Day 13…Don’t let the color fool you.

I woke up wide awake this morning at 9:30, after only 4 hours of sleep. I’m trying to knock back the first juice of the day. You’ll understand the “trying” part in a bit. 😉

This pic is from a 10lb bag of collards that I juiced yesterday – almost a full 1/2 gallon. I love the green…HA!!

I mixed 1 cup of this healthy green stuff to 1 cup of beet juice…another lovely shade of purple…

Don’t let the color fool you…This is one mean green juice!! I am seriously having a tough go of it. Who knew juiced collard greens could put off so much heat! My throat and stomach are both protesting! I think I am going to have to cut this with some water. I like spicy food, but Holy Smokes!!

Reminds me of the time the owner of the Chinese restaurant where I worked in my younger days asked me to try a “new” appetizer. She had diced a whole jalapeno, included seeds and all, poured a tiny bit of oil on it, and gave me the spoon without me seeing what she had done. My eyes watered for hours after I swallowed it. Milk or bread cuts the heat from hot peppers, but there were neither in the store. Tea and water do not work, no matter how much you drink. lol

I should have suspected the heat when my eyes started watering yesterday during the making of the meanest mean green juice. WOW! I am definitely having a soothing fruit smoothie after this one!

 

Day 11…Restarting the Reboot!

Today was just insane – I have to stop staying up so late, but now I’m playing “catch up,” so it will be another late night. As promised, I did step on the scale…with much dread, because I have been eating for 10 days. I gained 3lbs back! I expected to gain some weight, but at least it wasn’t the 5 or more that I had feared.

Still, when you’re not able to walk, and your only form of exercise consists of what you can do with light weights and a stretch band, that isn’t enough to work off the fat. There are no local gyms where I live that are set up to handle someone in a wheelchair, and the closest track is in town – 35 miles away. I can forget getting out on the paved road too, since it is literally UP hill from where I live. The ride down might be fun, but I would probably end up with a broken neck. lol Not good. What would you suggest?

I have 2 new recipes to share this evening. I was sadly disappointed – make that highly upset – to discover that all but 1 sweet potatoes had gone bad, as well as all of my beets, and I just bought them last week! I’m blaming it on having turned on the heat with the cold front that has dropped in, and leaving them on the counter instead of putting them into a cooler area. So, I have to go back to the store tomorrow for more groceries. I’m not happy!

Anyhow, the first recipe is Carrot Kale Juice. It’s a bit on the green side with just a hint ofthe orange from the carrots – so it’s a very dark shade of green – almost (but not quite) brown. Don’t look at it, just drink it! LOL It tastes slightly like carrots, which is good, because I do not like straight green juice. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second juice is Beet – Kale Juice. It is a lovely shade of purple, and very tasty! I like the 2 cloves of garlic in it too. Don’t worry – It won’t give you garlic breath! 😀

 

I grew up on a solid Southern USA diet, where nearly all the meat was batter fried. Funny how I ended up working in a Chinese restaurant as a first job, and I’ve been hooked ever since on hot sour soup, spring rolls, wontons, pork fried rice, and moo goo gai pan (chicken and mushrooms). Forget those sugar-coated fried biscuits…Those are strictly an American thing. lol

One of my visitors this evening writes about Asian food. OMGosh! I think I am in love – with the food peeps, with the food! It is Taiwanese, which is the Asian food I learned to cook so many yeaers ago, and I stuck with my favorites. 🙂 Healthy soups, plenty of vegetables, and spicy — I love spicy dishes, and I am totally digging into the recipes provided here once my fast is over…or maybe sooner. They sure look delicious! 🙂

Asian Vegan Eats

I had leftover napa cabbage and bean sprout (from Shanghai Style Stir-Fried Rice Cake) in the fridge, and I wanted to make a hot soup to go with the Sichuan Cold Noodle. Taiwanese Vegetable Thick Soup was the result. Traditionally thick soup is made with pork or/and squid wrapped in fish paste. This vegetarian/vegan version is easy… just leave out the meat.

