Detoxing day 2

While I did a fairly proper eat only fruit and veg day 1 detox, I knew that wouldn't be terribly realistic during the working week.  To get me off to a good start this morning though, I left some porridge oats steeping in milk last night and this morning at around half-seven had a cup of hot water with lemon juice, followed by a bowl of porridge with one teaspoon of sugar.  I woke up with a slight low-level headache and I hoped that kind of a substantial breakfast, along with just a little sugar, would help me to get over that.  It did help and luckily I had a very busy morning, unusually having to spend quite a bit of time away from my desk and running all over the building so I made it through the morning without any serious cravings.  By the time twelve o'clock came around though, I was properly hungry.  Since I wasn't having a proper lunch break today and just eating at my desk (because of leaving early) I didn't wait until my normal time of one o'clock and just dug into my salad there and then.  Oak leaf lettuce with some dried tomatoes and wild garlic and a simple vinaigrette.  I was terribly proud of myself for not stopping to get a bread roll to have with it, too.

My hunger wasn't quite sated but they do say you should only eat until you're about 80% full (or is it two-thirds? They say so many things!) so I just ate my apple and left it at that.  I also drank two cups of detox tea while I was in work, although I've decided to rename it makes-you-pee tea.  I was up three times during the night!  So while I do want to keep drinking the tea and avoiding junk for the rest of the week (that'll finish the box), I drank the third cup this evening shortly after seven in the hopes of getting a less disturbed night tonight.  Despite the headache I did wake up feeling pretty energetic so that's a positive anyway.

I think if I hadn't been leaving work at four o'clock I would have really struggled to stay away from the vending machine. I did eat three tictacs I had left in work, as well as a cough sweet as the headache returned an hour or so after lunch.  It's tricky finding the balance between getting through that initial period without going backwards or sabotaging yourself by forcing yourself to be miserable.   I headed off to the doctor and had my laser treatment.  It only lasts ten minutes so I was out of there just after five.  That's a whole hour earlier than I could even begin to think about leaving work at.  I made the best of it by stopping to pick up some pine nuts (5.99 for 60g - I remember why I never buy them!) and pecorino cheese so that I could make pesto with the rest of the wild garlic I had.  I found a recipe which didn't rely on exact quantities but gave measurements that were more useful to me.  And after a short break when I got home, during which I had two slices of bread, I got up and started doing stuff.  Hoovered and washed all the floors, cleaned the bathroom, pureed the soup, did all the washing up and made pesto.  Not bad for someone who suspected when she got home that her headache might stop her getting anything done.  I have a wash on the go and have just finished a portion of the Indian spices potato and veg soup that I made yesterday.

I think I'll definitely be trying this pesto recipe with some basil soon as well.  When the pine nuts are gone though I'll be trying variations with other less expensive nut options.  I wasn't well organised enough to have sterilised jars ready or patient enough to put it into ice-cube trays so have just put it in Tupperware in the fridge and will use it up in the next week or so.  Here's the basic recipe:

1 amount of wild garlic
Half that amount (in weight) of pine nuts
Match the weight of wild garlic and pine nuts with pecorino cheese (i.e. if you have 100g of wild garlic, it's 50g of pine nuts and then 150g of cheese).

I've heard before that the easiest way to make pesto is just to whizz it all up in a food processor but I have to agree with one commenter on the website I found the recipe on (which I cannot find again now) that the garlic won't be properly chopped in the food processor.  It'd be worth cutting the garlic separately and just pulsing it and the cheese shortly, together with the already chopped nuts.  I added in enough olive oil to get it going in the processor and then put it in Tupperware and added enough olive oil to cover.  I just had a taste of what got spilt on my fingers and it was delicious.  And the colour is fabulous, somehow far more green than the wild garlic was by itself.  I'm looking forward to using it soon.