THE CLEAN EATING PROJECT

so, i'm stealing the idea which made julie powell famous. she made her way through julia child's "mastering the art of french cooking". i love her book, i love the movie, i'm sure i would love her blog, and i love cooking.

i also love setting goals. making a discipline fun, rather than, "i can't have that", or "that's an illegal food". instead, how about a project that involves making my way through a delicious, healthy cookbook?

the one i choose is "clean start: inspiring you to eat clean and live well" by terry walters, author of best-selling "clean food". it's a gorgeous, hard-bound book with beautiful pictures and lots of interesting ingredients used, like arame, which is a sea vegetable. sounds intriguing. anything to distract me from the dismal, dead winter out there.

if i make my way through this book between now and the wedding, think of all that clean food i will have eaten! all those meals full of vegetables and protein-rich grains and fruits.

so here we go!

FOUR MONTHS TILL THE WEDDING (122 DAYS)
100 RECIPES

RECIPE #1: THURSDAY NIGHT, JANUARY 27
the first recipe i tried was page 34: SEARED ARTICHOKES WITH LEMON AND CAPERS. and what an incredible way to start. i have never eaten anything so decadent. i'm glad i was alone, because i was licking my fingers and making the worst smacking noises, and moaning at the table. i couldn't help it. i've always used canned artichoke hearts. i love the flavor and they're easy. the real artichokes seem like so much work, and i thought i'd have to peel and prepare so many to make just one recipe. no. i only prepared two and this recipe made a whole plate, which, that night, ended up being my entire meal. but if you served it with a meat and another vegetable, it would be perfect.

when i put the prepared and quartered artichokes into the boiling water, within 30 seconds, there was the most flavorful, rich aroma. almost like chicken stock or something. which leads me to believe that if you took that boiling water and started a homemade chicken stock or vegetable stock with that water, it would be incredible. worth trying. but the smell of those chokes cooking smelled nothing like the canned ones. i knew they were going to be a treat.

while those are boiling, you make a dressing and basically braise the boiled chokes in a pan, adding a little of the dressing at a time. the dressing is lemon juice and white wine and garlic and olive oil. i'm salivating!!! there are also capers, one of my favorite flavors.

the outcome was juicy, tangy, caramelized, bits of crunchy, then the hearts, soft and meaty. i couldn't believe how good a vegetable could be, without a cheese sauce or bacon on it. i mean, i eat healthy and i love vegetables. but we're talking petite filet mignon good. i'm not kidding. my fiance is religious about meat, so he might be skeptical of that statement, but i am very excited to try this recipe on him for valentine's day, WITH the filet mignon!! i mean the ring is already on the finger, but i might as well...

RECIPE #2: SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 30
just before chorale rehearsal, i made page 23: ROASTED CAULIFLOWER AND GARLIC SOUP. roasted cauliflower, a whole head of roasted garlic, which is so yummy, and some onion, and that's really it for main ingredients. i added one piece of ham i had frozen from Christmas. i also added a little cheese and made an herb drizzle i had been wanting to create.

i'm interested in trying this soup again today and see if it has the same effect on me as it did last night. i felt bloated and miserable all during rehearsal. couldn't digest the stuff. maybe cauliflower is too strong for my delicate and high-maintenance digestion? (i have a serious, life-long case of IBS). probably. but there's also a chance that i have to reintroduce vegetables back into my system, after eating crappier foods these last few days.

if you feel sick when you first eat a lot of veggies, keep eating them. your body will get used to them and everything will work like a charm!!!

too much information? well get used to it. my life is seriously affected by my digestion...

tonight, while the weather gets worse and worse out, i am going to try a springy salad, to help me forget that it's january 31st and they're calling for a foot of snow and ice.