Smoothing out my day

It’s the end of Day 3 and after some inevitable tears from chopping onions, I have a lentil soup slow cooking away in the Cuisinart and spicy chick peas baking in the oven. They come out nice and crispy and are super delicious. Thank you, “5 Ingredient Fix”! (Recipe below.)

Being in a mad rush to get out the door this morning, I forgot my spinach salad and cucumber. Smart. But I had a nice big piece of rice flour blueberry cake – the hero of week one – and an apple for breakfast, so the day didn’t start completely amuck.

I have been very label conscious since this started and you know what? There’s sugar in almost EVERYTHING. As I discovered today, vegetable broth, as sold at IGA, has sugar in it. Seriously? So off to Whole Foods I went after work. The non-sugared organic vegetable stock wasn’t more expensive and it was a bigger container – a rarity, so this girl was a happy camper with this and various healthy items for the next few days.

We have been talking about smoothies as a bit of a loop-hole to the many restrictions of this cleanse. It’s not really a loop-hole but it made me feel good when I went on the Jugo Juice site and found a few smoothies that don’t have bananas (yuck) or frozen yogurt (dairy). And the juice is just juice. Believe it or not, one Pom-E-Berry smoothie is basically a meal – really filling. So that and my faithful trail mix kept me going through the afternoon even when I looked at my stationary tray and saw the macadamia nut Hershey Kisses that one of the SE’s brought back from Hawaii. My gazed lingered but I was good.

I am on my own tonight with Sean at the theatre, so dinner was left over mashed yams and a very large spinach salad. (I will be so done with spinach for a while after this.) The soup has a few hours to go so the chick peas will have to supplement along with some fruit.

Speaking of which, the timer has gone off so time for chick peas and to put my feet up and see what kind of rom-com selection Netflix has in store for me. If I can figure out how to find Netflix on the Xbox…

—-

Spicy Baked Chickpeas

(Recipe courtesy Claire Robinson, 2010 from foodnetwork.com)
Prep Time:10 min / Cook Time:35 min
Ingredients:

• 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpea
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
• Kosher sal

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Rinse and drain the chickpeas and dry by rolling them around in a
   kitchen towel.
3. Combine the oil, paprika cumin, cayenne and salt in a large bowl.
4. Add chickpeas and toss to coat evenly.
5. Transfer the chickpeas to a parchment-lined baking sheet and spread
   them out in a single layer. Bake until golden and crispy, 25 to 35
   minutes, shaking the tray to toss after 15 minutes. Remove the baking
   sheet from the oven and transfer the chickpeas to a serving bowl.