Second, this detox includes a whole lot of fruit, and for me, I think it’s too much. I spent most of yesterday feeling dizzy. Every time I stood up my head started spinning. Not really a long term solution to anything!

Fruity breakfast. That's four nectarines. Unsustainable, but yummy.

I guess you could say I’ve cheated a bit because not everything I’ve eaten has been raw. I’ve steamed pumpkin and baked a sweet potato yesterday. Do I feel guilty? Nope. I don’t think I’ve ruined my detox, and while I have followed every step of the Raw Divas Detox, I still feel as though I’ve done my body some good.

Dinner for two on Saturday

I’ve eaten nothing processed in the last four days. No alcohol, no fat, and I’ve drank my bodyweight in water. And now I feel good, but I think listening to my body has been important. I feel like my appetite has been reset. I’ve also tried some great new smoothies, although I still prefer a green smoothie for breakfast over lunch.

I haven’t given up on the detox, but I’m doing it my way from now on.

Butternut pumpkin soup with sprouts and snowpeas. Had to eat it in front of the fan, but it was still more inspiring than yet another green smoothie.

But, never mind. After the end-of-the-year blowout I thought a detox would be a good idea. Promising to stop/start/do more/do less/be better on New Year’s Day seems like a waste of time to me. You’re setting yourself up for failure. The pressure! So, I decided to start my detox last night.

The detox I’m semi-following is the Raw Divas Detox. I say semi-following because I was looking over it earlier and there’s a whole load of affirmations and counting my daily squats and other crap it seems to be suggesting. No thank you. I’m doing it for the food.

It’s a seven day raw food detox, which I think is a good amount of time. I can’t imagine you can detox much in 24-hours, but I’m not about to sign up for a three month expedition. So, after a last supper of, frankly, underwhelming, Indian last night, I started my first day – a 24-hour water fast.

Weirdly, I hardly felt hungry at all today. Maybe it was because I was so busy. Maybe because I drank my bodyweight in water, or maybe because I just wasn’t hungry. Having said that, I did feel it. I felt like I was in a haze all day. As the afternoon wore on my concentration was getting sketchy and I felt exhausted.

The good news is that I knew once I got home I could eat. The fast goes from dinner to dinner, so there’s not a day when you don’t eat. I had a huuuuuuuge box of pineapple, and afterwards, I was satisfied. So far, so good.

I’m going to mix things up a bit tomorrow. Not sure I can manage a spin class on an empty stomach, so I’m going to be having my usual banana. Then I’ll have my mono-fruit breakfast. It’s going to be odd having a green smoothie for lunch!

I attempted to adapt this recipe a few weeks ago, (I made chocolate Cointreau brownies) but despite the words of approval from those who ate them, there was something that just wasn’t quite right about them. So, I decided to try following a recipe from beginning to end, to see whether I could create, as the name suggested, “the ultimate vegan brownies”.

Before being baked into oblivion. The batter was pretty good at this stage.

They weren’t amazing. They seemed quite dry, although this could be because I cooked them for too long. Using an electric oven seems to mean having to learn to cook again. I think I’ve just about figured out how long I can roast veggies in there, but nothing I’ve baked seems to have emerged unscathed/unburnt.

I did add half a cup of walnuts at the end, and ignored the instruction to let them cool first. They did crack. I think I’m going to persevere with the blondie adaptation. There will be chocolate Cointreau brownies this Christmas!

Things have been crazy with moving and uni and work. As far as I recall I’ve stayed true to salad September. I actually scored some beautiful organic spinach from Newtown market today.

Just leaving the Sydney roller derby Rocky Horror show. As usual, the girls did us proud. Captain Ratz was the star of the show. Good friends, decent wine and derby = great way to spend an evening.

I’m pretty excited. I love a good salad and it’s been so cold I haven’t eaten as many as I probably should have been recently. I’m looking forward to trying out some new recipes and hopefully being a bit healthier at the same time!

I kicked things off with a Mexican type creation leftover from last night’s dinner (thanks Tara!) Yummy.

The first of many!

Notice the improved picture quality? Maybe not, but it is better because I finally have my new iPhone. It’s been about a week now and I’m slowly getting used to it. I’m hoping it will help me organise myself a bit better so I’ll be able to post more than once a fortnight. Maybe I should make this Salad and Blog September.

But of course, not everyone will be eating salads and getting healthy. Behold! The future of American food. There are no words…

I have a jar of thai green curry paste in the fridge at all times. It lasts up to three months after opening and is great for nights when you need to pull something together quickly, but you’re looking for something a bit more inspiring than beans on toast.

Chop some veg and tofu, stir-fry it for about 10 minutes, add some curry paste and coconut milk, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve with brown rice and fresh coriander (if you have it – I usually don’t) and a sprinkling of cashews. Easy.

Raw materials

His 'n' hers

Dinner for two

It also makes a great lunch:

Thai in a box. I admit, it looked more appetising last night.

While we’re on the subject of food, meet my new favourite breakfast:

I was half-way through before I remembered to take a picture.

Spicy oat porridge with apple compote from Iku Wholefood. Iku is vegan fast food for me – it’s one of the few places I know of in Sydney that’s entirely vegan. $7.50 for breakfast strikes me as a bit pricey for what is essentially porridge oats and apple sauce, but this tastes far better than anything I could microwave at work and it keeps me going all morning. My only criticism is that it’s never hot enough, but I guess you can’t have everything, right?

Despite the fact it’s been about two weeks since I last posted, nothing of consequence has really happened (unless you count losing my purse, aka losing EVERYTHING).

