Clean Eating Detox: Day 10

Just finished Day 10 of our two-week clean eating challenge! For info on days 0-9, 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. Tuesday's menu included:

A breakfast of cauliflower hash with fried eggs. Only in this diet will half a head of cauliflower and two eggs count as a single portion. What a filling breakfast! I can't say enough about pairing paprika with cauliflower, it adds such depth to an otherwise bland vegetable. Like tofu, cauliflower takes on whatever flavors you throw at it, so adding paprika brings out an unconventional, and delicious smokiness. And if you haven't experimented with fried eggs you're missing out. The runny yolk is truly one of the simplest to create, yet most complex tasting sauces ever - and it's completely natural! Throw an egg on top of vegetables and you've made your own velvety breakfast, lunch or dinner!

A lunch salad made from arugula, feta, eggplant, avocado and chickpeas. On Day 2 I was toying with the idea that Balsamic wasn't my favorite flavor; today, I confirmed it. And I figured out why I can't bring myself to enjoy it - it smells like garbage, like hot, steaming garbage. I only put a third of the 2 T portion on my entire salad and still grimaced when I got an overly "ripe" bite. But I loved the composition of the salad - I thought the flavors paired really well together, but might've been a little on the mushy side. Here, J and I disagree. He loved the dressing and being the anti-argula person he is, hated the contents of the salad. Opposites attract, eh?

Red pepper slices and hummus for a daytime snack. This was not the snack for me. I love peppers in meatballs, sauces, sauteed for fajitas but raw, not so much. Only within the past six months have I started eating any raw peppers and it's only on my sandwiches at Subway. But I thought I'd give this a try. Instead, I ate one and then ended up eating all of my hummus using a pepper strip as a spoon. I love hummus, but immediately regretted this decision. I think the peppers have too bold of a flavor, they overpowered the hummus and left me tasting nothing but rawness.

Original Buzzfeed photo

Shrimp, kale, mushroom and avocado bowl for dinner. This was a surprisingly quick dish that took only 10 minutes to make (not counting the prep of the falsely titled "EZ Peel Shrimp"). It was full of flavor with the garlic, tamari and of course, J has rejoiced at having two meals that included hot sauce in the recipe. And it had great textures, kale seems to retain a bite to it at all levels of cooking so there's slight crunch, with the incredibly softened and silky mushrooms, unique shrimp texture and the smooth coolness of the avocado slices. I continue to be impressed with the pairings that are included in these meal plans. I enjoy each of these elements but probably would never have put them together, especially topping the whole thing with avocado. What seems haphazard on paper is actually delicious and apparently, well-planned.

And a big ol' bowl of blackberries for our evening snack. Despite being a dumbass and dropping the box on the floor and then having to wash all the cat hair off, the berries were delicious.

Day 10 synopsis: Today I was leaving work, I realized that this detox has really simplified our lives and our marriage. Despite having a lot of prep and feeling like we are continuously cooking, this plan has cured one of our biggest stressors and reasons that we eat poorly - rushed indecision. Since we got engaged, and even now, we have been very busy on weeknights with Game Night, Relay meetings, Beer Night and more. And while we try to plan out grocery lists with meal schedules - to save time and money - we either get stressed out overthinking our hasty meals or do a half-assed job planning and end up swinging by a restaurant or pick up random bits at the grocery store after a conversation of "What do you want to eat?" "I don't know, what do you want to eat?" This plan has given us direction and order to our days. And while the type and sheer quanitity of groceries we've bought has been insanely expensive, if we were to build on these lessons with cheaper items (less organic, more freezable or non-perishable bulk) and focus on weekly ads and seasonal deals this could be just what we need to keep our wallets and our waists in line.

Ten clean eating points to Gryffindor!