I have a confession....

I like to cook. There I said it. I like it, and I am kinda getting good at it. I would feed you if you came to my house, and I wouldn't be afraid of killing you! I think I might even be better than my sister who used to be awesome at cooking. She had tried my food and has raved about it. The thing is, I keep it pretty simple, but I am working on it.
In my Bountiful Basket a couple weeks ago I got an eggplant. What the heck? Before I tell you what I did with the eggplant I want to start a discussion. So I was talking to somebody the other day about how if your parents don't like something you probably haven't even tried it. Like my mom does not like artichokes, I think I was well into college the first time I had one of those. I LOVE THEM. It makes me wonder what my kids wont eat....besides meat. I have a friend who is very careful about what food she gives to her little boy. He is a very healthy eater. In fact a funny thing that happened the other day was that they had gotten the kids pizza at the daycare he goes to, they also gave the kids some cut up carrots along with the pizza. Most kids just went strait for the pizza and didn't even touch the carrots, or a few tried some after the pizza, but my friends little boy went strait for the carrots first and only had a little pizza after that. I thought that was so great. Train them young I guess.
Wow long story long.
I got this eggplant and did not know what the heck to do with it. After researching some recipes online I found something I thought I would give a try. I changed it a little bit. Even though it doesn't really look that appetizing, it was yummy.


I cut the eggplant and coated the slices with olive oil and some salt and baked them for about 30 minutes on 300. ( Some of the slices I cut to thin and they got a little too crispy)


Meanwhile I got out my most favorite Christmas present ever. I use it a lot. Santa would be so proud. I threw in a few cloves of garlic and some olive oil and let the food processor do its job. If I was making this for anybody else I would use less garlic, but I like it. What I forgot to take a picture of was all the other stuff I put in this baby. I threw some tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, and Parmesan cheese and mixed it together as well as the eggplant when it was done baking.


Then I got some of this bread. I forgot what its called, and put my concoction on each piece. Then I threw it in the oven for 20 minutes.

I took it out and threw some mozzarella cheese on it and set the oven to broil to melt the cheese.


And this was the end result, yummy and relatively healthy appetizers.

Update

So far the cleanse is going good. I have already dropped a few pounds, so I am back on track with the weight loss.
Something I have discovered though is that I really like eating this way. Especially the raw way. I think I might just continue it, just not to the extreme. I haven't missed all the processed foods that I normally eat.

Detox

So, I posted on Saturday night about wanting to do this 5 day cleanse and then I took it down. Why you ask? Well....
So I set a schedule starting with an all water fast on Sunday. I was doing good all yesterday, I even went to a couple movies so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat, so I get home and its getting close to 9:00pm and I caved and had some artichokes. But not just artichokes, but artichokes dipped in butter (vegan butter-as if that excuses anything) and garlic. By the way, garlic smell is not a good look on anybody. I guess I know how to keep my annoying boss out of my office today.
So anyway I kinda botched the fast and made up my mind to not do the cleanse. But it totally rubbed me the wrong way all night. To error is human right? So I am going ahead with the cleanse as planned.
So before you get all freaked out by what I am doing, its a good one. I am not taking any celebrity endorsed products or medicine, just a program that I made up by doing some research.
Sunday- Water all day (oops except for a couple of artichokes)
Monday and Tuesday- Just juice. So when I say this, I mean I ground up a bunch of fruits and veggies into my food processor along with some distilled water. Today's juice is all about the carrots, celery, mango's, strawberry's and a banana thrown in. It was yum and surprising filling. I had to make a big batch because of work, so the other half is in my mini fridge here by my desk.
Wednesday-Friday is an all raw fruits and veggies. That just means nothing cooked.
I also can have as much water as I want this whole week. Hopefully this cleanse will get my body feeling refreshed and get my diet back on track.
Wish me luck.