Crash

On Sunday night I went to go use my macbook, only to find a big question mark staring back at me in the screen and my computer unable to start up. Yesterday I brought it into Mac and they told me that my hard drive had crashed, and of course NO I do not have an external hard drive that I had backed up my files on. This has been one of those things that I have been putting off and putting off. They replaced my hard drive for free because my macbook is still under warranty, but all of my computer settings, photos, songs, papers, etc... are gone : ( I'm not going to dwell on it, but it is a bummer.

I do have my pics from Sunday afternoon though because I hadn't uploaded them on my computer yet.

While packing my sister's lunches for the next day I snacked on some peanut butter filled pretzels.

No preservatives, no artificial colors or flavors- I'm sold, and I'm sure it has nothing to do w/ the fact that they are filled w/ creamy peanut butter and have a crunchy pretzel shell. Addiction.

For dinner I had a monster raw salad.

Mixed greens w/ raw corn, sugar plum tomatoes, & shredded carrots. Topped w/ hummus.

Post mixage- I added some BBQ in there. Hummus just calls for BBQ.

My sister snapped a pic of my drinking a glass of chardonnay while working on the computer. Busted.

Post dinner I nibbled on some KooLoos while watching Date Night w/ my sisters.

I had never tried these before and decided to pick them up from Costco. They are little soy nuts topped in a crunchy flax seed coating w/ a honey BBQ seasoning. They would be good to satisfy a BBQ chip craving as they taste like healthy junkfood. I love oxymorons and this one couldn't be more fitting.

On monday morning I woke up and had a big cup of coffee w/ vanilla, soy milk creamer while I read Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead. My friend Dru has been bugging me to read this forever, and now I understand why. It is soo good I havenot been able to put it down.

With my coffee and book I had a TJ's apple, cranberry, fiber mini-muffins heated up & topped w/ a pat of light Smart Balance. These muffins are delicious, plus they have simple ingredients and are vegan and low-cal.

As I read and ate breakfast I enjoyed the view from my balcony...

and played w/ my puppy Bondi.

Later I went to the mall to get my macbook fixed, and do a quick shop. My mom and I ate at the food court, and stopped by this delicious little place that I cannot remember the name for the life of me.

First you pick out your fresh veggies and a sauce and they add noodles....

and then they cook it in front of you on a a big Mongolian grill.

I added more sriracha & sesame seeds. So yummy & filling. Unlike a lot of other Asian restaurants where the sauce is often really heavy and greasy, this one is quite light.

Later on as I packed my sister's lunches I snacked on some of TJ's Honey, Pass the Snack Mix.

Sometimes I love little kid food.

For dinner I decided to keep on snacking starting w/ a piece of baguette bread w/ hummus, roasted eggplant, and spicy mango chutney.

I had some self restraint and put down the carbage, and ate some more chutney and hummus paired w/ carrots and celery.

Postponed Parties & Persian Food

I've been so behind in posting, and truth be told I have barely been taking pictures of food this weekend. My grandma is still in the hospital so my time has been split between visiting her in the ICU & taking care of my sisters. I finished my detox after 5 days, and was planning on having a "Moroccan Soiree" at my house on Friday but w/ everything that was going on w/ my gma I decided to cancel it last minute & instead stay w/ her at the hospital. Here is what day five of my detox looked like...

Green smoothie for breakfast.

A little later I had the above vita coco, and then made this smoothie below a little later for lunch.

2 apricots, 1/2 banana, juice 1/4 lemon, and ice. Eek this was waaay sour, I think it was the apricots which is kind of odd because I wouldn't classify apricots as a sour fruit.

Gingerade kombucha my favorite flavor, it's also a plus because when it explodes all over you it doesn't stain unlike the green one which made a mess of my boyfriend jeans earlier this week : (

Argula salad w/ carrot miso dressing & 1/2 avocado for dinner. LOVE this salad dressing.

On Friday even though this was the day that I was planning on ending my detox I woke up craving a smoothie. You would think that I would be over them by now and rushing to the first carb/processed food I could get my hands on, but no instead I wanted a hemp smoothie. Go figure.

1 cup almond milk, 1/2 banana, 1 TBS hemp protein, ice.

Soon after enjoying this smoothie instead of getting ready for my dinner party that night I had to run to the hospital where I spent the rest of the day w/ my grandma and mom. I ate lunch in the cafeteria & took these photos w/ my moms blackberry.

Mixed green salad w/ peas, chickpeas, shredded carrots, & cucumbers w/ a raspberry vinaigrette...

and a side of strawberries, watermelon, and pineapple.

It was a really long, emotionally draining day at the hospital, and when I came home my mom and I were both in need of a glass of chardonnay. In retrospect I realize that this was probably not the best way to end my detox but at the time all I wanted to do was just chill out and relax.

This wine was really good, and I think only $10. Plus I love the fleur de les on the label. I have some really amazing girlfriends who came over to support me and take my mind off of things by chatting, watching the crazies of Real Housewives of NY, and eating lots of food that I was planning on having at my dinner party.

Falafel w/ tahini sauce...

hummus...

baba ganoush...

also baklava, tzatziki, sangak bread, sun dried tomato pizza bread, & pesto pizza bread. Wow I was stuffed after this, real food tastes soo good. I bought all of this food at Wholesome Choice Market in Irvine. This place is amazing, I wish there was one closer to me. It is reminiscent of Whole Foods inside (it has a food court as well as a grocery story), but instead of health food it has authentic international foods like Chinese, Persian, Indian, & Thai. They also have fresh, hot baked Persian bread (sangak, and barbari)- sooo delicious.

