CSD Cleanse Update & Another Throwback Recipe

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well! This will probably be a quick post on my end because I'm exhausted but I just wanted to pop in and show you a few meals I've been eating on this cleanse as well as share an old recipe that I've been enjoying this week too. But I figured I'd start with a quick grocery haul :)

Shredded coconut, raw almonds (VaVaBars anyone?!), fresh dolmas (!!!!!!) and some mushroom broth.

2 HUGE, beautiful bunches of swiss chard on sale 2/$5, a huge container of spring mix, bananas, cauliflower, broccoli, ginormous carrots and gourmet blend of mushrooms.

And some meals:

When I have time to juice I start off my day with some green juice. My favorite one is Kris Carr's Morning Glorious juice which has romaine, kale, celery, cucumber, apple, lemon and broccoli stems. I'm not a huge fan of veggie heavy juices as I have more of a sweet tooth but I really like this one.

Lots of big salads with beautiful, fresh veggies. The one above has greens, carrots, tomatoes and cucumber.

I found my adorable bento box and made some great lunches with veggie sticks (I'm telling you those carrots were HUGE), cucumber, dolmas and some hummus.

I made some zucchini pasta with steamed broccoli and Nana's Marinara but forgot to get a pic. I'll try and get one the next time I eat it because it was delicious!

Finally, on days that I don't have time to deal with juicing I go the quicker route and make a smoothie. For some reason I have an easier time drinking veg heavy green juices than smoothies so I make some concessions and make fruit smoothies and use Vega powder to bump up the nutrition and get 2 servings of greens as well as omegas and probiotics.

My favorite smoothie is my Good Morning, Sunshine Smoothie! This one came out extra thick and it was soooooo good! It was like soft serve for breakfast. I am loving my Ninja high speed blender, it is making my life so much easier.

I took this pic to show you the swirls of green from the Vega powder. I just thought it was fun :) 

So like I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to bring all of my old recipes over here and this is a great opportunity to bring this smoothie recipe over! Here it is!

Ingredients:

1 small frozen banana

5 fresh strawberries

1/2 cup frozen pineapple

3/4 cup favorite plant milk or water

1 serving vanilla protein powder*

Directions:

Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

*I always use Vega One protein powder because it has my greens, probiotics and omegas included. No need to add spinach unless I want an extra green boost!

So there's my update! I hope you all have a great night and a great start to your weekend tomorrow. I have one more day of work until freedom and I can't wait. It'll be nice to be able to relax and not worry about getting up and running around.

Throwback Thursday - Cauliflower Madness!

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well. I'm loving being back on the Crazy Sexy Diet cleanse again. I feel good and happy and most importantly.... I feel INSPIRED! Inspired to get back in the kitchen and cook and create recipes and I haven't felt inspired in a long time. It's a great feeling and I'm really happy that I decided to make this switch.

I am planning on updating you on my meals and such tomorrow but for today I decided to post the first installment of my "throwback" series. I have a bunch of recipes posted on my other blog that will go away when the domain name runs out and I don't like that so I decided that I'll bring them over here. I'm going to do it slowly so I don't bombard you all with a bunch of recipes over a few days. So for the next few weeks or months (however long it takes) I'm going to have Throwback Tuesday and Throwback Thursday posts where I bring over a recipe from the old blog. That way they'll still be around when I lose that domain.

I decided to start with two of my most popular recipes... my Cheesy Cauliflower Mash/Patties and Pasta with Cauliflower Cream Sauce.

I decided to take a stab and veganizing this recipe for Cheesy Cauliflower Pancakes.

Don’t they look delicious?! Let me tell you, the flavor packed into these little patties is incredible. I strayed from the original recipe just a bit but it came out amazing. They can be served as a mash as well and would probably be easier that way. Yum!

Cheesy Cauliflower Patties

Ingredients:

2 cups cauliflower, chopped into large florets

1/2 cup cheddar Daiya shreds (I used Mozzarella because it was all I could find and it tasted great too)

1 1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds (you can sub bread crumbs if you like)

salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

1 tsp olive oil

Directions:

1. Cook cauliflower in boiling water until tender. This should take 10-15 minutes.

2. Drain the cauliflower then mash while still warm. Stir in the rest of your ingredients. Taste and adjust seasonings.

3. Spray a large pan with cooking spray and heat over medium high heat. Form the mixture into patties and add to pan. Cook until brown then flip and cook other side. Enjoy!

