What are you, an app?

Claire and I were talking a while back about how tired we were. Part of that is because we’re all so busy and the other part is when you’re busy, even if you try to eat as healthy as possible, sometimes it’s just easier to eat quick things that at are, at the end of the day, not always the best for our bodies. For example – cheese, bread; basically: pizza. I LOVE pizza. So when Claire mentioned she was thinking of doing the cleanse again, I said I would join her. The differences between January and this round are: 1) I know what I’m doing now – recipes and ideas abound; and 2) I am not going super hard-core. Green tea (caffeinated, I don’t care!) and yogurt are allowed, and if I want corn on the cob (a cleanse no-no), I’m going to have it. So I am calling this ‘Cleanse Lite’ and I started on Saturday. I was talking to our IT guy this morning and when I told him about ‘Cleanse Lite’, he says to me “What are you, an app?” – I looked at him for a beat and then nearly fell off my chair laughing. Quote of the day. You had to be there, but it was pretty darn funny.

Sean isn’t participating this time; except when he’s at home. So when he came home last night, the idea was that we were having vegan macaroni and cheese. All I’m going to say is that I am never, EVER making it again. At least not from the recipe I had found – which I will obviously not be sharing. But me telling Sean that I ran out of soy cheese and had to add real cheese to supplement my roux to make it not soupy did not get the reaction I had expected. Instead of “Oh well, let’s eat”, I got “What’s the point in doing the cleanse if you’re going to cheat and do it halfway?” To which I repsonded: “Do you want runny macaroni and cheese?” Apparently, his expectations of my being on cleanse (even ‘Cleanse Lite’ – now to be known as CL) are that some things won’t turn out perfect or taste super good, so in light of that we were meant to suck it up and have runny macaroni and cheese. I’m sorry, but I have standards and my roux was NOT going to be liquid. It had to be salvaged. But he was willing to accept sub-par macaroni, because that was his way of being supportive. Awww. Anyhow, even after baking the macaroni, it did not turn out as promised and neither of us finished our plates. It’s the first time I’ve ever thrown out something I’ve made other than a past saving pie crust. Not even going to think about the cost of the soy cheese. On the up side, my sauteed mushrooms were fantastic.

Day 3 of CL was not a full loss, though. I found a lovely recipe for zucchini bread from the KAMUT® website. It has pears in it. I never would have though to mix pears and zucchini together. As I tend to do, I revised the recipe a bit to my liking and to make it cleanse friendly. I brought a loaf to work today and everyone was surprised that a healthy dessert was so tasty. 😉 When I finally got around to trying some, I loved it too, so that’s a bonus. I forgot to take a picture, but here is the recipe:

PEAR ZUCCHINI BREAD

Ingredients:

2 Cups Chopped Pealed Pears
1 Cup Shredded Zucchini
1 Cup Honey
3 Eggs Beaten or 3 Tablespoons of Ground Flax Seed Meal mixed with 9 Tablespoons of tepid water (whisk together and leave to sit for 5 minutes before adding to wet ingredients)
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Unsweetened Applesauce
1 Tablespoon Pure Vanilla Extract
3 Cups KAMUT® Khorasan Flour
2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts

Preparation:

Mix together the pears, zucchini, honey, eggs/flax seed meal mix, oil, applesauce, and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and stir into the pear mixture. Gently stir in walnuts. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and flip out the loaves onto a cloth covered baking rack. Cover with cloth.

——-

The vegan macaroni debacle made me realize that some things are not meant to be messed with. Macaorni and cheese is one of them. I make awesome non-CL friendly mac and cheese and I will just have to wait another 10 days before I make it again. But that doesn’t mean other things can’t be tweaked. And so the Alternitive Baking (and Sometimes Cooking) Chronicles begin with a clean slate.