Monthly Archives: January 2012

Wild Rose D-tox, Day 11 & 12: Losing steam…

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Some say that Day 3 or 4 are the hardest when you are dieting or on a detox. Any sort of limitation always gets you thinking more about exactly what you cannot have.

Lunch on day 11: Pan-fried tofu with African Chicken sauce and baby bok choy with garlic

But I say the hardest days are the final ones. After all the days of hard work, towards the end of it you start making excuses for little cheats, you say to yourself, “There’s no harm if there is a little bit of vinegar on my salad, is there? The kitchen made a mistake, and I can’t very well send the dish back just because I neglected to mention that my detox stipulates that I shouldn’t eat it…?” Or you start getting very confident, and when your friend asks you if you can come to a wine tasting dinner that he’s organising, you feel confident that you can sit there and watch everyone drink, talk about, and enjoy glass after glass of wine – “Sure! I’ve come this far, of course I’ll be able to drink Perrier all night!”

Yeah. Right. That would be a big N-O. That’s where I lost it last Friday night, sitting in Red Tavern with 5 other people and 5 bottles of wine.

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Wild Rose Detox, Day 9 & 10: African Chicken Stew for the soul

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On Day 10, I wanted to try a new tasty recipe. After days of salad and salmon, salad and chicken, salad and salad, I needed something complex, with layers of flavour, something warm for this freezing cold weather, and something comforting. At the same time, it needed to be light, and more Section 2&3, less Section 1 (if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, click here) . I came up with African Chicken Stew – vegetable based, with no cream or wine. I found a wonderful recipe that could be played with to adhere to the detox. The main building blocks are onions, tomatoes, chili and cumin. It’s a stew that’s so healthy, it smiles 🙂 Continue reading →

Wild Rose D-tox, Days 4,5,6,7 & 8: More slacking, less cooking

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 恭喜发财！新年快乐！
身体健康！万事如意！
 
If I may take a little break from the matter at hand, I’d like to wish Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! May this lucky Year of the Dragon bring happiness and good fortune to you all. I’ve just been online to try and determine what sort of year this is going to be for me. Despite the fact that I’m half Chinese, I don’t really know much about solar and lunar calendars, what my ba zi  element is – I only just found out there is such a thing as a ba zi element when I went online and googled my fortune…!
If you, like me, are interested in a basic analysis of your fortune this year but the only thing you know is your zodiac sign, this is the website I was directed to. You can use this link to find out what your true element is, and whether it is weak or strong. I’m not sure in the slightest that it’s actually accurate, but it turns out that this is supposed to be one of the best years for me, a weak yang Wood Rooster 🙂

I must say I feel I’ve let you down a bit and have lost a bit of momentum in my creativity, in terms of the food that I’ve been preparing for this blog. I was hoping that I could come out with recipes that made you go “WOW!” every day, but some days, all I feel like eating are a simple salad or a piece of fruit. Continue reading →

Wild Rose Detox, Day 3 – Fish Day!

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Breakfast: Carrot, Apple and Pear Juice…again

I know the detox recommends vegetable juices and not fruit juices, and since Day 1 I’ve been trying to find a happy medium between the two. To me, the idea of ‘juicing’ carrot, celery, tomatoes and lettuce and drinking it seems bizarre, and I wonder who came up with doing that in the first place!

Nonetheless, in the interests of experimentation (I’ve certainly become more open to trying since I started detoxing), I have upped my carrot intake. My Day 1 juice consisted of 2 carrots, 6 apples and 4 pears – I didn’t drink it all, my family saw me juicing and after having my one glass, they drank the rest of it dry!

 My juice today contained 4 carrots, 2 apples and 2 pears – it was still delightful. 5 carrots tomorrow!

 Lunch: Baked Salmon fillet, quinoa and avocado salad

For lunch, I tried to recreate a dish that I’ve eaten at the Pure Restaurant in Soho – it was divine, and such a smart way to mix flavours and textures to make a really satisfying meal. I couldn’t make it look as pretty as they do, but it certainly tasted just as good! Not bad for healthy food!

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Wild Rose Detox, Day 2: Is this detox for you?

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Breakfast: Raspberry, soy milk and apple juice smoothie

Lunch: ‘Autumn salad’ with spinach, pumpkin, brussel sprouts and roast chicken in an olive oil, lemon and shallot dressing
Dinner: Another autumn salad (!) slightly modified by adding tomatoes and cajun-spiced chicken

Day 2 of the detox has been slightly more challenging that Day 1, and it leads me to recall some of difficulties involved! Even though this is not such a restrictive diet, it is quite difficult to maintain if you are not prepared. Tonight, I stared blankly at the supermarket shelves, waiting to be inspired about what I will eat tomorrow for lunch and dinner. You always have to be a couple of steps ahead, or else you risk falling off the wagon, or starving! Food can soon become quite boring when you eat the same thing for several meals in a row. Although it is certainly easier to cook up a large batch and eat it over 3-4 days, you will start to find it a bit tedious, and all of a sudden want something as crazy as a triple cheese meatlovers pizza, or something as simple as a slice of buttered toast with melted cheese. Yum… Continue reading →

Wild Rose Detox, Day 1: What you can and can’t eat

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Day 1 is over and I’m doing well so far! Below is a table I’ve made of the foods that I should be eating and shouldn’t be eating, and have stuck it by my work computer and on my fridge at home. I’m finding it fun and helpful to highlight all of the items that I’ve used as ingredients, so I can try to control the amount of each that I’m eating. I also section off my plate into a pie, so to speak, and only have Section 1 Foods covering a small slice of it.

If you know the ins and outs of this detox, and you’ve figured out whether or not this detox is for you, then here’s what you can and cannot eat:

The Detox recommends that you eat 80% alkaline and neutral foods in your diet (Sections 2&3), and limit your intake of acid forming foods to 20% (Section 1). Continue reading →

Wild Rose Herbal D-tox – a quick introduction

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After indulging rather extravagantly over the holiday season (i’ve only just worked off the last bit of fondue!)…

It’s detox time!

I have previously tried The Wild Rose Herbal D-tox program as well as the Master Cleanse, in an attempt to be healthy and lose weight while doing it. I must admit that I ‘attempted’ the Master Cleanse more to lose weight quickly rather than detoxify. I say ‘attempt’ because I found the water, lemon, paprika and maple syrup concoction utterly disgusting, and thus didn’t drink enough of it. Even if I had managed it, and even though some swear by the master cleanse and do it 3-4 times a year (for up to two weeks each time!), I found it to be the most unhealthy way to be ‘healthy’. Needless to say, I managed 3 days and promptly ended it one morning with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. I tell you, it was like mana from the gods, orange juice has never tasted so good! Continue reading →

Paris – bon appetit!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! May 2012 bring you happiness and health with good friends, yummy food and excellent wine! A new year, a new blog post. I feel bad to have neglected this little passion of mine, I could blame it on a number of things – work, traveling, the holiday season, and that crazily addictive series of Game of Thrones books that I just cannot put down! I’m literally hiding my current book under the bed to write this. Many thanks to WS for the thumbs up on Saturday night, and encouraging me to get back on the wagon! All the while, I have been taking countless photos of food, and have lots of posts on the back-burner. But for now, I’ll start with my latest adventure – Paris.
Looking down Place de la Concorde
Driving around L’Arc de Triomphe
Aaaaaaaah Paris! There are many, many, advantages of dating a Frenchman, but one on the top of my list has got to be having an excuse to visit his homeland. The food, the wine, the art, enjoying all the simple pleasures in life – such is the splendor of France. Never will you ever catch me complaining about taking a 12 hour flight to spend time with his family.