There has been soup:

Spicy pepper, pumpkin, and broccoli, most with brussel sprouts

Sweet potatoes in baked form:

Best. Dinner. Ever.

Sweet potatoes in chocolate pudding form:

Ginger nuts and a splash of Cointreau for the base, blend sweet potato, avocado, cacao powder and agave/maple syrup for pudding, top with crumbled ginger nuts and dark chocolate

Perplexing games of Jenga:

This look preceded the end of this game.

A beautiful anniversary dinner at The Rum Diaries in Bondi:

Forgot to take pics of the food, so here's one of Dan and I instead.

iPhone 4 madness:

I ordered online to avoid having to queue. I still don't have my iPhone...

Blondies and peppermint tea:

Teamed with Sunday afternoon snuggles.

Until I figure out this internet situation out I imagine posting will be sporadic and largely pictorial. Not ideal but the best I can do for now!

Definitely a more attractive colour than the broccoli

Spicy red pepper soup

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
3 red capsicums, roasted, peeled and chopped
1/2 medium sized sweet potato, peeled and diced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery
can of chopped tomatoes
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper to taste
big pinch of chilli flakes
nutritional yeast to serve

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil, in a large saucepan until translucent. Add carrots, sweet potato and celery and allow to soften. Meanwhile, cut capsicums in half and put under the grill until the skins are black. This took a good 15-20 minutes. Once the capsicums are done and are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off, chop and add to the pan. Add the chopped tomatoes, veg stock, thyme, chilli flakes, salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Simmer until potatoes are soft. Transfer to blender and puree in batches. Serve with nutritional yeast.

This soup was quite salty. I may have added to much extra without taking into account the salt added to the chopped tomatoes. I don’t think I’d add extra salt if using canned chopped tomatoes again. In fact, I think it would probably be better to use extra stock and a few fresh tomatoes instead. I also think it’d be really great with some fresh herbs. Basil maybe? I wish I could be trusted to water plants. I’ve managed to kill every herb I’ve ever tried to grow. Even mint, which apparently is notoriously hard to kill. What can I say? I have a talent.

I unpacked our stash from the Food and Wine Show earlier. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can even enjoy it away from home. Fancy a cheeky tipple at work? No worries! Ladies and gentlemen, presenting…

Source

Ridiculous and yet ingenious. I’m not sure I’d be marketing it as the ‘perfect gift for your girlfriend’, unless she has a great sense of humour or you’re looking for a slap, but I’m sure in certain situations it’s very useful, more for the drink portability aspect rather than its rack-enhancing properties.

I also stumbled across this. Chocolate. In pill form. Why do we need chocolate in pill form? What’s wrong with chocolate in chocolate form?! I’m thrilled about the health benefits of eating more chocolate and I’ll happily adjust my intake accordingly, but I’d never choose munching on a good piece of solid chocolate to swallowing a pill. I wonder how many people will jump on this bandwagon?

Gourmet goodness

It was awesome There seemed to be much more food this year than I remember last year. We picked up some yummy salad dressing and a dukkah/dressing/oil combo that is going to go really well with the bread I will eventually get round to making.

We spent a fair amount of time in Barossa and there were a couple of other regions we visited. I think the majority of wine we brought back was shiraz. There were so many different types. It was crazy to see just how much variation there was between different types of wine made from the same grapes. I’m back on the Dry July wagon now but very much looking forward to August and cracking open some fancy wine.

Today I want to try to get some cooking done. Last week it was great not having to think about what to cook for dinner and even better not having to actually cook it and clean up the mess. I’m really feeling soups at the moment but I don’t want to overdo the pumpkin soup, so this morning I whipped up this simple broccoli soup.

Soup number one of this week

Roasted broccoli soup

2 large heads of broccoli
4 cups of vegetable stock
3-4 tsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
chilli flakes and nutritional yeast to serve

Preheat oven to 200C. Chop up the broccoli and garlic, put in baking trays (I had 2 full trays) and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes. Once broccoli is roasted transfer to large saucepan, add stock, thyme, and lemon juice and bring to boil. Once stock has come to boil, turn off the heat and puree the contents of the saucepan in a blender (I did it in two batches). Serve with a big pinch of chilli flakes and nutritional yeast.

The soup has a really nice savoury flavour to it. My only criticism is it’s a little bit watery – I used about 5 cups of stock in mine.

This afternoon I want to try a roasted red pepper soup. I’m also going to make lentil chilli for lunch next week.

I decided that I don’t like Enrique Iglesias. Apart from the fact that I’ve seen him and Pitbull every day this week, he has a smug look in his eye that annoys me. Yes, he’s pretty, but that knowing, I-could-get-you-to-do-anything-I-wanted look, however true it may be, annoys me. Especially because he knows it. This is based entirely upon the music video, but I just don’t think the man is a good enough actor to be able to pull that look off without really meaning and believing it.

I realised that there are a lot of women in the world who have no idea what bra size they are. How is this possible? If you have a muffin to under your chin and are oozing boob under your armpits, chances are something is not right. If I can see this, how come you haven’t noticed yet?

I completed my fifth day at the gym in a row. Bearing in mind my recent lack of motivation, this is nothing short of miraculous.

I embraced my current love of brussel sprouts by enjoying them roasted, in some pumpkin soup. It made an absolutely amazing lunch. Truth be told, I could probably eat it again.

It might not look pretty but it rocked my socks.

Tomorrow Dan and I are off to the Good Food and Wine Show in Darling Harbour. Although I’m technically in the middle of Dry July, I bought a golden ticket for this one. The GFWS is one of my favourite days in the entire year. A huge added bonus this year is the fact that I don’t have flu. I’ve never been without flu before. To say I’m excited is an understatement.