5-Day Detox to Jumpstart Your Year

ARE YOU READY?

Of course you are. So am I, Lord Jesus. I am a belly full of cookies and BBQ (thanks to Dalai Dan and his recent smoked pork butt). This body of mine is ready to kick some ass.

Today, I am going to give you some general rules of this MILD cleanse. Nothing crazy like only drinking lemon juice and cayenne pepper for 5 days. I won’t make you consume ghee or epsom salt. You don’t have to submit pictures of your poop or eat only kale.

(Don’t stop reading yet, because there is a special deal for my KC readers. Non-KC readers can stop only if you didn’t gain 5 pounds like me)

Here is What You Are Going To Do:

Cleanse Length: 5 days (Monday, Jan 9th – Friday Jan 13th)

DO NOT consume: wheat (gluten), processed sugar, coffee*, sodas, alcohol, dairy products, or animal products**

DO consume: detox or other favorite tea, fresh-pressed vegetable juices, green smoothies, steal cut oats, brown rice, beans, nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil, vinegar, fruits, vegetables, hummus, quinoa, rice/almond/soy milk, vegan yogurts/cheeses, gluten-free products***

DO NOT: freak out if you go off course, put too much on your schedule, be mean to yourself if it feels hard, starve yourself, compare yourself to others.

DO: start every morning with warm lemon water, eat when you are hungry, have your last meal around 6pm, eat a grapefruit if it is after 6pm and your are starving, try yoga (hot!) or any life giving exercise, drink lots of water, exfoliate your skin, take baths (try epsom salt or himalayan sea salt), take a nap, get a massage, start each morning with a prayer or vision for the day, try a colonic, BE KIND TO YOURSELF!

There are Two Ways You Can Do This:

1. Prepare some key foods over the weekend that will last you all week.

I am going to provide you with some ideas and recipes tomorrow. They will include things like,

• Vegetable/bean soups
• Quinoa salads
• Roasted vegetables and other vegetable recipes

2.  Or, use a vegan meal service if one is available.

This, my friends, is what I am doing this time. Thankfully, here in Kansas City, we have Conveniently Natural, a company that provides awesome vegan meals right to your door. I have talked about them here and have used them several times throughout the year.

IF YOU CHOOSE THIS ROUTE, call them directly at 913-475-8004 (BY FRIDAY!!!) and mention you are participating in the Dalai Lina cleanse for 10% off your order. The meals will be delivered on Monday, January 9th. If you are doing the cleanse alone, a 1/2 gluten-free order should be perfect. Kim at Conveniently Natural will gladly help you with your order and any food questions when you call. She and her husband are amazing!

This choice makes it much easier and is very economical, but you will still have to do some grocery shopping and preparation over the weekend….

So, stay tuned over the next couple days for recipes and a grocery list!

In the mean time, eat sensibly this week – it will make next week SO much easier!

*coffee: I know this is a killer for some of you. The acid and caffeine in coffee is hard on our bodies. Try really hard to see if you can do it! Black tea (which has a little caffeine) can take the edge off. Otherwise, if you need to, have a cup of decaf coffee with a vegan creamer or non-dairy milk.

**gluten-free products: try to limit the number of processed food. There are some great gluten-free cereals, breads, and crackers, but try to keep the cleanse about whole, fresh foods.

***animal products: if you feel like you must incorporate some animal products, consume “light” meats like fish or eggs for lunch (along with lots of veggies). Still avoid dairy!

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Artery Clogging Buffalo Wing Dip

• 12 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1 cup blue cheese salad dressing
• 1 cup buffalo wing sauce (or more if want spicier)
• 4 cooked chicken breasts, chopped into small pieces
• 1 package shredded cheddar cheese

In a 9×12 baking dish, layer the ingredients.

1st layer:  cream cheese

2nd layer:  blue cheese dressing

3rd layer:  buffalo sauce and chopped chicken mixed together

4th layer:  cheddar cheese

Cook at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Serve with tortilla chips, Fritos, or crackers.

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Food, Friends and Freaks

Dalai Dan and I escaped the bondage of parenthood this weekend. Almost. I still got one “obnoxious child” call from the sitter and we unexpectantly visited New Orleans during Voodoo Fest.

We didn’t know New Orleans on Halloween weekend meant Voodoo fest and thousands of college students.  Some of which had excellent taste in hotels and picked the Ritz.  Right next to our room.  Playing loud music.  We actually ended up switching rooms at 11:00 at night in our pajamas because the Dalai was damn sure going to get her beauty sleep.

The trip was with our old college friends.  We all went to Vanderbilt in the 90s, were in each other’s weddings, and now used these occasional get-aways to hammer out the dowry and nuptial details of our children’s arranged marriages.  We keep upping the dowry amount but the Searls still have not agreed to take Dalai Daniel as a son-in-law.

Our entire two-day trip was scheduled around food. Our fist meal was at Herbsaint, where I got an incredible beet salad, followed by chocolate pudding cake and cafe au lait ice cream. That was the lightest meal of the weekend.

After shopping up and down Magazine Street, we worked up and appetite for award-winning chef, John Besh’s restaurant, August. It is considered one of America’s top restaurants and I truly had one of the best trout dishes of my life.  And then there was that chocolate napoleon with sea salt toffee ice cream…

We kicked off the next morning with some beignets, croissants and coffee at Cafe Beignet.

No beets here.

Would you like some butter with that croissant?

Now that we were properly fueled for another day of shopping, we headed to the French Quarter.

