Cleansing For The New Year...

Woodstock Peace Salad with Tahini Dressing 

Happy New Year - and here’s to making 2014 count! I recall being very excited, and hopeful that 2013 would be a red-letter year, it turned out to be kind of a rough one, with several ups and downs. I never make resolutions - I’ve talked about this before, but I basically believe resolutions are nonsense. - however I do enjoy goal setting. The first day of the new year is always like a clean slate, you don’t know anything yet, and anything can happen. There are a lot of things I’m looking forward to this year, I’ve got vacation plans already in the works - amongst other things, school is almost at it’s end, and I have numerous ideas for the future. Right now the world feels like my oyster, and I want to take full advantage of it, and make 2014 the amazing year that 2013 was suppose to be.

I plan to start this year off right, and my biggest goal for this year is getting back into a routine. An exercise routine, a meditation routine and a healthful eating routine that focuses on whole fruits and veggies. I normally don’t do January cleanses, I think it’s silly - everyone does it, but this year a cleanse is something I really need.  May was really the beginning of my ‘falling off point’ I fell out of my usual routines, stopped hooping, stopped yoga, started eating more processed foods. Over summer I got back on the wagon for the most part, but school took up a significant portion of my time which left little time for me to exercise. Come September and vacation - an amazing, yet gluttonous touring feast through Eastern Canada, I fell back off. For months I’ve been trying to get back on track, and I do great with it for days and then fall prey to the sugar monsters, and the chocolate demons once more. The sadness I’ve felt over my Oma’s passing in October, coupled with the stresses of school and work, the bad weather and a few other things have just left me feeling blah. Staying on track has been a struggle these past few months and so I feel a cleanse is in order. I need to kick myself in the ass, and kick-start my health you know?

So come Monday I’m going to embark on at least a 21 day cleanse. Using Kris Carr’s amazing “Crazy Sexy Diet” as kind of a jumping off point. I may extend the cleanse, for several weeks depending on how I feel, and I haven’t decided yet how exactly I’m going to structure the whole thing but I’m feeling good about it. Getting back to whole fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. Getting back to juicing, junking processed foods, sugar, chocolate, easing up on oil, and salt. I’m excited. This is the way I prefer to eat, but sometimes we get side-tracked.

Chiptole Black Eyed Peas and Steamed Kale 

Anyway, I plan to document my experience on the cleanse for you guys to follow, with pictures of what I’m eating, and descriptions of what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. The next few days leading up to Monday is going to be sort of a ‘cleanse primer’ a slow giving up of the bad stuff so that Monday isn’t a total shock to the system.

I started today with a glass of water with lemon, and cayenne. Then downed a bottle of fresh grapefruit, orange and lime juice. For lunch I had an enormous salad - the inspiration for which came from Kris Carr’s Woodstock Peace Salad with Tahini Dressing. I loaded my bowl with a mixture of baby spinach, red cabbage, chopped broccoli, sunflower seeds, avocado, radishes, and green onions. It was so delicious and tasted great with the tahini dressing.

For dinner we had a simple meal of Chipotle Black Eyed Peas from Jae Steele’s book “Get it Ripe” made with carrots rather then zucchini, and served alongside a bed of steamed kale. This was the perfect dinner, and I felt great eating it. Eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is tradition in some parts, and it’s believed that doing so will bring good luck and prosperity in the year to come. Lets hope so! Stay tuned for more cleanse details, tips, ideas, and recipes.

Jae's Southern Bowl - Chipotle Black-Eyed Peas with Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Collard Greens...

Today I wanted to share with you a meal that I’ve been enjoying quite a lot lately. Actually I first made this dish back in April but it quickly became a favorite and a staple. It’s both super simple, and yet loaded with amazing flavor. This dish really inspired me to rethink food and how to prepare a meal. As much as I love fancy food and spending a lot of time in the kitchen, sometimes all you want and all you need is good, clean, and hearty nutrition to fuel you through your day. At least that’s all I’ve been wanting lately, and trust me when I tell you that as simple as this dish looks, it’s super satisfying and filling. It’s the kind of meal you can feel good about eating because you know everything in it is good for you.

Before I get into the recipe let me start by saying “Get It Ripe” by Jae Steele is a cook book I’ve owned for years and yet hardly ever use. I bought it in my favorite used book store back when I first went vegetarian and honestly it was just a little too over my head at the time. The recipes themselves are not particularly complicated I just didn’t know what the hell spelt flour was, or millet, or why I should use brown rice syrup! These days of course I’m an old pro, I’m not intimidated by strange sounding ingredients, these days most of them are regular features in my pantry. Still this is an often overlooked book in my collection for the simple fact that my cook book collection is so large. I have definite ‘go-to’ cook books that I use quite frequently, but every now and then I get tired of them and so I go through the shelves to look for that one book I never use that suddenly inspires me. Back in April that was “Get it Ripe” and the first thing I made out of it after dusting it off was this amazing Southern Bowl which contains - Chipotle Black-Eyed Peas, with Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Collard Greens. Even though I wasn’t much of a bean lover when I first bought this book, this was always the number one recipe that stood out to me. I’ve always wanted to make it, and so I finally did. Honestly I don’t know what took me so long because this dish is fan-freaking-tastic. It is so mouth-watering good, the beans alone will blow your mind and you can eat them straight out of the pot they’re that amazing. There are definitely a couple of steps to this dish but say you make a big pot of the beans on a Sunday, the rest is pretty easy to throw together for a quick weekday lunch or dinner.

The black-eyes peas are simmered with olive oil, garlic, onion, celery, zucchini, chipotle, allspice, bay leaves, sea salt, and vegetable broth or water. The first time I made this I used vegetable broth, and the other times I made this using water, and honestly the beans are so flavorful that you can use water and they’re not bland at all. They’re so rich, and even a bit creamy, and they have a perfect level of spice from the chipotles. I mean really, chipotles and beans they were meant to be together.

Then you layer those delicious mouth-watering beans on some soft, and creamy mashed sweet potatoes and you’re in food heaven. Jae makes her sweet potatoes with coconut oil, sea salt, non-dairy milk, maple syrup and black pepper. The coconut oil is amazing in them and lends a really light coconuty flavor that’s the perfect accompaniment to the slightly spicy beans. Now, I’ve had a lot of mashed sweet potatoes in my time, hell I’ve had a lot of coconut mashed sweet potatoes in my time but seriously these are some of the best I’ve ever had anywhere.

Lastly you add in one whole bunch of simply and lightly steamed collard greens. I know that doesn’t sound like anything special but when you mix ‘em in with the sweet potatoes and some saucy spicy beans well you have a flavor explosion. The slightly bitter greens are well complimented with the sweet and spicy flavors of the rest of the dish, and once you eat all three components together you can’t really imagine eating any one part separate. You truly need to have the three together to create magic.

This dish, is really one of the most perfect examples I’ve ever found of just how amazing simple vegan fare can be.