My 15-Day Reboot, Part 1

I'm on a 15-day "reboot" right now, and day 3 is drawing to a close.  The decision to do this was inspired by my recent viewing of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  For those of you who haven't already seen it (and if you haven't, you should!  Find it on Netflix or check it out of the library!), the film follows a guy named Joe, who suffers from obesity and an autoimmune disorder and embarks upon a 60-day juice fast in an attempt to cure himself of both conditions.  The fast is a success, you see him lose weight as the film is being made, and about halfway through he inspires a random stranger, who is also obese and suffering from the same autoimmune disease, to do the 60-day juice fast. 

Since the film was completed, Joe has started this whole "reboot" concept - learn more on the Reboot Your Life website - which encourages people to embrace healthy eating and lifestyle changes by committing to a "reboot" in which they consume nothing but fruits and vegetables (as in no beans, no nuts, no grains), often in juice form only, so that the body can benefit from daily megadoses of phytonutrients.  I've been intrigued by the idea since watching the film, and I decided before running the Columbia Marathon that the second half of March would be the best time to give it a try, since I'm taking the rest of the month off from running and I just might benefit in ways I don't expect.  Last week I loaded up on protein (soy milk, cashews, big spoonfuls of peanut butter) because my sore muscles needed it right after the race.  Friday night Steve and I went to a St. Pat's pub crawl in the Vista, and my reboot started Saturday morning.  The "Classic Reboot" that I'm doing consists of 5 days of juicing plus eating fresh fruits and vegetables, 5 days of juice only and 5 days of juice plus eating.  I'm making up my own meal plans as I go and consuming however much I want while staying within the parameters of the reboot.

Since I went vegan a couple of months ago, I don't feel like I'm suffering as much as if I ate a lot of meat (or a lot of processed junk), but here and there it's been hard to deal with the hunger pangs.  As a runner - and as one who recently trained for and ran a marathon - I'm not used to letting myself go hungry.  I eat healthy snacks, but as a rule, as soon as I notice that I'm hungry, I take care of it.  At work this past weekend (days 1 and 2), I found myself having to gulp down extra water between juices, fruit snacks and meals in order to trick myself into thinking I was full.  Today I was off from work, so it wasn't so hard to poke my head in the fridge and see what I could snack on (like carrots) and to move around at my own relaxed pace, which I don't always get to do at work.  I'm thankful that I'll be off at least two of the five days of the juice fast, because I have a feeling that it's going to be rough.

Anyway, the Vegetarian Times must have caught wind of the fact that I bought four kabocha squash (similar to acorn squash) at Rosewood Market this morning, because this recipe showed up in my Facebook feed after I got home.  As soon as I saw it, I knew what I'd be making for dinner.  I mostly followed the recipe  but substituted fresh ginger, Rasam powder (a type of curry powder available in Indian grocery stores) and cayenne for the sherry and left the skin on the squash because it's perfectly edible and a colossal pain in the ass to peel when it's raw.  I found that by bringing it to a boil and then reducing the heat, rather than just bringing it to a simmer, it cooked even faster and was ready to go in the blender even before I was done getting everything together for the salad. 

The salad was simple: a couple of handfuls of spinach (one for each of us), about two ears' worth of baked husk-on corn, cut from the cob after cooling, one big, ripe tomato and one avocado.  Just arranged everything on two plates and poured over a dressing made of one tablespoon of lime juice, two tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Yumminess!  Plus I made a double batch of the soup, so there will be plenty more to enjoy during the next couple of days before the juice fast begins!

One nice thing about still being able to consume things like sweet potatoes and winter squash, the usual way or in juice form, is that they provide a little extra bulk and natural sugar, so you don't feel completely deprived.  I've felt pretty okay today, but my fingers are crossed that I'll make it through the juice fast without killing anyone...

