Jumping Ship

Sooooo..... I guess you could tell by my general cranky disposition that this 100% raw cleanse isn't working out for me. I don't know why I thought this time would be different... I'm sure you can recall that I've tried fully raw cleanses before and I never last long on them. I just get tired and cranky and dammit it's cold!! I'm sure it works for some people but truthfully I live in a place that experiences seasons (including very cold winters) and I work a full time job... and it's really expensive. So while I wanted to crap out on day one I told myself to stick it out for a week. And now it's time to jump ship.

But I just can't bring myself to give it up altogether. So instead of just crapping out and gorging myself with gluten and processed crap I've decided to just jump ship to a different cleanse. One that I've done before and I loved. So I'm going back to Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet 21 Day Cleanse. And I'm going to do all 21 days because I do feel guilty about jumping ship.

For those of you who don't know (although I think you all do) this cleanse is a MOSTLY raw cleanse (80% raw) that focuses on alkalizing foods, greens, green juices, green smoothies, more greens, and small amounts of nourishing cooked (read: warm) foods. It just works better for me time wise, price wise, and happiness wise. And it ALWAYS makes me feel better.

In order to prepare I spent some time in the kitchen today preparing a couple of recipe out of Crazy Sexy Kitchen. 

Ever since I bought Crazy Sexy Kitchen I knew I wanted to make Nana's Marinara sauce. Just the name sounds comforting and delicious. It is a very simple recipe too. Now this is coming from a girl that rarely ever eats sauce and until recently when I did eat sauce it was minimal amounts. Over the past few years red sauce has been growing on me but I'm very picky about it. I only like savory sauces. And let me tell you this is the BEST sauce I've ever eaten! It is savory and delicious and I didn't even add salt. I plan on using it to top raw zucchini pasta (yes this is cooked but I'm going to eat as many raw components as possible) and lightly steamed veggies. Have you ever tried taking a big bowl of steamed veggies and topping it with savory, chunky tomato sauce?! It's the BEST!

Now this is obviously not tomato season so I used this brand of canned organic crushed tomatoes. This one has basil in it but I still added fresh basil for that fresh pop of flavor. I highly recommend this brand!

The second dish I made was inspired by Bianca,  who is also doing the CSD cleanse! She made the Warm Kale and Quinoa Salad from Crazy Sexy Kitchen and I thought it looked amazing so I made it too! I halved it though because I only had one cup of dry quinoa left. I used Alter Eco Pearl Quinoa for this recipe and I recommend it as well. This is such a great brand doing wonderful and admirable things all around the world :)

This warm salad has quinoa, kale, raisins, sliced almonds, lemon (mine is going to be very lemony because I forgot to halve that part of the recipe... oops!!), a little olive oil and some salt and pepper. Yum!

My mood has already lifted just at the thought of starting the CSD cleanse. I didn't even take pics of the raw cleanse because I couldn't deal with smoothies or juices because it was too damn cold and fruit is fruit. And I was a crankypants haha. I do definitely plan on popping in every couple of days to show you some meals I've been enjoying on this cleanse. 

I hope you've all had a good week and have stayed warm and safe during this ridiculous cold snap. And now it's like 40-50 here. So insane!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I hope your Monday goes quickly!