*Note – My patties did fall apart a little bit since there isn’t too much of a binder in there. They are very delicate so handle with care. I recommend making small patties that will flip easily with a spatula. If they fall apart they will be just as delicious! Or, you can just skip the whole patty process and just serve the mash as is. I’d recommend heating the mixture over a medium heat just to make sure the cheese has melted. Yum!

This recipe came to be because I still had some cauliflower mash left and decided to get crazy with it and turn it into a “cream” sauce for pasta! I used to love fettucini alfredo and thought this would be a fun, healthy version of it!

Check out this gorgeous bowl of creamy pasta! I used gluten free angel hair pasta but you can use whatever you like. I’m just an angel hair girl 

Pasta With Cauliflower “Cream” Sauce

Ingredients:

1 serving pasta of choice (with some cooking water reserved)

1/2 cup cheesy cauliflower mash (see above)

1/2 cup steamed spinach (and other veggies of choice)

salt, pepper, garlic to taste

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package. Drain and reserve some of the cooking liquid.

2. Heat cheesy cauliflower mash in a small saucepan. Thin sauce with pasta cooking liquid to desired consistency. I like mine thick and creamy. Add nutritional yeast and mix well.

3. Add veggies to sauce and add pasta last. Season with salt, pepper and garlic to taste.

This pasta is rich and creamy and decadent with absolutely none of the guilt! Definitely give this a try, I think you’ll like it!

So here is the first installment of my Throwback series! I hope you guys don't mind seeing these repeat recipes but I just wanted to get them here before they are gone... maybe it's my OCD haha. I'll be back tomorrow to show you some meals I've been eating on my cleanse. 

I hope you've all been having a great week! I'll see you tomorrow!!

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!

21 Day Challenge Grocery Haul

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well. The 21 day challenge started yesterday and so far so good. I had a chance to go grocery shopping today and I figured I'd show you the haul. This haul is courtesy of Trader Joe's. I had some gift cards and this is an expensive lifestyle so it definitely helped out to have this first haul almost completely taken care of :) I am aware that this is probably not even a week's worth of groceries but I have to take space into account and it should get me through a few days. I also don't like overbuying and throwing things out. That drives me nuts :)

Here's the haul:

First up are staple fruits: 2 bags of oranges, lots of apples and pears.

One bunch of bananas (I buy them one bunch at a time), two containers of grapes (one to be frozen for smoothies, yum!), one container of dates (I don't eat a lot of these because they are so super sweet on top of sweet fruit), some frozen blueberries and as a treat some pomegranate seeds. I have a few more bags of fruit in my freezer as well.

Four bags of greens: Baby romaine, arugula, baby spring mix and kale (for smoothies).

More veggies: Zucchini, 2 containers of grape tomatoes, 3 giant cucumbers, celery and basil.

The crazy thing is that this is a TON of produce and it probably won't get me through a week. I guess I'll have to see how far this gets me. I'll be back later this week to show you some food I've been eating. The plan is a giant smoothie for breakfast (with added greens since my salads won't be as giant as recommended), a fruit meal for lunch, some more fruit before dinner (probably bananas) and a big big salad for dinner. I think having that kind of structure will help me take a lot of the guesswork out of what I should eat and it will make planning a lot easier.

Hope you all have a great Monday and to all of my friends dealing with the horrific cold weather please stay warm and safe!!

Digging Out

Hey everyone! Hope that all of my friends in Hercules' path remained safe and warm. I woke up this morning to hear the whipping winds and see the swirling snow still coming down. It has calmed down and is now sunny... which is what I've come to expect after big storms. I think it's Mother Nature's way of giving us the finger or smirking at us. I'm still at my brother's house and we easily got a foot of snow with the drifts and everything.

When I woke up it was still coming down like crazy and very grey.

The weird thing was that it barely stuck to the cars at all! They were all pretty much clean. One less thing for me to clean up.

It was very overwhelming to me to have to dig everything out myself but luckily my brother has nice neighbors that came to my rescue (after I put in a good hour by myself so I got my workout in for the day, ha). It is currently about 1:30 pm and the plow still has not come so the street is still a mess. My 1998 clunker won't make it down the block in that so I'm taking a snow day and I'll probably have to dig out again after the plow comes. Luckily I moved my car into the driveway behind my sister in law's so I'll only have a little to dig out in front of the driveway.

I have to say that even though I hate snow in general that it looks really beautiful today. It is really powdery because of the bitter cold temperatures and it glistens like glitter in the sun. So pretty!

It wouldn't be a post from my brother's house without pics of the fur children. I only have Tyler and Eddie today but they are adorable...