Lima Beans and Turkey Smoked Sausage with Fresh Corn Polenta

This is about as country as my cooking gets.  I still had a bunch of veggies left from Thursday, and I'll get getting more in a couple of days.  I had no idea what I'd do with the lima beans at first; succotash came to mind, but for some reason I only ever want that in winter.  So, I hunted for a recipe and found this one, which called for chicken.  Since I just made chicken the other night, I figured I'd slightly alter the recipe to something just as flavorful (turkey smoked sausage) that wouldn't require so much effort.  Because of all the veggies I still had on hand, I almost made this without the smoked sausage so as to sneak in another veggie or two, but hey - make what you're in the mood for, right?

Lima beans with turkey smoked sausage:
2 cups fresh lima beans, rinsed and sorted
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp canola oil
8 oz. turkey smoked sausage, cut in half lengthwise and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 tbsp canola oil
3 mild banana peppers, finely chopped
2 tbsp flour
pepper to taste

Bring 3 cups of vegetable broth to a boil.  Add lima beans, cover and simmer on medium for 20 minutes.

In a wide, shallow pan, heat 2 tbsp canola oil over medium heat.  Add turkey smoked sausage and saute until warmed, about 3-5 minutes.  Add green bell pepper and continue cooking until smoked sausage begins to brown, another 5 minutes.  Transfer smoked sausage and bell pepper mixture to a plate, keeping as much of the pan drippings in the pan as possible, and set aside.

Add another tbsp canola oil to the pan.  Once heated, add banana peppers and saute on medium heat until they begin to brown, about 5 minutes.  Stir in 2 tbsp flour and continue cooking until flour-oil mixture begins to brown (stir often to keep it from burning).  Pour in cooked lima beans and all remaining broth and stir well.  Stir in reserved smoked sausage and bell peppers.  Continue to cook, uncovered, until sauce has thickened to desired consistency.  Check seasoning and add pepper to taste.

Fresh corn polenta:
3 ears fresh corn, baked with husks on
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Remove all husks and threads from corn after baking.  Cut corn off the cob using a serrated knife.  Place corn kernels in a blender with water and puree until smooth.  Pour polenta into a saucepan and heat to medium.  Stir constantly when it starts to bubble, and continue cooking, stirring often, until desired thickness is reached.  Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese.

The end result was okay, although my original plan had been to make the polenta thick enough to form wells on the plate and spoon the smoked sausage and lima beans into that, making it a somewhat more sophisticated take on Southern cooking.  Turns out that if you want to put corn in a blender, you need at least four ears' worth if you don't want to have to add liquid.  Oh, well.  On the bright side, I learned as we were finishing up that Steve was still pretty full from the chicken l'orange he had for lunch!

Corn Soup

Just when I thought I couldn't eat another bite of corn, no matter how good, I came across Martha Stewart's recipe in Food Everyday for Creamy Corn Soup in my quest for a basic corn chowder recipe.  Martha's recipe only has three ingredients besides water (corn, salt, butter), which was fine.  However, I had more than just fresh corn to dispense with this week: from Pinckney's I got four ears of corn, a pound of pink-eyed peas (which are like black-eyed peas, only different), two tomatoes, a couple of bell peppers and some beets (still undecided as to what I'll do with them). 

I also discovered, when I went out to water my herb and vegetable garden for the first time in at least a week (we got enough rainfall in between that I didn't have to), that I had one tomato, four peppers (including the one pictured below) and one oversized zucchini that were all ready for harvest. 

The tomato I used in the soup last night, and the fate of the other items will be decided tonight after work.

Here's how I made the soup:
4 cups water
2 tsp salt
1 lb pink-eyed peas, rinsed well and sorted
4 ears fresh corn, baked and husked
1 small tomato, peeled and diced
2 tsp frozen chopped cilantro  (use 2 tbsp if fresh)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil (at this point I dunked the tomato long enough to loosen the skin), add salt and pink-eyed peas.  Lower heat to medium and simmer, covered, about 25 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife.  Add corn and diced tomato to blender and puree until smooth.

Once beans have cooked, skim off any starch (bubbly white stuff) on the surface and add corn/tomato puree, cilantro and cayenne pepper.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, until bubbly (another 5-10 minutes).