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In my search for the vegan lifestyle…30 days and counting, or 55 lbs. of weight loss – Whichever comes first. =D

NutriSue Nutritional Consulting

This recipe was inspired by a post from the Children’s Garden and Eco Programs.
They got the recipe for the filling from The Canadian Home Cookbook –  printed in 1877 and compiled by the Ladies of Toronto and Chief Cities and Towns in Canada.
The original recipe for the filling is:
Makes 2 Pies
Filling
2 cups of boiled squash (butternut squash or pumpkin work well)
¾ cup of brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tbsp of molasses
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp ginger (powdered)
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 cups of milk
A pinch of salt

I modified it to make it vegan and gluten-free and mine makes only 1 pie.
Although this pumpkin pie is vegan and gluten-free, it really is delicious.
Trust me; it got rave reviews from my guests and there’s none left!
Don’t be daunted by the thought of making a pie crust. I don’t…

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10 Day Break…

Ten days on, and now, 10 days off? I am afraid to step on the scales. I figure I’ve probably gained 5 lbs. back. I’ll weigh in the morning, promise, and I’ll at least note the weight if I don’t snap a pic. lol

I had purchased containers of Greek yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, and cream cheese the day before I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and I’ll most likely be tossing them in the garbage if someone else doesn’t eat them soon. I have not been swollen over the past 10 days since eating regular food, so it could very well be the dairy that was causing that. I also need to come back off the coffee and start drinking my tea and lemon water again.

What I have been missing is bread and butter. Lord, do I miss the butter, and more so than the bread. I’ve had at least 1 full tablespoon every day since coming off the fast – on grits, on toast, on baked potato — so not good! I should probably pick up a few avocados for the fat content so I’m not missing it.

Anyhow, tomorrow I will be starting the juicing again. I’ve got collard greens, cucumbers, carrots, apples, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pineapple, garlic, ginger, and bottled lemon juice in the refrigerator.  I will also be busy in my garden. I’ve got seeds for broccoli, small carrots, peas, spinach, beets, kale, leaf lettuce, gourmet blend lettuce, and baby greens. I still need to find Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard and cauliflower seeds, so will do that this weekend. I had a great fall crop last year of all the greens that grew right through to this past spring, and it’s time to get busy planting! 🙂

 

 

 

Day 10: Fruit Juice

I got 5 hours of sleep last night, and I have been dragging all day. I knew if I took a nap, that it would turn into a 4 hour long siesta, so took quite a few breaks from work.  Good thing I’m not on anyone’s time clock, because I did not get productive until after lunch, and even then, it was slow going.

I did manage to make a new recipe this morning through a sleep-fogged brain, and it wasn’t too bad – a bit too thick for my liking though. A little water in the blender with it should help thin it out. I will probably strain it tomorrow – or not, since as we all know, we need the fiber to go…

I did not get a photo today. I will do that when I have better light tomorrow, so I’ll just include the recipe here until the photo is taken. If you’re diabetic, you may want to cut this by half or more with water. It’s sweet.

Pineapple – Tropical Fruit – Cocktail Fruit Juice

In a blender:

Pour 1 can of pineapple, juice and all.
Pulse till smooth.
Pour 1 can of Tropical fruit, juice and all.
Pulse till smooth.
Drain 1 can of fruit cocktail.
Discard the liquid and pour the fruit into the blender.
Pour 1/2 a bottle of unprocessed, unsweet apple juice into blender.
Blend for 5 minutes.
Let sit overnight in the refrigerator for flavors to mingle.
Reblend individual servings to smooth out the pulp.
Juice may be cut by half with cold water to cut sweetness.

 

Day 9: One meal break-in

Day 9: I absolutely refuse to feel guilty.

Some say bad luck comes in threes. What I’ve just done, I’m not even going to sniff about, because it has been one of those days.

(1) Woke up with no water, and the pump wasn’t fixed until after noon today.

(2) The almonds I soaked last night to make more almond milk today – soured in the blender. (Yay me, because I didn’t catch it until after I’d rinsed the almonds and put in fresh water, and tasted it. YUCK! I gagged.

(3) I have nothing – nada – to add to my kale except more frozen foods, which were just pulled from the freezer (at 11:30PM)

(4) The axle on my wheelchair broke. (It was Dad’s wheelchair, and has already been repaired once, and I’m now using one older than that one.)

I got in 8oz. of green tea, 16. oz. of the almond-sweet potato shake I made a couple days ago, and 16oz. of water today. I’m on the last 8oz cup of green tea, so that’s my intake on liquid and juices.

