Detox and Green Smoothies

This week I have decided to go raw in order to hit the reset button on my allergies.  Since Memorial Day weekend, my life has been super busy, stressful, hectic, and fun!  As a result, ever since then I have had hives.  We went camping and our routine went out the window from there.  I had four weekends in a row where I didn't have time to do my Sunday shopping and food prep for the week.  It got so bad that my hubby and I even ended up ordering pizzas for dinner a couple nights.

It is very easy to stay away from my most reactive allergies when I am only eating raw fruits and vegetables.  It gives my body a chance to calm and reset.  Summer is a great time to do this because the warm weather makes me crave fresh fruit and veggies anyways. 

This is the fourth time that I have gone raw.  The first time was 6 years ago.  I started with a 28 day cleanse and felt so good that I stayed raw for 9 months.  The second and third times lasted about 3 weeks each.  Each time I have scoured the internet looking for blogs and articles about the raw lifestyle seeking encouragement and support for the drastic change.  Each time I learn a little more about what works for people and what doesn't.  This time everywhere I searched people were talking about Green Smoothies.  I can't imagine that it's a new craze that I had never seen before in my years of learning about raw foods.  I guess this time I was just ready for the information.  Must be, because I LOVE my Green Smoothies!!!!

They are so refreshing and delicious!  Here is what I made this morning.  It's my favorite yet!

lemon (without rind)
frozen peaches
apple (without core)
slice ginger
spinach
spring mix

Ok I admit, it doesn't look so hot.  But YUM YUM!

Best raw zucchini salad ever!

I'm getting about 2-3 zucchinis a day now.  I've had to get creative with recipes. This is a raw zucchini salad that is delicious!

Recipe: 
Thinly slice 2 medium zucchini (mine are yellow) I used the slicer on my cheese grater.
Thinly slice 6 mini peppers (red, yellow, orange)
Thinly slice 1/4 of a large red onion
Chop 2 roma tomatoes.  (Put 1 in the salad, save the other)
Chop 1 clove of garlic
Put remaining chopped tomatoes with chopped garlic into a slap chopper to pulverize tomatoes.
Add to salad including juices.
Add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Add salt & pepper to taste.

Let marinate for 30 minutes to an hour.
YUM YUM!

Bolting lettuce, incredible squash, and tons of green tomatoes!

Summer is in full effect and apparently it is too warm for the lettuce.  My novice eyes were very impressed when I saw the lettuce burst up 2 feet high.  But the leaves taste really bitter.  I learned from a gardener at the County Fair that my lettuce has bolted.  It's time to tear it down, chop it up, and throw it in the compost.  Oh well, I got a couple good salads out of it.  But look how beautiful it is!

The squash is amazing!  Turns out I planted yellow zucchini.  It tastes just like zucchini, only it's yellow.  I have been putting zucchini in everything I can imagine.  It grows so fast you can almost watch it grow before your eyes.  I have to check it daily or else the fruit will get too big.  The first pumpkin fruit has appeared.  I'm fascinated by this.  That means it will grow all summer and then be ready for harvest in the fall.  Oh my!  This might be one heck of a pumpkin.  My sister told me that you can put a piece of wood underneath the fruit so that it doesn't sit on the wet soil.  I'm gonna give it a try.

This is a gorgeous eggplant flower.   The eggplant has started to bloom all over.  I'm a little nervous that I planted it too close to the zucchini (which has turned into a monster plant).  I LOVE eggplant so I can't wait to see what we get out of this plant.

Tomatoes:  The tomato plants are enormous.  The yellow grape tomato is literally 6 feet tall, but it's fallen because I didn't have it supported well enough.  There are so many little green tomatoes.  It's like watching water boil.  I can't wait until they ripen!

Creole Pork....delicious!

My new recipe for the week was creole pork.  The recipe couldn't be simpler.  I mixed together the rub, chopped the veggies, and pan-fried the pork.  Simple as that!  It was awesome and very inexpensive.   I switched the recipe up some to work with what I had.  I used pork shoulders (on sale this weekend), organic mini grape tomatoes that I found at the 99 cent store, and fresh squeezed lemon juice from our trees outside (instead of lime juice). 

Now I'm itching to have people over for a dinner party, just so I can serve this.  It's so pretty on the plate and soooooo easy.

Getting so big and first harvest!

I'm so proud of my little garden!  It has really exploded.  If things continue, we will soon have a beautiful harvest of tomatoes, zucchini, tomatillos, and cucumbers!  I guess I should have listened to the recommended spacing, but I had no idea that they would all do so well!

Today we harvested the first cucumber.  It was about 7 inches and soooo yummy! 

I transplanted the pumpkin plants finally.  They didn't take the transfer very well, but I'm hoping that they perk up and take off like the rest of the plants have.

So far, the sonar gopher repeller is working really well.  I stuck it right in the middle of the tomatoes, in the hole that was left by the one plant the gophers took down.  The three lettuce plants that hadn't been kidnapped by gophers are now growing undisturbed.  I even felt confident enough to plant some more lettuce in that same bed.  

One curry per week!

I have started to experiment with curry recipes.  Last week we made a lamb curry.  Today I made a ground turkey with garbanzo curry.  Yummy.  I got both recipes from Kalyn's Kitchen as usual.  I'm trying to vary flavors in our weekly meals.  I'm finding that Indian foods are great for me because they don't often have any allergens.  Lucky me, since I LOVE Indian food!

Those lovely tomatoes are organic grape tomatoes that were on sale this week at Henry's. NICE!

Sunday: Not a day of rest but a nice day of cooking!

About 10 years ago a friend of mine declined an invitation on a Sunday because she said that she would be chopping veggies and preparing food all day.  She explained that she did most of her cooking on Sundays to ease her load during the week.  It made sense, I guess.  At the time, I couldn't imagine what in the world would take all day to cook and why it was worth it to her to lose one of her days off.

Now I get it.

I learned this past week that something will always have to give.  The consequence of 3 fun evenings out this week (errands, dad's birthday, girls' night) was that I didn't cook 3 dinners.  No dinner means no breakfast or lunch for me since I always cook extra to take leftovers.

So today I went all out.  This morning I made our weekly menu, went grocery shopping, and went at it!  Here's what I've made today.

• Green salad w/ peperoncinis, roasted red peppers, and feta (lunch)
• Turkey sliders w/ tzatziki sauce (lunch)
• Spinach, mushroom, and turkey bacon quiche (hubby's breakfast for the week)
• Quinoa w/ squash, eggplant, and mushrooms (My breakfast for the week)
• Tomato Bisque (lunch)
• Cobb salad  (lunch)

All this prep should help hubby and I stick to our menu plan this week and save me some work in the mornings too!