This turned out a little thinner than I'd hoped.  Next time, I may add another chopped veggie or only use two cups of water with the beans and add more as needed.  But it tasted good, and the fresh corn provided the dominant flavor despite all the other stuff I added that Martha never mentioned in her recipe.  Perhaps if I get more corn this week, I'll make "polenta"-stuffed peppers using pureed corn?...

Vegetable soup

OK, I'm gonna say it - this was nothing special; just a use-stuff-up recipe.  I still had most of the potatoes, corn, pink-eyed peas, tomatoes and banana peppers that I received in my most recent Pinckney's stash before Thursday rolled around - and I wanted to ensure that I had something vegetarian for myself on the days when I didn't want any meat or dairy.

2 tbsp canola oil
3 mild banana peppers, gutted and diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
6 cups vegetable broth
1 lb fresh pink-eyed peas, rinsed
4 new potatoes, peeled and diced
1 ear of corn, cooked
2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 branch fresh rosemary
1 branch fresh thyme
6 basil leaves, torn
pepper to taste

In an 8 qt pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the banana peppers and saute until softened, about 3-5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring broth to a boil in a separate pot. Once it has boiled, add to the pot with the peppers along with the peas and diced potatoes. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Remove the husk from the corn and cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife. Add corn, tomatoes and herbs to the pot, cover and simmer another 30 minutes. Check seasoning and add pepper to taste.

If I make this again, I might make it heartier by using less broth.  (Chris Rock: 'cuz I sho' is hungry!)  Since the potatoes were diced, less liquid was needed to soften them up.  One pleasant surprise, was that most of the thyme fell off the branches while the soup cooked, so when I finally had some on Tuesday, I just had to fish the thyme and rosemary out of the pot and toss them in the compost bin, and the rest I packed up as leftovers.

Frogmore Stew!

Made this Sunday night.  It seemed like an obvious choice because of the potatoes and corn that came in last week’s Pinckney's stash along with the packages of shrimp and (turkey) smoked sausage in the freezer and my never-ending supply of spices and fresh herbs. The red potatoes, corn, smoked sausage and shrimp are all standard across the recipes that I found online. I sort-of went with this recipe because of its flexibility and used the following:



6 cloves garlic, chopped
4 red cayenne peppers, cut in half lengthwise
2 tsp ground Mexican oregano
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp salt
6 small new potatoes, washed (larger ones cut in half)
3 ears of corn, husked and cut in half
1 lb. turkey smoked sausage, sliced every 2 inches
1 lb. frozen shrimp

Bring 5-6 quarts of water to boil, add spices and potatoes and boil for 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender. Add smoked sausage and corn and boil another 10 minutes. Add shrimp, turn off heat, cover until shrimp have cooked through or warmed up, about 5-8 minutes. Drain and serve.

Traditionally, you’re supposed to pour the contents of the pot onto a table top covered with newspaper and let everyone eat with their hands. I wasn’t about to disgrace the antique dining table we inherited last year from

Steve’s aunt in that manner, but I did spread out a few pages from the Free Times for the photo. (Yep, it’s the article about Alvin Greene, “The Manning-Churian Candidate.”)

The cayennes were from a co-worker whose definition of “hot” differs dramatically from mine. Had I known that they would taste more like red poblanos, I would have added some cayenne or Yucateco green habanero sauce to the mix. Also, there are different spice preferences along the coastal areas of the Southeast. If I ever make this again, I think that, rather than make up my own seasoning blend (although this wasn’t bad), I’ll go with a sachet of Old Bay crab boil. I’ve made some of my best gumbo with it before and would expect it to do just as well in a Frogmore Stew. Enjoy!

Corn & feta salad and Italian green beans

Tonight was a light dinner because some of us weren't hungry...

Which worked out well enough, considering I still had string beans, corn and a tomato to use up and some recent reading suggested that our bones might be better off for it. The corn and feta salad was slightly different from last time, and it was so sweet that it seemed almost a shame to add salt and vinegar, but the sweetness still came through - the Pinckney's difference!

