Detox: Day Four (or: Damn I Want Some Baklava)

It started last night.

Honey, whispered my taste buds.  We want honey.

"No, taste buds.  Honey is very specifically on the NO list."

Ooo, yeah, honey!  Piped up my teeth and jaw.  But more specifically we want it in the form of baklava, with all its tender flaky squooshie goodness.

"Seriously, you guys?  It's day three.  Waaaay too early for this cravings business."

And yet.  Baklava has remained on my brain for the twenty-three hours between then and now. I even googled "gluten-free phyllo" at work (I was more than a little terrified that it would be one of those non-duplicate-able items, but I found a few recipes that I'll try out in two-and-a-half-weeks).

So I'm pretty sure that the first thing I'll be letting back into my diet will be honey.

One of the other things I was trying to figure out today was how to deal with the absolutely disgusting experience that is my consumption of the RepairVite supplement.  I mean it is foul.  Most especially so because it's supposedly "latte flavored" and I cannot stand the taste of coffee.  It's my own personal torture every morning and evening, and I hold my breath and repeat to myself (through gritted teeth):

"I can do anything for three weeks."

Anyway I searched "RepairVite is disgusting", and although I didn't find any solutions, I did find a new blog to read: Life Without Bread and Butter.  Very good stuff (her writing, I mean), and she went through this detox, too (she has way more sensitivities to deal with than I do, so it helps to shut up my whiny, baklava-craving taste buds) and she also reported on what she ate each day, which means lots of exciting new inspiration for me.  Huzzay!

Speaking of exciting food...

Breakfast:  Four strips of peppered bacon
Lunch:  Four tiny mackintosh apples and four mandarin oranges (I forgot my "real" lunch, so I had to make due with my office fruit)
Dinner:  Roasted butternut squash and garlic soup

When I was making up my meal plan over the weekend, I knew  I would want some sort of butternut squash dish (they are in season and delicious).  Trader Joe's didn't have any when we made our grocery run on Saturday, so last night I went out and bought some, and then today I scoured the internet for an appropriate jumping-off-recipe.  I found one over at The Picky Vegan, but we made some modifications.  Here's what we did:

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
1.5 heads of garlic, intact but with the top sliced off
several handfuls of baby carrots (probably around 3 cups?)
olive oil
 1/2 sweet onion, diced
1.5 tbsp fresh grated ginger
5 cups water
2 tsp curry powder
salt
pepper

Instructions

Heat oven to 400
add squash and olive oil to one pan, toss
create foil packet to put in another pan, add carrots and toss with olive oil, seal packet
create foil packet for garlic, drizzle with olive oil, seal
put all in oven, check at 30 min (garlic may be done)

Are you done, garlic??

stir squash chunks, leave in an additional 30 min or until tender, remove all

Nathan checking for tenderness

 spray dutch oven (we used our  new coconut cooking spray- so good!) over heat, saute onion until fragrant
add ginger and saute additional 15 seconds
add water
add roasted items and curry (note: we really like curry, so you may  not want to use as much as we did), salt, and pepper to taste
bring back to boil and simmer 15 min, stirring ocassionally

A moment of not-stirring

remove from heat, carefully add small amounts to blender and blend a little bit at a time, transferring to serving bowl as you go.

We are not kidding about the "careful" part

Serve and enjoy!

I might like it even better chilled...

Nathan wished he had some bread for his, and I wished I had some sour cream to dollop on top, but all in all it was a fantastic hit.  Of course, it did occur to me that possibly curry is on the NO list due to the presence of red pepper aka cayenne (I assume), so next time we make it (for our upcoming HalloWarming party) I will probably just go with turmeric or saffron...