I am hungry — starving, in fact, and getting rather crabby about it. I’ve been a bit crabby all day, actually, because I have just been wanting something to chew! Well, I got a bowl, added 1/4 cup of gluten-free rolled oats, 1/2 cup of water, 1 TBS of flaxseed meal that I ground fresh this morning, and 1 TBS of low-fat peanut butter. It was good. I ate it too fast to even enjoy it, but I’m full. Pre-fasting, I was eating 3/4 – 1 cup of this every single morning, along with 2 TBS of brown sugar, so yeah, slight modification with a lot less of all of it.

I think the important thing for me to remember here, is that portion control is going to have to be something I watch…This from a woman who can eat like she’s some sort of tri-athlete competitor, whom she’s not, and then sop it all up with a plate of cane syrup, sour cream and 2.5 biscuits.  Totally addicted to food in any shape or form unless it’s rutabaga or liver (gag).

Anyhow, for today, since I do not have a juice recipe for you, I am going to point you over to Harvest Essentials for some quick and easy juices. Most have only 3-4 ingredients. The Blender also has a 30 Day of Juicing blog, and the recipes look rather tasty! 🙂

I will be back tomorrow, with hopefully, running water so I can get my juice on! =D See you then, and if you drop in, leave me some love in the comments! 🙂

 

Day 8: I0.6lbs down

Day 8: Today was not a good day. Not in terms of hunger, because I met – or will meet my goal before bedtime, but I was in some incredible pain today. Blame it on my stupidity yesterday for cleaning out one the totes I’m using for gardening. I had let it fill up with grass seeds instead of covering it after I’d pulled out the kale at the start of summer, and I ended up pulling the entire pile of dirt up out of the box — Ouch! Hopefully I got all the grass roots out, but I’m paying for it. Even a double dose of ibuprofen and BioFreeze hasn’t helped. My sails were a bit low today.

On a much more positive note, I’m down 10.6lbs from when I started; I’ve got plenty of energy; and my juicing experiences are becoming more creative. I’ve also concentrated today on getting in all of my liquids today – water included, and I will have that in before bed, so YAY! me!! 🙂 You have no idea how hard this has been, but I think I have found something that is going to work for the next 22 days – Now would be a good time to invest in ReaLemon. 😀

I wanted something garlicky with tomatoes for my last juice of the day, and since I’m out of tomatoes, I used a jar of mild salsa. Salsa was the perfect addition since I’m also out of onions. You might like your juice a bit spicier, so I would go with a medium salsa, and add extra garlic – or if you can eat tomatoes and onions without any problems, definitely go with fresh produce on this, and add half of a small, white onion.

Let me know if you try the juice, and leave some love in the comments when you drop in!

See you tomorrow.

 

Day 7: Peppers and Artichoke Hearts

Day 7: It was a beautiful day! Full of a funny pup who won’t be getting her debut today because I forgot my camera, cleaning out the containers for the fall garden, and coming up with a new recipe which will be going into my “Top 10” list.

I had an aching back this morning from getting cold last night – which reminds me – I need to close windows now! lol Thank goodness for BioFreeze! It was the only way I could even function today. (It’s magic, but don’t tell my chiropractor that!) 😀

I am off to make my last, and final drink for the night, so before I bid you, “Adieu,” here is the recipe for today!

(Check out “My Juicing Recipes” at the top right of the page for more!)

I hope you enjoy, and if you try it out, let me know what you think! 🙂

 

Day 6: Sweet Potato and Greens Day

Day 6 – I can’t believe I’ve lasted this long. As I told you yesterday (or maybe the day before) I was down to frozen greens and fruits, and canned fruit. Thankfully, I found an unopened jar of unprocessed, unsweetened apple juice in the pantry, so YAY! I can add some of that to my juices.

Today wasn’t bad – just agonizingly slow! I started out good, but when you’re juicing, if you do anything strenuous, it will wipe out your energy quick if you’re not drinking fresh juice at least every 2 hours. So, I had a busy, no-time-for-juice morning, and my energy was shot by noon. Well, I did get one in, but nothing again until 1:30pm, so my energy fell pretty fast. Lots of time to do some journaling, planning out the rest of the week, and I did resist the urge to take a nap!

I’ve got a new recipe for you to try here. A little yellow, and a double-dash of green, with curry and turmeric powders. Y-U-M! 🙂 Leave some love in the comments when you drop by — I’ll see you tomorrow!