Tyler was so cute!! He built himself a little fort in all of the pillows and blankets. It was drafty in the bedroom so he kept himself warm in his adorable little fort.

Here he is all snuggled up in his fort. I've been loving all of the snuggle time! He's such a cuddlebug.

Eddie has been extra affectionate this visit. Of course my allergy to him is driving me nuts but I just can't kick that face off the bed. He's so cute and worth the sneezing and itchy eyes and coughs ;) He sleeps on the pillow next to me at night and has taken to laying on me while we watch TV. Tyler is always right by my side too.

So that's been it for the last couple of days. My 21 day 80-10-10 Challenge starts on January 5 and I'm excited/nervous. I'm planning on going grocery shopping Sunday or Monday (I have enough produce to get me through Sunday if necessary) and will show you my haul. This first week will probably be a Trader Joe's haul since I have gift cards. Yay! It'll be a huge help.

That's all from my neck of the woods. How did all of you do with the storm? I know the accumulations weren't extraordinary in most places but the wind and cold temps made it brutal. Hope you are all well and warm! XO and Happy New Year!

Revelations and Resolutions

Hey everyone. The holidays have come and gone so I guess it is time to check back in. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday in whatever way you celebrate. We went out to dinner in the city for Christmas Eve and had a relaxing day at my brother's house for Christmas day. My brother took video of Delilah coming down and seeing all of her gifts under the tree and it was so adorable. She's so big now, I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. She was thoroughly spoiled by Santa and she was a happy camper. Now we can finally go back to normal, though with the new year creeping up on us I'm sure a lot of people have been making their resolutions and figuring out what they can do to improve their lives in the coming year. I'll get to all of that in a second, I just want to show you guys two catch up pics before I start get into all of that.

This is the only baking I did for the holidays. These are birthday cake truffles... basically funfetti cake pops (chocolate frosting) minus the pop. They have a thick chocolate coating that has a very satisfying *snap* when you bite into it. They are very rich but oh so good. I made one batch for my friend as a birthday/holiday combo gift. Otherwise I did no baking at all other than a batch of brownies for my office.

How awesome is this guy?! I was driving with my mom (well she was driving I was taking the pic) and we saw this guy driving around in his sweet ride waving to everyone! It wasn't snowing even though it looks like it was... dirty windshield plus instagram filter equals snowy looking pic. I thought this guy was too cool not to share.

That's all I have. The pics I have of Delilah aren't great (blurry) so sadly I have none of those to show you.

So... I'm NOT a resolution kind of girl. In fact, the only reason I titled the post Revelations and Resolutions is because it sounds good. I feel like resolutions are doomed for failure and I'm at a point right now where failure is not an option. I'm talking about my physical and emotional health and I have basically been working on a plan to improve both in the coming months.

As background, let me fill you in a little on my last few months. As you know, I've found out from my Allergist that I've developed quite a few environmental allergies that are pretty severe. We are well past the second frost (it's snowed several times for heaven's sake!) so my allergy symptoms should be gone but they are just as bad if not worse. In addition, I've been experiencing some symptoms that have led me to believe that I'm starting to develop chemical sensitivities which is pretty alarming. For example, I've been dying my hair since I was 16 years old. I have sensitive skin so once in a while I would have minor skin irritation during the process but otherwise nothing too bad. I've been going to the same salon for years and the last couple of times I've used a supposedly natural hair dye (I really don't think it is completely natural) and I've had a HORRIBLE reaction to it. Within hours of the treatment my scalp is unbearably itchy and continues to be itchy for WEEKS. I have bumps on my scalp and hairline and all I wanted to do for at least 2 weeks after the treatment was sit in the shower to soothe it. Similarly, I get random skin irritation that seems odd to me but perhaps it is from soap or detergent? Also, I won't get into the details because it's gross and upsetting, but cryptically I'll say I've had to sit in a room all day for two days that was sprayed with chemicals and I was SICK... massive headache and nausea and whatnot. Every time I clean with commercial cleaning products I get a headache within minutes. And my nausea is always at its worst when I eat processed, yucky foods.

Moral of the story is I'm exhausted, I'm uncomfortable in my own skin and I feel sick all the time. I'm an emotional wreck from all of this and I feel pretty lost and yucky. And I've decided to do something about it. I'm a pretty open book but my reasoning for sharing this plan is more for accountability. I need a place to check in and share what I've found and what I've accomplished.. what works and what doesn't. So I'm here today in what is already proving to be an epic post to share my plan with you and to put it out into the universe.