Corn and feta salad:
3 fresh ears of corn with husks
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 oz. feta, crumbled

Bake corn in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes and let cool for 5-10 minutes. Remove husks and any remaining threads of corn silk. Cut the corn off the cob with a serrated knife. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and then serve.

Green beans:2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed
salt and crushed red pepper to taste
1 vine-ripened tomato, diced

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add green beans, salt and crushed red pepper and stir to coat the green beans. Saute for 5 minutes. Add diced tomato, reduce heat slightly, cover and simmer until green beans are tender but not overcooked, about another 5 minutes.

Veggie Blue Plate Special

Tonight's challenge: use up the last 5 ounces of baby spinach, 2 of the 4 bell peppers in the fridge, the last ear of corn left over from last week, 1 tomato and 1 bunch of scallions. The obvious thing to do was to pretend we don't have any turkey smoked sausage, chicken or fish in the freezer and prepare a 3-veggie plate - tonight's blue plate special. This consisted of an encore presentation of the corn and feta salad plus the following two dishes:

Black-eyed peas, Italian-styleI'm not sure such a thing actually exists, but I pretended it did with my seasoning blend. These are great cooked in chicken broth, bu since I haven't gotten around to buying any yet, a little extra salt worked out just as well.

8 oz. frozen black-eyed peas, thawed
Salt to taste
1 bunch scallions (mostly the white part), thinly sliced
1 vine-ripened tomato, peeled and diced
2 tsp dried Italian herbs
1 tsp crushed red pepper or to taste

Place thawed black-eyed peas in a small (1 qt) saucepan, cover with water and add salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer covered. Peas will take about 20 minutes to cook, but check on them and add water if needed. During the last 5 minutes, add chopped tomato and onion along with Italian herbs and crushed red pepper.


Bell peppers stuffed with spinach risottoDon't really remember where this recipe came from; I'm thinking either Giada De Laurentiis or Emeril. Anyway, I also like to cook some chicken broth into the risotto when I have some, but extra salt was tonight's substitute here as well. I also like to saute some chopped onion in the olive oil before adding the rice, but since tonight's veggie plate featured onions in the other two dishes, I left them out of the risotto.

2 large bell peppers (red, orange or yellow look best with the risotto)
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups salted water
5 oz baby spinach (can also use 1/2 pkg frozen, thawed), chopped small
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/3 to 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Cut two bell peppers in half, remove hats, scoop out seeds and set aside on a shallow baking pan.

In a 1 or 2 qt saucepan, bring salted water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium.

In a separate 2-qt saucepan, eat the oil over medium heat. (Add the onion now, if using; saute for 2-3 minutes or until translucent.) Add rice and stir. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Begin adding salted water (or broth, if using) to the rice 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often. Once all water has been added to the rice and rice has taken on a creamy consistency (should take about 15-20 minutes), stir in the chopped spinach and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes in the hot rice. Add nutmeg and pepper and stir. Add Parmesan cheese and stir until it melts into the rice.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Use a soup spoon to fill the peppers with the risotto, pressing down in order to stuff the peppers. Sprinkle some more Parmesan over the tops.

Bake peppers in the oven for 20 minutes or until the Parmesan on top of the peppers turns golden brown.


To my credit (I guess), an entire hour has passed since we finished dinner, and Steve hasn't started snacking on boiled peanuts yet! I think I've figured out how we can both have enough to eat without meat being involved!

9 Veggies, 1 Soup, 1 Salad

After returning from a weekend camping trip, on which our food stores typically consist of pre-cooked chicken or turkey sausage, buns, Goldfish, Pop-tarts and pistachios, I noticed that I still had a ton of produce that might have been fun to bring along had our cold storage space not been mostly taken up by beer.

So…on hand I had a few beets, a trimmed bunch of mustard greens, one small head each of broccoli and cauliflower, spring onions, a few tomatoes, one cooked, husked and chilled ear of corn and a couple of carrots. Since I’m not able to cook every night of the week and didn’t want to spend all Sunday afternoon in the kitchen making several things to be consumed during the week, I took the easy way out and threw everything into a soup pot with a few cups of water and some partially cooked chana dal (dried split chick peas, available at Indian grocery stores). Here's what it looked like.


