I ended up taking several days away from the cleanse for various reasons, mostly due to social events and meetings with friends that came up. Connecting with the people I care about is important to me, so I take advantage of it when I can. Good news is that I didn’t over do it with sweets and I ate smaller portion sizes, not because of a conscious decision, but because my body is better regulated these days after eating mostly real food; I don’t feel the need to overindulge. The times spend with friends were so fun and I’m really glad I had those opportunities.
Day 5 (Thursday) started with 2 pastured eggs topped with a spicy fermented relish. I love this relish, and adore pastured eggs, so it was a great combination for me. And I get my fermented foods right off at the start of the day. I also had some pear ginger tea.
Lunch was leftover pumpkin chicken curry, based on the pumpkin shrimp curry for that week. I don’t care for shrimp and I had this lovely pastured chicken breast, so I made the curry earlier in the week, simply swapping one protein for the other. It worked out great! I also used coconut oil, which added a nice flavor. And it was delicious over the carrot brown rice pilaf. I soaked the brown rice in water and whey to deactivate the phytic acid.
Dinner was a spur of the moment trip to Adrienne’s, my favorite pizza spot in Manhattan. I was pleased to have comfortably restrained myself to two slices – they make something called an Old Fashioned, which is essentially a grandma pizza. It’s fantastic; we get it with pepperoni. We treated ourselves to a serving of their delicious meatballs and a glass of wine, with a couple of sweet treats at the end (I wasn’t able to finish my tiramisu, and I am a sucker for tiramisu).
Day 6 (Friday) started with raw yogurt with raspberries, pomegranate seeds, chia seeds, and maple syrup. I had a cup of ginger pear white tea with it. Raw yogurt is one of my favorite ways to start the day.
Lunch was a large bowl of the 5 Spice Beet Soup. I had frozen it when I made it earlier in the week, and it held up well. I put a fried egg at the bottom of the bowl, which was really nice. I also added some raw yogurt and a sprinkling of crispy pepitas (not shown) on top. A delicious lunch!
Dinner was again out. My fellow writers over at We Heart Astoria got together for a drink and chat about the blog, and we enjoyed an excellent dinner. Really great pizzas and pasta. Here is a picture of the Regina Margherita pizza, topped with buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce from San Marzano tomatoes, and crust made with 00 flour and cooked in a wood burning oven. It was light and delicious.
I wrote a little bit about the evening elsewhere, and here’s an excerpt:
The thing that sticks out in my mind is the quality of the pizza – really tasty, a light, thin crust (they use 00 flour), and it reminded me of the pizzas at Roberta’s in Brooklyn. They cook it in a wood-burning oven, which apparently is not easy for a restauranteur to come by in NYC.
I especially enjoyed the pizza that was sans cheese and covered in vegetables. The Margherita pizza was also good. I noticed they have burrata on the menu, too – next time.
Really great pastas, too – a winner for me was a cheese ravioli with mushroom in a light cream sauce. Nothing was heavy, either. Oh, and the salad was very nice, too. Had a lovely couple glasses of wine and tastes of dessert – I especially liked the panna cotta.
This place will do very well in the neighborhood, I think.
Day 7 (Saturday) started with the spelt pancakes, though I didn’t have any spelt, so I used sprouted wheat flour. I did add white rice flour and some AP flour (1/4 cup each). It was a nice recipe, but I think I prefer my standard pancake recipe, which has fewer ingredients but is just as tasty. We had coffee and our friend M came over for coffee and chat. It was a very nice morning.
Lunch I believe consisted of nothing, since I was just feeling full enough and didn’t need to eat. I suspect it was a combination of the coffee and the late breakfast that kept me sated. Dinner pan roasted veggie curry with orange scented bulgur; I had a few slices of sopressata to go with it. It was great, though next time I will follow the directions and used ground cloves (whole ones did not work very well).
About that sopressata – it’s from a neighborhood Italian deli, Rosario’s. There was a sad rumor last week floating around that they were closing! I rushed over there after I heard it to see if it was true… thankfully, it wasn’t. Rosario himself confirmed they were going to remain open. Many of us were duped, but so relieved that it wasn’t true. I ended up buying a couple balls of mozzarella (they make it in store) and a 1/2 pound of sopressata as part of my feeling relieved. These two things are favorites in our home.
Day 8 (Sunday) started with a simple organic cheese omelet, and some leftover pancakes from the day before. That recipe made so many, we could not eat them all on Saturday! It was a nice easy breakfast, apart from the press pot that decided to freak out on us. I had to dispose of a whole thing of coffee to fix it!
Lunch was leftover veg curry, plus some garlic lemon spinach. This was supposed to be braised leeks and spinach the but leeks didn’t make it in there. Oh well, I think I will use them with the dried chanterelles I bought; I’ll come up with something. The spinach on its own, though, was spectacular! I cooked it in pastured bacon fat, which gave it a hint of smokiness, and used the amazing paprika salt to season it. I ate half of it and will eat the other half tomorrow.
Dinner will be Thai food – super T is treating!
So, that’s where I am with our cleanse so far. Can’t wait to check out Week 2’s menus!