80/10/10 21 Day Challenge

I've tried the 80/10/10 diet once before and didn't even get through a whole day because I was overwhelmed and unprepared. As a refresher, the 80/10/10 diet is basically a low fat, raw vegan diet where you eat tons of fruit throughout the day and feast on a huge green salad or veggie meal for dinner. Obviously all is organic (read: chemical free for me) and it is supposed to be great for the digestive system and flushing out your body. I won't sit here and tell you that it is something that I think is a feasible diet for me for the long term, but I think a 21 day challenge will be perfect. I can detox, reset my digestion and fill my body with chemical free food as a complete system reset. 

I've mentioned before that I get most of my information from Megan Elizabeth and Fully Raw Kristina and I decided to do this challenge based on a video posted by Kristina. I'll be following along with her from January 5-25. I'm walking into this with a better understanding of what it will take and also knowing that I need to cut myself some slack. If I feel like all of that fruit is getting too sweet for me I'll switch out my afternoon fruit meal for another salad or veggie meal when necessary. After the challenge I'll probably transition back to a more Crazy Sexy Diet/Kris Carr way of eating (all organic of course). I'll be checking in with my progress for accountability and moral support ;)

Live Chemical Free/Form Holistic Habits

It became very clear to me that even if my inclination is incorrect, the dependence on chemical laden products is really unhealthy and can't be contributing anything useful to my life. Therefore, I've decided to completely get rid of products that contain chemicals and start to explore more all natural options as well as practices. I've been watching a lot of videos on the Holistic Habits YouTube channel and have found a lot of really easy ways to make simple changes. My biggest takeaways from her so far are the DIY deodorant (a reliable source told me it works really well!) and her hair tips. My hair has been a sad casualty of this health situation and my once thick head of hair has become noticeably (to me) thinner and it has been bothering me for a while. After watching her videos I've decided to use no heat on my hair for a while as well as employ some of her other strategies (check out the first video she ever posted for the rest). 

Getting rid of the chemicals may not help solve all of my problems but I can't imagine that it could in any way make anything worse. If anyone has any tips for all natural brands of soaps, detergents, shampoos/conditioners, etc. I'd be very grateful!

De-clutter My Life and Mind

I'm not a hoarder or anything but I definitely hold on to things that I don't need. I have so much crap in my room and it drives me crazy but I just never get rid of it. Well, this year my "spring cleaning" is about to get a lot more intense because I'm going to get rid of EVERYTHING that I don't need. The stuff, the clutter... it all causes chaos in my head and it is driving me nuts. The Virgo in me craves organization but I was never able to really commit to getting rid of all of the extra nonsense... until now. Living a minimalist life has always been appealing to me and I think that this overhaul is exactly what I need right now to get back on track. I know I'm making it seem way worse than it is... I'm not reaching hoarder status by any means... but I don't need to take up 3 shelves of my bookcase with grad school books that I will never read again. 

So there you have it, my major goals for the rest of the Winter and the Spring. I think it is unrealistic to plan any further than that until I see where I stand  with these three goals. I think they are definitely attainable and like I mentioned before I'll be coming here for accountability and to share what I've learned that I think you may like (products, etc.). You guys have always been amazingly supportive of me and I appreciate that so much! Sorry if this became a woe is me post as it was not the intention... I just wanted you guys to be prepared for what's coming your way over the next few months ;)

Do you guys have resolutions (or goals) for the upcoming months? Any plans for New Year's Eve? I'm just going to be hanging out since I'm not really a NYE party kind of gal so I'll be laying low.

If you've made it through this epic post thank you so much! Hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Pretty in Red

Hey everyone. Been a while, eh? I'm not going to offer any excuses... the long and short of it is that I basically didn't feel like blogging. Thanksgiving/Hanukkah were nice and quiet and now we are heading into the holiday season. I could definitely do without the cold but this is the beauty of living in NY I suppose... we get all 4 seasons.

Anyway, Delilah came into the studio last week and I took her annual holiday portraits and I couldn't in good conscience hold them back from you :) I can't believe how much she has grown up! We got some really cute shots so I figured I'd pop in and share them with you.

Being nice...

And being naughty ;)

Can you deal with how adorable she is? And I'm not just saying it because she's my niece :) I love her dress, she looks so freaking cute.

Anyway, there you have Delilah's 2013 Holiday Portraits. It's so fun to see her grow from year to year. 

I will do my best to come back and show you some holiday treats at some point when I stop being too lazy to make them. I think I'm going with a candy theme this year and will be making homemade chocolates and candy to give away. I guess we'll see how that works out.

Hope you have all been well!