clean: day 4, in which my brain thinks it’s on vacation

seriously.  this cleanse should come with a warning.  i completely forgot not one, but two different work obligations today.  as in, i thought i had the day off, but in fact, i was supposed to do an outreach storytime this morning and i had my beloved needlereads class at the library tonight and i completely spaced on both of them.  and it wasn’t until late yesterday that i realized i had to go to class this afternoon!  is this a normal side effect?  or is it enhanced by worry about your kid’s burned fingers?  (by the way, in case you were concerned about them too, we went to the doctor today and they said he’s healing nicely and gave us some white goop to put on them to help the healing and eliminate scarring.  we are on the road to recovery!  but we have to skip swimming class tomorrow night.)  speaking of exercise…. remember me saying that i thought i’d get all this exercise in?  ha!  well, i didn’t take into account how much extra time it takes to cook unfamiliar foods.  you have to keep reading the recipe the whole time you’re cooking to figure out the next step and it takes forever to find some of the new ingredients and when you have to read the labels on all of the packaged foods in your cart, it takes especially forever, so….. exercise has not happened so far, but i’m really okay with that.

mr. happy stuff discovered a new and unexpected side effect of caffeine withdrawal today–ache-y hips and lower back!  who knew?  but he looked it up online and apparently, it’s a common reaction.  hopefully it will pass soon.  he’s already past the headaches and foggy noggin stage.  hooray!

okay, i’m sure you’re all dying to know what we ate today, so here’s the rundown:

breakfast was the “tropical smoothie” from the book (with passion fruit puree!) except i used coconut water instead of almond milk to make mr. happy stuff happy.

lunch was honey agave syrup baked lentils, baked brown rice and roasted butternut squash.  this lentil recipe was one my friends had raved about, so we had to try it.  i thought it was pretty tasty, but now i’m curious to try it with red lentils to see how it would be different.  sadly, the rice was still a bit crunchy (maybe i should have covered the container it baked in?).  happily, there’s enough leftovers that this will make an easy lunch sometime this week!

supper was double green soup from chop chop magazine (i left out the tomatoes, but added a little beauty heart radish garnish for the photo.  garnish!  the secret to an attractive pureed soup photograph!).  have you seen chop chop magazine?  i pick up freebie copies at my doctor’s office and it’s fantastic!  it’s a healthy cooking magazine for kids and is very well done.  there are actually several soup recipes i’d like to try from this issue, but since the rest aren’t blended soups (and wouldn’t lend themselves well to blending) mr. happy stuff and i decided maybe those should wait until after the cleanse.  drinking breakfast and supper leaves little appeal for a soupy lunch.  the verdict on this soup?  i actually loved it way more than i thought i would.  broccoli is definitely the stand-out flavor, but it’s very creamy and rich tasting.  (note:  i used only 4 cups of broth* instead of 7 and it was plenty of liquid.  i also only used one really large clove of garlic instead of 4.)  it would have been even better with some crackers or a thick slice of bread.  (note to post-cleanse self…)  mr. happy stuff was not as big a fan of the soup and commented tonight, “why does everything have to taste so healthy?” he was a good sport though, and ate a bowl full of it and we finished the meal off with a small sweet smoothie:

i just pulled from my professional smoothie-maker background to create this one (coconut water, shredded coconut, frozen pineapple and raspberries).  i enjoyed drinking both my morning and evening sweet smoothies from the “glassybaby” i got as a very sweet gift from a friend a few years ago.  i love it!

today i had a weird realization–the kind that you were pretty sure you’ve known your whole life, but suddenly it’s like it’s a new “aha!” moment.  today i made a solid connection with the fact that we can change our bodies just by changing the food we put into our bodies.  i know, that sounds pretty commonsense, but it’s like today i could finally see past my tongue’s desires to realize that i really “am what i eat.”  deep thoughts.  another side effect of the cleanse–beware!

*i hadn’t yet made any more homemade chicken broth, so i was forced to use the box of broth i picked up at trader joe’s yesterday.  it was definitely the “clean”-est box of chicken broth i’d seen for sale (no gluten, no sugar, no unpronounceable ingredients) and the only thing i wasn’t sure about was the ingredient called “natural chicken flavoring” which the box listed as containing “natural chicken broth, natural chicken flavoring, salt” or something like that.  i actually forget what the third ingredient was because i was so taken aback by the second one.  how can something be the ingredient for itself?  unless maybe it’s a culture, like yogurt….