Clean Eating Detox: Day 8

Today is Day 8 of our  two-week clean eating challenge! For info on days 0-7, 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 menu today included: (we swapped yesterday and today's breakfasts to make before-work prep easier)

Asparagus and poached eggs for breakfast. Week 2 is really egg-heavy, like REALLY egg-heavy, so be prepared to read all about the many clean ways to prepare eggs. This was pretty darn good. I enjoy asparagus a lot, but I can't really think of a time I've eaten it for breakfast. When I was a kid, my dad would boil asparagus and we'd pour lemony hollandaise sauce over the limp stalks - and it was delicious; the brightness of the sauce and the creaminess it added was wonderful. These poached eggs reminded me of that. When the yolks broke and poured out their golden sauce it coated the spears perfectly and added the earthy flavor that only comes from eggs. This was J's first time poaching eggs - and he had to do five (!) - but he did a stellar job!

Shakshuka - red sauce with asparagus, basil, and yes, eggs. Since we switched breakfasts this weekend, today was double the eggs and double the asparagus. I might have enjoyed these dishes more had they been served on different days - but this was still delicious. We've fallen in love with the "big batch tomato sauce" we made last night for meatballs and it was just as flavorful today. And in this dish it serves as a stew into which we cooked the eggs and tossed the asparagus; so leaving it chunky last night was a great choice. Eating it out of deep bowls, it had the feel of a really hearty chili. I will say though, that the egg portions - like most of our other meals - feel somewhat excessive. J gets 3 eggs per serving and I get 2; and as we've noticed with other detox dishes these portions that seem small in our mind are really huge.

 Note: As mentioned on Day 3, the PDF directions you can bulk download on Buzzfeed do not match the individual day recipes. In this recipe, the PDF claimed we had to wilt spinach into the sauce and mentioned the asparagus as an ingredient but provided no preparation directions. If you choose do this diet, please use the day-by-day notes, they seem more accurate. 

Six strawberries with raw almond butter for our daytime snack. I love strawberries and have really enjoyed the almond butter, but I was skeptical of this snack. Grape or blackberry jelly are my go-to's for PBJ and I've never even considered dipping strawberries in peanut butter, so I wasn't sure this would go well. But it was delicious. The graininess of the almond butter paired beautifully with the juiciness of the strawberries and their flavors worked well together. I still don't know that traditional peanut butter and strawberries would work together, but why bother trying if this was so successful? 

Roasted eggplant with chickpeas, cauliflower and lemon-parsley yogurt for dinner. This seemed like a lot of work (or at least watching J, he looked pretty frantic) because you're making three "big batch" dishes and a sauce. There was a lot of prep, but everything roasted in the oven without much attention paid. And it makes a ton of food - not just the additional servings for later meals, but look at our portion! The flavors were great; the garbanzos were tossed with paprika but the other veggies just used salt, pepper and olive oil, so we were enjoying their natural flavors. And that might be the most important take-away lesson from clean eating: with just the right amount of subtle seasoning, or one bold component, you can make anything taste good; no need for added fillers and fake flavorings.The Greek yogurt sauce is shocking at first - super tart; but when you stir it in to all of the veggies it really makes them pop. It tasted like a beautiful middle eastern hash. 

Medjool dates stuffed with almonds. Again, a winner. And I continue to be surprised by (and grateful for) the immense sweetness of these dates. They're almost like candy!

Day 8 synopsis: We've made it through a whole week and we are closing in on the end of our challenge. We feel good and have enjoyed the food immensely. But, today, I started craving a coke (not a Coke, but in the South, all caramel-colored, and some clear sodas are referred to as coke) and a "junky" lunch. Not because I wasn't full or didn't enjoy my breakfast, but because it's Sunday. In the South, and I'm sure in many church-going households, Sundays are big eating days. Either you go out with your family or fellow parishoners after church (buffets beware) or make a big Sunday dinner at home or just veg out for the last afternoon of peace before the workweek. It's just what we do.

We also thought about going to the movies today. And although I have no qualms about sneaking in my own snacks, I was not about to bring strawberries and almond butter. We eat buttered popcorn popcorn and chocolate covered peanuts and drink way too much "coke" when we go to the theater. It's just what we do.

And these things are hard to let go of. I've been thinking about how to make this clean eating menu more sustainable for our lifestyle, so that we can do it long-term, but I will be honest and say that we won't ban junk food like this detox does. It's all about portions and moderation and we are going to have to do considerable planning to keep ourselves in line.