Last week I decided that I was tired, not eating very well and letting my holiday lull me into doing nothing…I hate the terrible cycle that happens when you do less and less with your day then realise the less you do the less energy you have to do anything at all!
So I thought a detox of sorts might be in order. I’ve never done a detox before and didn’t want to go too drastic or totalitarian, so I came up with these guidelines:
To eat:
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh vegetables
- Fresh herbs
- Nuts, seeds, lentils, chickpeas, brown rice
- Loads of water and herbal tea to drink
Not to eat:
- White rice, bread, pasta
- Oil or margarine
- Sugar
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Soy products
- Processed packaged foods
- Condiments like soy sauce, chilli sauce, spices etc
With those ideas in place in my mind I went out shopping to an awesome Asian supermarket I know and stocked up on delicious fresh food amazingly cheaply, then got stuck in 🙂
Day 1 Dinner
First off I made my famous vegetable soup – it has loads of veges packed in, is thick and hearty and full of goodness, and the flavour and texture are completely driven by the veges themselves (I’ve had friends express wonder that I don’t use stock or any thickening agent in my soup!).
Simple Thick and Tasty Vegetable Soup
1 onion
4-5 cloves garlic
3 potatoes
1 purple kumara (sweet potato)
1/2 butternut pumpkin
5-6 mushrooms
1 carrot
1 parsnip
10-12 florets broccoli
Water for cooking
1 bay leaf
Fresh parsley and chives (Because that’s what I had, any herbs you like!)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dice the onion and chop the garlic and herbs finely. In a big soup pot, saute the onion, herbs and garlic in a little water until soft and clear
Add diced potatoes, kumara, pumpkin, mushrooms and bay leaf and just enough water to cover, and simmer until the root veges start to soften, stirring regularly.
Add sliced carrot and parsnip and more water if necessary and continue to simmer.
When the rest of the soup is nearly cooked, add florets of broccoli and continue to simmer until they are cooked.
By the end of cooking the potatoes, kumara and pumpkin should be very soft and mushy, creating the thick base of the soup – it should be thick and hearty rather than watery.
Add salt and pepper to taste if required and serve!
This soup is really flexible – you can throw in any veges you have and it’s great for using up produce that isn’t quite fresh anymore. It’s quick and easy, requires minimal attention once the veges are cut and cooking, and is great for you while tasting fantastic.
Day 2
For breakfast I had another yummy green smoothie like I pictured in my last post – Frozen banana, wheat germ, feijoas, a leaf of silverbeet from my own garden (not my new silverbeet babies! My adopted older silverbeet plant) and coconut milk mixed with water rather than soy milk. The coconut addition made it taste ultra luxurious!
For lunch I had some leftover vege soup over brown basmati rice with raw cashew cheeze which was absolutely divine and so satisfying, I’ll have to pair vege soup with rice more often.
Vege soup with brown basmati rice and raw cashew cheeze
Tastes as amazing as it looks!
It was so good I repeated it for dinner.
Day 3
Another wonderful green smoothie, then I got to work inventing…
Everything Orange Soup! Which excited me very much and I will share that recipe in a future post when I have a decent picture of it.
Day 3 also happened to be a Friday, and I had big plans for the weekend so after a delcious salad dinner of lettuce, cucumber, carrot, nori and avocado I decided to lay my detox to rest for the week. Sure it wasn’t very long or intense, but I had fun and feel like it was worthwhile. Along with my soups, smoothies and salads, I really enjoyed eating my way through a pile of mandarins, feijoas, tangelos and bananas, and I got back on the water bandwagon (with lemon slices for even more refreshment).
Now that I’ve given it a try, I want to incorporate more fresh and healthy food overall into my diet and try some new things.
The weekend is over, it’s Monday now, time to get to work again 🙂
New Leaves 