Cleanse Day 2

I had a delicious night sleep last night and felt ready for a good yoga and meditation practice this morning. I was a bit stiff from my yoga class of Monday night, but some hip opening namaskars soon loosened me up. My daughter was home again today from school so I worked from home except for the 2 yoga classes I taught.

I took the time to make millet porridge for my breakfast. Until my first Wild Rose cleanse two years ago, I had never experienced millet before. Millet is one of the most recommended foods in the Wild Rose diet. It, brown rice and buckwheat should form the majority of the diet.

It's a shame that millet is not a better known grain. It has a great flavour and consistency. I would love to find more recipes for it. It's only downside is that it takes 25-30 minutes to cook. I usually cook enough to last a couple of meals but this morning, I just cooked a single portion. I topped the millet porridge with cashews, cardomom and soy milk.

Lunch was a revisit of yesterday's red lentil soup onto which I sprinkled cilantro and a few more cashews. I ate it with rice crackers again. I'll have to open a new box of rice crackers tomorrow!

For an afternoon snack, to fortify myself for the hot flow class I would teach at 5:45, I had popcorn and lemon ginger tea. My daughter had recovered enough to enjoy some too.

Dinner was late because I taught until 7:15. My daughter had the kitcheree I made yesterday (great convalescent food) while I made a quick dish of Lentils and Quinoa for myself (see recipe below).

One challenge I have on this diet is the recommendation to eat only two to three servings of legumes a week, as legumes are difficult to digest. Since I'm vegetarian and don't eat eggs, that would pretty much mean I'd have to live on nuts or not have a complete protein 4 days out of 7. However, since much of the world exists primarily on legumes, I can't see that it's a bad thing to eat them every day. Mung dahl (the key ingredient in kitcheree) is the easiest to digest of all legumes and therefore a common staple in ayurvedic cooking. I'll be eating a lot of it over the next week and a half. I just googled "easy to digest legumes" and found a claim from http://www.living-foods.com/ that adzuki beans are nearly as digestible as mung. So there's my first "lapse": I will be eating more than the recommended amount of legumes during this cleanse.


Lentils and Quinoa with Snow Peas

Serves: 3-4 people
Prep time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa
5 cups water
1 tsp salt

2 tbsp cooking oil or ghee
2 tsp black mustard seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp turmeric
2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp coriander

1 can lentils (with its liquid)
1/2 can diced tomatoes

1/2 cup snow peas
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste


Method:

1. Place the quinoa, water and salt into a pot, bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 20 minutes.


2. While the quinoa cooks, heat the oil or ghee in a frying pan on medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds and stir until the mustard seeds start to pop. Then add the coriander, ginger and turmeric and cook for another 1-2 minutes.


3. Add the tomatoes and lentils (including its liquid) to the spices. Lower the heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes.


4. Add the snow peas to the lentils mixture and simmer for another 4-5 minutes. Add the salt and pepper.


5. When the quinoa is cooked, spoon it onto a plate and add the lentil mixture on top. Enjoy!

Note: this dish can be prepared with onions & garlic instead of the Indian spices - I just prefer the Indian spices.