I have to say I was a bit disappointed in how much sweetness the beets added to the mix. Given the chance to do it all over, I think I would have nuked and then chilled the diced beets and then used them in a spinach, corn and feta salad served as part of a soup-and-salad combo. I might have also added a can of tomato paste or sauce for additional thickness and flavor. That said, here’s the soup-and-salad that I did end up making and what I used:


Corn and feta salad

This recipe is based on a cold side dish I used to enjoy at the now-defunct Birds on a Wire restaurant, located on Devine St. in Columbia until 2008 or 2009. Since the food was generally mediocre and the service worse, the only reason I really have for missing them is that I never learned how to make their black bean cake. Here’s a take on their corn and feta salad:

One ear fresh corn, baked with husk on and chilled
3-4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
green onions from one bulb of spring onions or one small bunch, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lime juice
pepper to taste

Once the ear of corn has chilled, peel off the husk and cut off the kernels with a serrated knife and discard the cob and husk.

Place the corn kernels in a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients and stir until blended. Spoon onto small plates and serve. (Serves 2-3)


Indian Sambhar-style mixed vegetable soup
For most of my Indian cooking, credit needs to be given to Alamelu Vairavan, whose Healthy South Indian Cooking** book I found in the book shop of the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2006. None of her sambhars, not even her Mixed Vegetable Sambhar (p. 175), actually call for this many veggies. However, given the consistent list of spices, I figured the basic configuration would allow for additions and substitutions.

4 cups water
1 cup (dry) chana dal*, pre-soaked for one hour
salt to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons urad dal*
2 tablespoons black mustard seeds*
2 large carrots, peeled and diced into ¼ inch cubes
4 small beets, peeled and diced into ¼ inch cubes
4 spring onion bulbs, chopped
1 head of broccoli (stems removed), chopped
1 head of cauliflower (stems removed), chopped
1 bunch mustard greens (12-15 large leaves), chopped into bite-size pieces and washed in several changes of cold water
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 tbsp sambhar powder* (like a mild curry powder)
Cayenne pepper to taste
*Can be purchased in Indian grocery stores.

Drain and rinse pre-soaked chana dal. Boil 4 cups of water in a 2-quart saucepan and add chana dal plus 1 tsp salt and turmeric. Cook covered for 20-30 minutes or until soft.

Heat the canola oil in an 8 qt pot over medium heat. When hot, but not smoking, add mustard seeds and urad dal. Cover pot and cook until mustard seeds pop and urad dal turns golden brown.

Add carrots and beets, stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add spring onions, stir and cook another 2-3 minutes.

Add broccoli and cauliflower, stir and cover for another 2-3 minutes.

Add cooked chana dal with their water and about 4 cups more water. Add tomatoes and mustard greens, pushing the greens down into the water with a large spoon. Stir in sambhar powder and cayenne (and more salt if needed), lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15 more minutes or until mustard greens have wilted.

Unsolicited testimonial: Steve was polite. To my pleasant surprise, given how seldom he eats corn by choice, he actually seemed to like the corn and feta salad. This ear of corn wasn’t especially sweet, so the kernels provided texture and just enough sweetness to complement the scallions and feta. Comments for the soup included “it’s pretty good” and something about each bite bursting with vitamins. Again, I found the beets to be a bit out of place in this soup because of the sweetness they added. Thankfully, they did not (at least not until the leftovers sat in the fridge overnight) discolor every other ingredient as I’d feared – just a few of the onions and carrots they cooked with in the beginning. Had I left out the beets, Indian spices and about half the greens and added tomato sauce and some Italian herbs, this actually would have made a great vegetarian minestrone. Will definitely make this again – just not the exact same way.

**Vairavan, A. and Marquardt, P. Healthy South Indian Cooking. New York: Hippocrene, 2001. ISBN 0-7818-0867-7