Clean Eating Detox: Day 13

We are one day away from completing our two-week clean eating challenge! For info on days 0-12, click here or use the "Clean Eats" label to the far right.

Each day of the challenge we receive breakfast, lunch, a daytime snack, dinner and a nighttime snack.Our final Friday menu included:

Overnight oats with strawberries and chia seeds. Now remember, dear readers, we tried this overnight oats recipe on Day 2 and as we would come to find out with most of our Greek yogurt dishes, it was bitter. We liked the texture, how filling it was and the concept, but the flavor was just a little too tart and while the blueberries were a burst of flavor, they too, were bitter. This go-round with strawberries was wonderful! Admittedly, I added around an extra tsp. of honey to each of our jars, but the results were amazing. This is a great breakfast that kept me full well into the day even with high activity and it's so easy to throw together at night and then eat on the go or take in my lunchbox to work. I've found a webpage with 19 overnight oat recipes that look pretty darn good - I'll keep you updated. P.S. sorry for the less-than-artful photo; I remembered to take a picture after I'd already started chowing down and had settled in on the porch with Love in the Time of Cholera. 

For lunch we were supposed to have a snap pea and radish salad with quinoa and arugula. Considering how unsuccessful the first incarnation of this dish was on Wednesday, J decided to create his own salad at work and I tried to rebuild it from the ground up (nix the arugula in choice of kale, nix the balsamic and just use olive oil), but it sucked. If you like the dinner on Wednesday, you'll enjoy this. If you didn't, try something else clean.

Original Buzzfeed photo (of what we should have eaten)

Carrots and hummus - again, yum! 

Spicy tamari shrimp lettuce cups. PF Changs makes a phenomenal chicken (or tofu) lettuce wrap dish that is phenomenal. This recipe leaves those pitiful wraps in the dust. I was thinking on the way home from work that Chinese food would be so good tonight, and this fulfilled my craving in a healthy way! It was amazing and full of flavor! The tamari sauce created this deep, earthy, umami flavor that resonated through the dish. The textures were fabulous and unlike some of our other non-bread wraps, the lettuce cups were the perfect vessel. They added a bright, freshness and crunch. I loved it! I told J that I'd be hesitant to make some of these dishes when we had company over - who knows how someone will react to a cauliflower steak - but I would make these for any dinner party!

An apple drizzled with 1 tsp. honey. I worried this would be cloyingly sweet and sticky but this pairing actually worked. We used granny smith apples which contributed tart crunch and were so juicy that the honey dissolved a little and made more of a sauce than a sticky drizzle. I bet this dish would taste so different using different varieties of apples and honey. If you haven't done a honey taste test before, give it a shot. Honeys from different areas and made from different plants have such varied flavors; check out a local farmers market to find some great honey options.

Original Buzzfeed photo - gmail crashed!

Day 13 synopsis: We talked tonight about things that we're surprised we haven't missed since we started clean eating. We were both surprised to realize that we haven't eaten bread or pasta in over two weeks and hardly even noticed it; which is quite wild for us given that I could eat pasts 3 times a day and J works at a deli. It goes to show you that your body has amazing skills for adaptation. If you're planning on making a change in your life, give it two weeks. It may not be enough to completely cure or change you, but you'd be surprised at how quickly you adapt to not eating bread, enjoying "natural" sweets not artificial ones, smaller portions and more. Gradual "ten percent" changes over time will result in you completely turning around your habits!