me to hate any vegetable and this one I for sure do! So I used the GOOP recipe and subtracted the fennel and used Swiss chard because I broke down my collards the night before. 

Pretty easy marinade. I altered the amounts because I used less fish: 1 tbsp of Tamari, 2 tbsp of sesame oil, 2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar, 1 tbsp of Mirin, a tsp of whole grain mustard and 2 chopped garlic cloves.

I mixed the marinade in the glass dish directly and whisked as directed. Then placed the whole piece of Salmon in the dish skin side up flipped it a couple of times to coat top and bottom and left it skin side up in the dish and then cut into about two inch wide pieces. I did skin side up because it will absorb the marinade faster. Pop in the frig for about 20 minutes.

 

I prepped the carrots the Norri sheets and the chard piece while it was marinating. Also filled my dutch oven with water and placed the steamer basket in it and turned the heat up to high to get the it ready to steam the rolls.  

 

After 20 minutes I took the salmon out and then started to construct the rolls. Just make sure to over lap the leaves a bit so they stay together.

Then I stuck them with two tooth pics each just in case so they will stay nice and tightly wrapped during the steaming.

Ready to go.............

I placed them in the steamer basket and turned the heat down to medium high heat and then put the top on and set the timer for 8 minutes and walked away. Poof, opened the dutch oven and they were done when the timer went off.

Served them with brown rice that I cooked with vegetable broth and some Japanese Salad. I will post the recipe for that in a separate post. SOOOOOO good!!!!!

We got tea at Peets later on after we went on cat specific research field trip(a Cat Show, I know you think we are weird but we had to get some advise from a Brit breeder about a new vet for Cashmere, it was actually pretty fun). I had the Jasmin Downy Pearl and Ben had the Lung Ching Dragonwell Green teas.

We had a Shari's Berries themed afternoon shake. I used the chocolate flavored Nourish and the Move with some frozen strawberries, some cacao powder, flax meal, almond meal, freeze dried coconut flakes, stevia, cinnamon, nutmeg, un-sweetened almond milk and some water.

For our light dinner we just a half a gluten free bagel with some nut butter and some apple slices to process our supplements.

As usual a mug of Natural Calm and hot water before bed. No work out today but gym tomorrow. 

Clean Day 1

This morning we had a Thanksgiving themed shake that involved pumpkin puree, cranberries, pumpkin pie spice, flax meal, chia seeds, scoops of Move and vanilla Nourish and some stevia.
Supplements+ Garden of Life Primal Defence HSO Probiotic Formula

Lunch is Vegan mac and cheese with kale, broccoli and cauliflower. Some salad topped with seeds and beans. My dressing is olive oil, Kirkland brand organic no-salt seasoning, Dijon mustard and lemon juice and zest.
Supplements+Calcium Magnesium+Vitamin D+B12/B6/Folic Acid

I had a matcha green tea almond milk latte with some stevia and Ben had a herbal tea with some lemon.

Afternoon shake with the chocolate flavored Nourish instead of the vanilla, some raspberries, cacao powder, almond meal, flax, almond milk, water and some EV coconut oil.

Lite dinner I had half a GF bagel with almond butter and some apple slices. Ben had a whole bagel with the same.
Supplements

We only went for a 30 minute walk because your are not supposed to do too much exercises in the beginning, but tomorrow we will go to the gym and walk on the tread mill for an hour. Hopefully on Saturday we can do some weight training. I think I will pop in a Yoga DVD tomorrow as well. 

Natural Calm before bed for both.

Yep, today we where both tired but we both got everything accomplished that needed to be. Tomorrow will be the roughest day. Last year it was so bad that we could not have straight conversations, so Ben and I are going to go to bed early. Hopefully that will help us out luckily it is Friday.