Afterwards my girlfriends took me out for a night on the town in Laguna. Also news, I dyed my hair brunette. I love the change, and it is now closer to what I imagine my real hair color to be.

Me & Raveena @ Blue Laguna.

I ended the night snuggling my friend Candy's cat who has become my new best friend (second to my kitty Apple).

Detox

As much as I love having people over and hostessing this also entails consuming more alcohol than I normally would, mindlessly eating countless snacks, and needing more caffeine the next day just to keep me awake. This seems to have been my normal pattern so far this summer as I have been entertaining almost every night. Rather than continue on w/ my bad self, I have decided to do a detox before my next get together this Friday. In the past when I have done detoxes I have usually turned to the Master Cleanse. While this detox has had great results, I've lost excess pounds and felt great at the end, it is literally hell for the first few days. Subsisting on lemon juice (11 days was my max) makes you feel loopy, and leaves you w/ little energy, plus I have heard that it is bad for your liver

This time around I decided to do something less extreme and turn to a variation of a detox I found off of Gwyneth Paltrow's website, Goop. If you have not been to this site before I would highly suggest it- not only does she have great recipes and restaurant recommendations, but she also shares information about places to travel, fashion tips, and other miscellaneous bits of knowledge. The detox that I am trying is based off of Dr. Alejandro Junger's book Clean which I have tried to purchase, but it has been sold out at every Barnes & Noble I have visited. The detox can be found here but the main point is to cut out products that interfere w/ the detox process and to consume mostly juices and shakes so that the digestive system doesn't have to do as much work. Plus drink LOTS of aqua.

So here are the no no's...

No: dairy, grains with gluten, meat, shellfish, anything processed (including all soy products),fatty nuts, nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant), condiments, sugar and obviously no alcohol, caffeine or soda.

DAY 1:

Breakfast- smoothie ½ cup almond milk, ½ banana, ½ tablespoon almond butter w/ roasted flax seeds, ice .Oops i broke the fatty nut rule already, way to start out the first meal of the first day of the detox.

Lunch- 2 cups of miso soup broth

Snack-8 oz carrot & apple juice from Juice it Up

Dinner (7PM)- Pea & asparagus soup.Variation of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Broccoli and Arugula Soup

Ingredients- 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 cloves garlic thinly sliced, 10 frozen asparagus spears (fresh would probably be even better), 1 cup frozen peas, 2 ½ cups water, ¼ teaspoon each coarse salts and freshly ground pepper, 1 cup arugula, ½ lemon

Directions: Heat the olive oil in a medium nonstick saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for just a minute. Add the asparagus and peas and cook for a minute. Add the water, salt and pepper, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cover. Cook for five minutes or so. Pour the soup into a blender and puree with the arugula until quite smooth. Be very careful when blending hot liquids; start slowly and work in batches if necessary (you don’t want the steam to blow the lid off). Serve the soup with a bit of fresh lemon- Makes 2 servings.

This soup was a bit meh, it lacked flavor but was refreshing none the less.

DAY 2:

Glass of lemon water first thing in the morning, which I have been starting off w/ everyday. This does not compare to coffee, but surprisingly my headaches stopped the second day. The caffeine withdrawals are not as bad as I thought they would be.

Breakfast PM- Banana & Blackberry Smoothie- ½ banana, ½ cup blackberries, 1 cup almond milk, ice

(post mixage)

Snack/Lunch- sunflower seeds...

and pineapples slices

Dinner- Green smoothie. Here is the recipe. This thing is supposed to work miracles. I was a little worried though at this point when my blender was overflowing w/ cilantro...

Despite the crazy amount of veggies in this smoothie the apple and banana made it sweet. This is now my new favorite.

Day 3:

*Sorry for the lack of pics, not sure what happened here.

10:30 AM- water w/ lemon

Breakfast- Green smoothie made the day before

Lunch- Pomegranate kombucha & more sunflower seeds

Dinner- Strawberry & Banana smoothie- 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, 1 cup almond milk, 1/2 banana, 1 TBS hemp protein, & ice.

I was proud of myself because even though I had girlfriends over in the evening and I supplied chardonnay, chips, and hummus I resisted! Truth be told it was not even that hard because I slurped down the above yummy smoothie instead.

Day 4:

10 AM- water w/ lemon

Breakfast (11AM)- Green smoothie

Lunch- Vita Coco...

and salted Pepitas! I'm a first timer to these and bought them today at Cost Plus World Market because I was starving. They are way delish.

Dinner- Salad w/ Carrot and Ginger dressing. I adopted this from the detox on goop, but let me just tell you now that this dressing is insane!! I also got to use my mom's magic bullet which is the most amazingly clever device ever, I need one next year in my house. Here is the recipe I used for the dressing-

Ingredients: 2 medium sized organic carrots roughly chopped, 1 clove of garlic chopped, 2 TBS roughly chopped fresh ginger, 1 TBS miso paste, 1 TBS balsamic vinaigrette, 1 TBS olive oil, 3 TBS water

- Put in a blender or bullet and blend away. The consistency is a bit thick- if you wanted it thinner you could add more olive oil or water.

I put the dressing on a large handful of arugula and 1/2 of an avocado. This tasted like heaven, it is very similar to the ginger dressing that they serve at sushi restaurants.

All in all this detox has not been too painful. I have been enjoying the smoothies, and have not felt like I have been out of it or lacking energy. On top of the above eats I have also been drinking lots of water w/ lemon throughout the day and having decaf herbal tea at night. The only day that has been difficult was today, but the pepitas saved me. Plus I got some new bikinis this week which are a great inspiration ; )