#67: In Progress

♡ 67. Do a cleanse

I don't even know why the heck I'm doing a cleanse. I've thought about it for a while, especially trying to go without sugar for a given period of time. It's just the kind of challenge I give myself because anything that completely changes my way of living feels totally impossible, and something about that appeals to me. Though I lack discipline so I'm not sure why. Every year they publish a "detox" plan in Whole Living magazine. I thought of doing it last year and backed out. I might have started and just never followed through past a morning without coffee. So a new year and a new attempt.

Week one has consisted of cutting out pretty much everything good in life. No dairy, meat, alcohol, coffee, gluten, sugar or processed foods. Fortunately, the magazine provides a meal plan, otherwise I'd be at a total loss. One of the biggest challenges has been getting into the habit of planning ahead. I'm good about this in certain areas of my life, but cooking is not one of them. Just ask B how many times I've failed to read an entire recipe in advance and paid for it! It's enough preparing these meals planned for me in advance without having to actually plan out a week of meals myself (especially one that doesn't include sugar, dairy or grains). Other challenging aspects have been trying not to think about food (not that I do so obsessively, but I do look forward to my next meal), and the physical effects. For most of this first week I've been in a daze. Wednesday was the worst of the physical discomfort. I had that flu-like feeling all day of being achy, sore and run down.

I'm actually excited about the meals for this coming week since I'll be able to eat fish and non-gluten grains. The meals this week have been okay. If I were a non-meat eater, they'd probably be delicious, but after three days of lentils and broccoli I was pretty much over them. It doesn't help that all the snack recipes have been a total bust. My salvation is fruit, dates and homemade kale chips.

Day 1 Breakfast: Mango Tahini smoothie. I lost everyone at tahini.

Day 1 Lunch: French green lentil salad. I brought this into Gino's while my gentlemen friends ate their deep dish pizza.

Day 1 dinner / day 2 lunch / day 3 dinner: Creamy broccoli soup. I had to force this leftover broccoli soup down my throat, and you wouldn't believe how angry it made me. Sad, unhealthy, privileged doughy American! I'm sure if I wasn't in physical discomfort I wouldn't have felt like throwing it across the room. 

Day 2 dinner: Cauliflower "rice" stir fry. The "rice" was chopped up cauliflower that I overcooked to this gray mush mess. Yum!

Day 3 breakfast: blueberry-mint smoothy and the start of flu-like symptoms. What the fuck?

Day 3 lunch: It's like the worst meal of the day was paired with the day in which I felt the worst physically. This was the day I was in the depths of despair. Okay, I'm being dramatic, but if I wasn't feeling significantly better the next day I planned to call it quits.

Day 4 dinner: roasted portobellos with kale. This ain't no red velvet whoopie pie.

Day 5 dinner: red lentil and sweet potato stew. Our friends invited us over for pizza. This was my dinner. What a sad sack. On the bright side, despite the curry in this dish, today was the first day I felt like I could actually do this thing!

Day 6 dessert (there's no dessert in the plan, but this is the sweetness I treated myself to after dinner): a cara cara orange and a few dates. I've convinced myself that Medjool dates taste kinda like chocolate. 

Day 7 lunch: leftover portobellos with kale and avocado. I actually enjoyed this. I wouldn't choose it over a hamburger, but it's probably the first meal I had other than breakfast smoothies where I didn't feel like I was forcing myself to eat it.

One week down, two to go! Onward!

Done! #48

♡ 48. Make birthday cascarones for E.

I made forty of these confetti eggs for my last birthday so I figured seven would be a piece of cake.

Step 1. Dye them. Actually, step one is to collect the egg shells. Then dye them.

Step 2. Let them dry. These empty egg cartons came in handy.

Step 3. Fill them with confetti. I couldn't find the confetti I had leftover from my birthday cascarones so I had to resort to using a pack of Halloween confetti. What's more surprising than confetti flying out of egg shells? Black and orange cats flying out of egg shells in February!

Step 4. Cover the openings with tissue paper.

Step 5. Witness someone wonder why they have a carton of eggs among their birthday gifts.

And then you crack them over someone's head and make a big mess that even a vacuum cleaner can't fully clean up.

Done! #83

♡ 83. Make hanky panks a la Pop Z for the Super Bowl.

My father-in-law was big on having pre-dinner hors d'oeuvres. There was always a bowl or tray of something to snack on. One of my favorites was something called hanky panks. I'd never eaten them anywhere other than at his home. The last time I had a hanky pank was more than six years ago. He had just died, and a family friend made some to serve at a gathering at the house he shared with my mother-in-law.

I remember meat and cheese on little rye toasts, but wasn't sure what else went into hanky panks. I also assumed these were my father-in-law's original creation since I'd never heard of them elsewhere, but an Internet search proved otherwise. Be careful you don't accidentally click on a "hanky panky" link! Totally different things! Couldn't seem to find the origin but there are a number of recipes online.

I wanted to capture the hanky pank in all its glory (as I remembered it) so I asked my ma-in-law for the recipe. She couldn't find hers so she got one from her mother. I'm guessing my father-in-law probably never had it written down. It was just his thing.

The recipe calls for ground beef, ground sausage, Velveeta cheese, a couple of spices and Worcestershire sauce.

This is what two pounds of "smooth melting American style cheese" looks like, people. It was a challenge getting the knife out of there. Also, I was tempted to throw slabs at the wall to watch it stick. Good thing I wasn't in my own kitchen.

And these, my friends, are hanky panks! I ate one too many on Super Bowl Sunday. It's the kind of thing you can only bust out once a year, and SBS with all its overindulging and wardrobe malfunctions begs for the presence of hanky panks. Thanks to the Carrel-White family for allowing me to soil their kitchen with these. I left you a whole pound of that smooth melting goodness in the fridge as a parting gift!

Done! #71

♡ 71. See live music at least once.

Yo La Tengo at the Vic. They were amazing! One of the highlights was their cover of ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'." What can I say? I like me some ZZ Top!

I'm crossing this off the list because technically it's done. That's not to say it's the only live music I'll experience this year, of course. Though, admittedly, if the venue has seating it's much more appealing to my forty-year-old back. Hmmm, I see New Kids on the Block are doing a big arena tour this year. Those places have assigned seating, right?