And saw some interesting things along the way.

Like this disturbing yet unique take on the “street statue.”





My favorite antique shop of the trip was Antiques de Provence. I want these 19th century french chairs.





All that walking got us hungry. Time to eat barbeque shrimp at Mr. B’s Bistro. One serving of 5 shrimp has an entire stick of butter. What do you think of that, Green Smoothie Girl?

Only 5 hours later and we were off for another meal,  this time at the famous Galatoires.  We bumped into some of our old Ritz neighbors along the way. Here is “Conjugal Visit.”

This poor guy is “f**king freezing.”

And “d*ck nose” here had a hard time drinking his beer.

We finally busted through the crowd and made it to Galatoires, only to learn Dalai Dan needed a coat.  Although there were many to choose from, he did not meet the New Orleans obesity requirement and felt a little silly in his big jacket.

Jacket aside, we still had an amazing dinner of fried oysters, crab-stuffed artichokes with hollandaise sauce, and turtle soup with my good buddy, Newt.

Mr. Gingrich had to leave early, but we were equally entertained by these restaurant patrons.

Sunday came in a flash and the trip was almost over. We had just enough time to compare beignets at Cafe de Monde. The vote: Cafe Beignet 4 to 0.

As the fruits of our culinary labor kept growing, two days of hard work had finally paid off.  We all could go home with a little something to show for it…

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Crispy Kale Chips

Want another way to eat Kale?  I tried this recipe from Snack Girl because I had a bunch of kale that I hadn’t used in smoothies.   I tore them up, put them in a bowl, and tossed them with olive oil, sea salt and pepper and baked them for 8-10 minutes.

HOLY MOLY!  Even the kids liked them.  They were surprisingly light and crispy and just melted in your mouth. And since it is rich in vitamin C, vitamin A, betacarotene, iron, potassium, and calcium, you’ll be doing yourself a favor making these little Super Chips.

Tear or cut leaves, toss in olive oil, salt and pepper (I tried garlic salt and cayenne pepper too) and place on pan with parchment paper.

Bake at 375º for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

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New Study Suggests Junk Food Can be Addictive

Duuuuhhh…I think I could have come up with this conclusion and saved them millions of dollars in research.

To sum it up, a new study came out in Nature Neuroscience that suggests junk food can have a similar addictive quality to drugs.

The study entailed two sets of rats.  One group was given unlimited access to junk food, but eating it gave them a shock to their feet if they ate more than allowed.  The other group was given a healthy diet and only limited access to junk food.

Surprise, surprise, the rats with unlimited access to foods such as bacon, sausage, pound cake, candy bars and other deplorably unhealthy fare gained weight quickly and the other rats didn’t gain much weight at all.

The more shocking finding, however, is that the rats became so addicted to the junk food, they began compulsively eating it, regardless of getting the uncomfortable electric shock to their feet.

What do you think happened when the junk food was taken away and only healthy food was available?   Rats on the junk food diet went on a hunger strike and refused to eat anything for two weeks!  I guess no food was better than good food…

I believe my home study verifies that this animal study is applicable to humans:  we, too, can get addicted to junk food and eat it regardless of punishment.  My study entails me, at a fast food establishment, trying to be good but sneaking my children’s fries.  Despite their screams of agony – at decibel levels that pierce my brain like a knife – I keep at it.  Not even the disapproving looks of strangers as they hear my children pleading with me to stop eating their food can get me to stop.  I am a victim of the junk food high…

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Could you Identify a Turnip?

Opening my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box is like opening a hand-made Christmas present from one of my kids: it looks beautiful, you know it was made with love, but it is sometimes random and unidentifiable. This week, however, even my kids could name the contents (except for the eggplant, which they thought was a purple tomato)

So, I’m working with: 2 onions, 1 bunch of carrots, 3 avocados, 2 apples, 2 oranges, 1 lettuce head, 5 yams, 1 bunch of bananas, 2 pears, and 1 extra large purple tomato (aka: eggplant). Not bad! All identifiable foods this week. While my knowledge of various vegetable species has expanded from the program, I am still surprised by some uncharted territory. One week my housecleaner kindly put away all my vegetables and threw out the packing slip. I looked in wonder at a round, whitish object, that after research on the Internet, I discovered was a turnip.

Now, the fun begins! I love figuring out what I am going to do with it all. One of my go-to solutions is roasting whatever I have a lot of. That little turnip above got himself roasted with some beets and brussel sprouts…Armed with too many carrots, onions, a left over parsnip and 2 left over beets from the week before, I began my weekly roasting plan:

1. Chop between 4-5 cups of assorted vegetable. Beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, asparagus, onions, brussel sprouts all work well and can be grown in MO.

2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1-teaspoon pepper and 1-teaspoon sea salt.

3. Spread out over a large jelly roll pan

4. Roast at 400° for approximately 30 minutes or until yummy and caramelized, mixing and turning once about half way.

Serve over brown rice. The great thing is that it can be kept for a few days, so a large batch can feed me lunch for a while. Notice I said “me” because I still can’t get a beet past my kids’ lips. Frankly, I think beets forever scarred my daughter the day she walked in on me dicing them and thought I was bleeding to death.

The best way to reheat it is to warm a skillet over medium heat with some olive oil and throw in the cold brown rice (cold rice, by the way, is the key to good fried rice…), stirring and breaking it apart before adding the veggies. If it needs a little extra zip, add some garlic salt! Yummy…its like farmer’s fried rice!

Now what do I do with that eggplant?  Any ideas?

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