With a little help from my friends

I’m into day ten of the cleanse and I’m feeling really good. Monday and Tuesday afternoons of last week I felt the lag at 3ish. All I felt like was cupcakes with a decadent serving of creamy sugary icing. But so far… I have resisted. I think what has been helping is my latest craze – banana and berry smoothies. Without dairy and sugar I have been making my beautiful shakes with two bananas, frozen blueberries, a teaspoon of honey and the special ingredient, coconut cream. So so delicious.

Since then with my tastes to sugars getting sharper I have cut out the need for sweetners of any sort, and has discarded the honey. Last night the recipe included: two bananas, a mix of frozen blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, half a can of coconut milk, soda water and a splash of soy milk. It was thicker and very tasty indeed.

Other things in my week of food that have been making the cleanse alot more palatable.

Chicken rice paper wraps

Three units of alcohol a week, give or take. 🙂

Gluten free cornflakes with blueberries, necterines and soy milk.

So the cleanse continues… And the cravings are getting less and less. I definitely don’t feel the same need for sweet things. It actually is empowering to resist them. It feels good to deny. There has been talk of this cleanse continuing til May. Can I do it? We’ll see!

My friend B cooked dinner for S and I last night – grilled marinated chicken with asparagus and the most amazing carrots ever!

Liver Cleanse – Day I

Well it is coming to the close of day one of the cleanse. It didn’t start off according to plan. I didn’t get to go shopping before this morning so there was no water with lemon juice or vegetable juice with breakfast. But so far today the menu has included the following:

Breakfast was avocado and tomato on toast with a black coffee.

Lunch was Vietnamese rice paper wraps with chicken. This was eaten below the Storey Bridge, in the park amongst friends. People were eating grilled chicken and salad, sausages, Nando’s and crisps around us. Easily resisted an offer of a rum ball and instead satisfied my sweet tooth with grapes.

Then tonight after a big shop I had steamed sweet corn with a grated carrot salad with raisins. I just ate a slightly green banana. I’m sure they’ll be better in a day or two.

So far, so good. Going shopping this afternoon and filling my basket with mainly fruit and vegies was very fulfilling. I feel better already!

Let’s see how I feel tomorrow morning when I have to go to work and still not eat sugar!!

Marion’s Kitchen: The Test

Three sleeps out from the start of the Cleanse and I decided to use one of the kits from an ex-Masterchef contestant Marion Grasby. Getting food off my shelf that I won’t be able to eat come Sunday is always a good thing. Details of Marion’s range cane be found here. While I think it’s a bit of a cop-out that a chef would want to release a range of kit meals, I do also get that encouraging people to cook for themselves instead of buying take-out by making the process simple will always be a good thing. For myself – I don’t know, I guess the bright colours got me in.

I bought two kits. Monday night I cooked my friends the Thai Basil and Chilli with chicken and vegies and it was super easy and very tasty. So I decided to document the process of kit number two.

See cheery red package?

The box includes these individually wrapped parcels.

Fry the paste.

Notice the enthusiastic exclamation marks? I like the helpful steps on each parcel.

Stir together.

Add the herbs, the chillis and the fish sauce.

It’s really beginning to smell great. After this goes in, it’s a steady succession of adding the other key ingredients.

Marion suggests pumpkin and green beans, but I went for total ease and popped some frozen vegies in. Worked a treat.

For the choice of meat, I went with chicken breast.

Once all the ingredients are combined let it simmer for about eight minutes.

And then the final result, served with rice:

So the final account? Very impressed Marion. It was very tasty, I liked the number of elements in the final dish. I liked how simple it was. How quick it all came together. I was able to watch an episode of QI on I-View and even eat a little in front of the program. I got home at 7am and was well and truly eating by half past. I totally would endorse this kit meal especially for middle of the week dinners when you have little time on your hands.