21-Day Detox Day 6: Lemony Tuscan Kale

It's Day 6 and I'm back at work and having zero problems concentrating on the tasks at hand. I spent much of Sunday night cooking my meals for today, so I was completely prepared. Working for a tech company has its perks. We have subsidized vending machines, free cereals and milks, free juices, and free sodas and a bi-weekly fruit delivery service, but the fruit isn't organic and I can taste the difference. Unfortunately, none of the foods available are worth eating even when I'm not on a cleanse. Therefore, I needed to make sure I packed plenty of food so I don't get hungry.

I made a large carafe of juice for the day, some of which I had with my Estrium Whey for breakfast.

Purple Haze (makes about 24-30oz)
1/2 red cabbage
5 carrots
1 cucumber
1/2 lemon
1 granny smith apple
10 stems of kale (leaves removed for Kale Chips, recipe below)
1/2 cup purslane
2 inch knob of ginger
2 cups of spinach

After breakfast, I felt satiated for a couple of hours. Once I felt hungry, I snacked on homemade kale chips. I've gotten Kale chips at the store before and they are super expensive, so I figured out how to make them at home at a fraction of the price. They key is to have your pantry stocked with a variety of spices. My favorite place to buy spices is the Spice House. It's about 20 mins from my in-laws house in Evanston and I always make a trip when we are visiting them.

Baked Kale Chips
Ingredients:
Torn leaves of a Kale (Red Russian, Curly)

Process:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Place torn Kale on a baking sheet covered with parchment (I am using a non-chlorinated one)

3. Sprinkle any desired spices and salt
4. Bake for 12-15 (keep an eye on it because if you overcook them, they'll taste bitter)
5. Enjoy!

For lunch, I made an iteration of my Kale, Leeks and Ginger but with Lacinato Kale and Swiss Chard. Here are a few pictures:

Dinner was one of my favorite meals so far. I got tired of using Bragg's Raw Apple Cider Vinegar in all my dishes and opted to use good old-fashioned lemon juice! The result was a delicious Lacinato Kale dish that reminded me of dish I recently had at Chris Consentino's Incanto in San Francisco.

Lemony Tuscan Kale
Ingredients:
1 bunch of Lacinato (Tuscan) Kale
1.5 tbsp oil olive oil
juice of 1/3 lemon
salt & pepper to taste

Process:
1. Heat oil, add cut up kale
2. Once Kale is cooked give it a squeeze of lemon juice and add salt and pepper to taste
3. Enjoy!

Day 6 is in the books! That means only one more day and I get to have some meat! Can you tell that I'm really looking forward to that???

Bonus Recipe:
In trying to figure out what to do with all the juicer pulp, I came up with this Grain Free, Vegan Recipe.

Juicer Pulp Cupcakes (makes 12)
Ingredients:
3 cups juicer pulp (carrots, plums, peaches, beets, spinach, celery)

3/4 cups coconut flour

1 tbsp flaxseed meal or chai seed (flax has lots of phytoestrogens so chai is much better for men) mixed with 6 tbsp of water

2 tablespoons honey

12 drops stevia

2 tsp cake spice

1 tbsp vanilla powder

3 tbsp ghee

Process:

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix on medium until it looks like this:

2. You can use an ice cream scoop to measure enough batter to fill a cupcake tin.

3. Bake 350 for 20-22 mins.
4. Cupcakes will like this once baked

5. Enjoy!