Daniel Fast: Week 1 Review
Congratulations! You're doing a great job! Keep up the good work! Last week turned out amazing and now we're even more excited with even more recipes! You must remember not to take the weekend off because just like with any diet you could eat great all week and blow it by devouring 3500 calories on a Saturday! So stay focused even on the weekends. Now we're going to take the training wheels off. You ready? Tomorrow we're celebrating Dr. King and his service to the community and we usually do that with a barbecue. Here are some substitutes for your barbecue.
MONDAY: HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY
Here are some great substitutes for your hot dogs and hamburgers! They're also perfect for the grill. Pair them with your favorite vegetable sides or some vegan Mac-n-Cheese and let the celebration begin! Feel free to make this pasta salad so you can have it for lunch the following day.
Now let's go over the upcoming week!
WEEK 2 RECIPES
TUESDAY
After that nice barbecue I think a copy cat Olive Garden Salad will reset our bodies and minds for the week. So start the day with oatmeal or your favorite fruit smoothie. Lunch should be something light like a veggie pasta salad. See how that works? If you didn't make the pasta salad with the barbecue you get to make it the following day. Now we're moving forward with our salad and backed potato for dinner.
See how fast we wrapped up Monday and Tuesday! This is getting a lot easier as we go along. Here's the recipe to your Copycat Olive Garden Salad. Feel free to eat the salad alone if you have the pasta salad for lunch. I would still do half the potato. Our scheduled meals are not too packed with carbohydrates so you'll be fine! We're eating light!
WEDNESDAY
This week I'm going to have a little more fun. If you have children who are participating they're going to love this! We're making our own pizza! This is for HUMP DAY, but would go great on a Saturday! First, find your crust. Either of these will do. I'm trying the cauliflower pizza crust this week.
Of course we're doing a vegetable pizza at my house especially because Week 1 has us feeling the difference! So lets hop right into it. I'm using sun dried tomatoes, broccoli, basil, corn, red onion, cherry tomatoes, and cashew cream. If you don't want to try the cashew cream you can also use an organic marinara that is not listed in the recipe! I'm not using the jalapeño, but feel free to.
Ingredients
- 1 small head broccoli, florets chopped into small pieces, top of stalk diced (½ cup)
- ⅓ cup halved cherry tomatoes
- kernels from 1 ear fresh corn
- ¼ cup coarsely chopped red onion
- ½ jalapeño, thinly sliced
- 4 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, diced
- extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling and brushing
- 1 (16-ounce) ball of pizza dough or vegan ready made crust
- ½ cup fresh basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
- pinches of red pepper flakes
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Cashew Cream
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 450°F.
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In a medium bowl, combine the broccoli, tomatoes, corn, onion, jalapeño, and sun-dried tomatoes and drizzle with olive oil and pinches of salt and pepper. Toss to coat and taste. The vegetables should be well-seasoned and well-coated with the olive oil so that the vegetables are flavorful throughout the pizza.
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Stretch the pizza dough onto a 14-inch pizza pan. Brush the outer edges of the dough lightly with olive oil and spoon a few scoops of cashew cream onto the center of the dough, just enough to spread it into a thin layer. Distribute the vegetables onto the dough.
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Bake 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden, cooked through, and the broccoli is tender and roasted. Remove from the oven and drizzle generously with the cashew cream (if your cashew cream is too thick to drizzle, stir in a little water). Top with the fresh basil, fresh thyme, and pinches of red pepper flakes.
If you would like to try a different recipe here are 50 Vegan Pizza Recipes! Enjoy!
THURSDAY
This will be my first time trying lentils so bare with me. I once had some at a dinner party and I haven't been able to get them out of my mind. I found one recipe that seems close to it because I remember the taste of each ingredient so vividly. Once I master this it will become a staple in our household. For one, what are lentils? I only heard of it a few years ago when I first started doing this fast.
They are small legumes and range in color from brown to green, red to yellow, and sometimes even black. Along with beans, peanuts, and peas, lentils grow in pods. They’re high in protein and delicious in soups, stews and on their own in vegetarian and spicy Indian dishes, most famously, dal. This is something completely new for me, culturally. But this has potential to be a holiday favorite!
Try the recipe. Make it your own and have fun! It's new so make a small pot to see how your taste buds react! Thank me later!
Friday and Saturday
The weekend will be replayed each week. For those with children you may already know these because your children like chicken nuggets, but if you haven't, you're going to love them.
These products are delicious! But remember, this is your short cut. You could always cut up the sweet potatoes yourself. Regular fries are fine too as long as you bake them. No fried foods. Use your own interpretation of that. You can use vegetable oil to sauté or flash fry. You can also make your own chicken nuggets with jack fruit.
Vegan Mac-N-Cheese would be awesome with this. If you're like me and get a bit self-conscious about the carbs, there's a better way! Not only can you use a vegan cheese, but you can also use Banza pasta which is made from chick peas. Below, Banza has already done it for you!
Also on the weekend I like a fajita bowl or veggie taco with plant based crumble.
Enjoy!
Sunday
I'm making greens just because it's a Sunday Dinner type of recipe and it cleans everybody out! I haven't had it in a while. I'm sure you all don't need the recipe because you can use grandmama recipe minus the meat, but here's one for those that do!
Come on back now y'all! I want to know how you like the recipes and track your weight too! The next article will be about the prayers and affirmations to use during this time!