FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Vitamix Celery Soup

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Vitamix Celery Soup

From the moment I landed in Tampa for Christmas, it was lunch/pub crawl/brunch/cocktails/dinner/wine/repeat. It was wonderful sharing such merriment with my family and friends, but it took a toll on my entire being.  I knew when I hopped on that plane back to Austin that I needed a detox, stat.  So I stopped by Snap Kitchen before unpacking a thing and picked up enough juice for a three day cleanse.

Boiled Celery

The juices did a great job of filling me up and keeping me energized on the first day, but day two was a different story.  I’m such a savory-loving girl and I just wanted something other than cold, sweet juice for “dinner”.  I recalled a soup that Molly made for me a while back that was totally cleanse appropriate.  And I found that this was the perfect thing to keep a cleansing girl on track.

Celery Soup Blendtec

Celery, almonds, vegetable broth – that’s it.  Blended all up, the rich and creamy soup felt like I was doing something wrong. But knowing that celery is an excellent source of antioxidants and has anti-inflammatory properties, I kept right on drinking.

Soup recipe can be found here.

Kaeng Raeng – Day 1

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Ever since reading about Kaeng Raeng on The Kind Life a while back, I’ve been curious to give it a go.  I’ve suggested this cleanse to friends, but haven’t had six solid days of dedication (for longer than I can remember) to try it out myself.  Knowing that this cleanse was endorsed big time by The Skinny Bitch and hearing positive reviews from my closest friends made clicking “purchase now” much less stressful.  In fact, I was pretty excited about it and even more excited when it arrived.

I woke up this morning ready to blend.  Even though the smoothie packets don’t require a blender, I figured the colder and more blended, the better.  My initial thought?  Not bad at all!  I have put myself through some pretty nasty, nose-plugging, cleanses over the years and Kaeng Raeng was actually light and fruity.  My only complaint at that moment was that 24 ounces is a lot of ounces of smoothie to suck down.

I say at that moment because four hours later, when I would typically be lazy and raging with hunger, I was hanging by the pool sipping on some water like a normal person getting my sun fix before my next smoothie.  So hours later, I appreciated the level of satisfied that quantity of liquid left me feeling.  Oh, and I looked forward to my next smoothie, which is a rare, rare thing on a cleanse.

I’m one day and three smoothies down and feeling pretty good.  Five more to go!

Pretty Little Smoothies

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I’m on my fourth day of detoxing and it’s been much easier than I thought it would be.  I accredit the ease with two things: not working for the past four days and doing a modified detox/cleanse.

The detox supplement that I’m taking doesn’t require a special diet, so I decided to stick to mostly green smoothies during the detox to give my digestive system a maximum break after a few weeks of maximum gorging.  A typical day has been nursing 32-ish ounces of smoothie throughout the morning and early afternoon, snacking on bananas, cooked kale, or nuts when I feel the need to chew, and finishing the day with another smoothie.  Although I’ve rarely felt stuffed, I have yet to feel starving.

Detoxing has also become easier now that the new year is officially here and my friends are just as anxious as I was a few days ago to be nicer to their bodies.  Getting Val to come over for smoothie dinner and Pretty Little Liars was easy peasy.

Side note:  My taste in television is perhaps the least cool thing about me.  It’s been over a year since I cancelled DVR and the only channels I know by heart are ABC Family, CW, and MTV (and only because it’s been channel 66 since my babysitting days).

FoodFash Tropical “Green” Smoothie

yield: about 32 ounces

1/2 cup of aloe vera juice

1/2 pineapple, skin removed

2 inches of  ginger, skin removed

1/2 avocado

1 cup of water

1 cup of ice

Val and I downed our tropical smoothies (followed by berry carrot smoothies) while sitting in teeny-bopper suspense.  It only took one hundred or so self-timer pictures of us watching TV to get one where we actually looked “normal”.

What are your guilty pleasure TV shows?  If one of them is Pretty Little Liars, who do you think A is?!

Detox

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I recognize that most people wait until after the new year to get back into the swing of real life, but I just couldn’t wait.  I’ve been off of work since the 23rd and after seven days of acting like a college kid, I’m done.  I was getting lazier by the second, changing out of one pair of pajamas only to jump into another.  It was a problem, this laziness.

I went to Rollin’ Oats last night and stocked up on everything and anything that looked blend-able.  Yup, in pajamas.  Pajamas that I graciously disguised as yoga gear.

Let’s just be thankful that I made it out of the house.

FoodFash Jump Start Smoothie

yield: 32 ounces

2 kale stalks, de-stemmed

1/4 papaya, seeds removed

1/2 lemon, seeds removed

1-2 inches of ginger, skinned and sliced

2 tablespoons honey

1 cup of pure aloe vera juice

1 cup of water

1 cup of ice

I blended the aloe vera, honey, ginger, and lemon (with peels) first to make sure they were completely pulverized before adding the remaining ingredients.  The lemon was definitely potent, but it completely masked any signs of papaya – which is a good thing because I find papaya to be… SO gross.  This smoothie wasn’t delicious by any means, it was merely OK, but with the following health highlights there’s no complaining going on here!

Kale – Contains over 45 flavonoids.  Studies show that flavonoids that have anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and anti-cancer properties.

Papaya – Contains papain, which is an enzyme that helps digest proteins.  They are also a rich source of vitamin C, flavonoids, folate, pantothenic acid, potassium, magnesium, and fiber.

Lemon – Contains flavonoids that have antioxidant and anti-cancer properties.

Ginger – Has numerous therapeutic properties including antioxidant effects, an ability to inhibit the formation of inflammatory compounds, and direct anti-inflammatory effects.

Raw Honey – Contains phytonutrients that have been shown to posssess cancer-preventing and anti-tumor properties.

Aloe Vera Juice – Aids with digestion.

Source: WHFoods.com