Day Three: Modified Daniel Fast

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

It was another early day, leaving for a doctor’s appointment by 7:15 a.m. For a mama who generally sleeps until 8, these two days have been a challenge, coming back to back as they did. Breakfast was 7-grain Kashi (you can tell it has no sugar by the taste!), with dried cranberries and dried blueberries mixed in, and coconut milk. My Mother-in-law gave us her dehydrator yesterday, so I’ve been busy dehydrating everything in sight! Fun stuff! Have you ever used a dehydrator? Any tips or tricks to suggest?

When I got home from the doctors offices, I started working on some more advanced recipes from the Daniel Fast book, with the idea of both using the ingredients I bought yesterday, and also giving myself more healthy and tasty options to work with.  The first thing I tried was Broiled Polenta Crisps. They are WONDERFUL, and especially taste yummy with Aldi pesto!

I’m looking forward to trying them with either black bean dip or spinach artichoke dip, too. They were incredibly easy, too, since I bought pre-cooked polenta in a roll (similar to sausage) at Sprouts, and just sliced it with my wire cheese slicer before broiling it for 15 minutes on each side. AAAhhhh-mazing!

Another win was with the flatbread, which turned out well enough, although I think it would be better if I had a true grain mill to make finer brown rice flour. My flour had pretty big pieces of rice still. I’m thinking the flatbread will be good with the same things as the polenta, listed above. I’ll probably make some with cinnamon, too, instead of the garlic and basil, so I can use it with nut butter or date honey.

Speaking of date honey, I think that is my favorite recipe so far. It is so simple! Simmer dates in water for 20 minutes or until they start to break down, then run them through the food processor and add cinnamon if you want. It makes a creamy, sweet spread (much like apple butter), or sweetener (for use in baked goods like granola or cookies). UUnn… believable! I love it! J

For dinner, I made the Antipasto Pizza Pie (although we were out of artichokes, and our local Aldi did not have them in stock) and my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it! In fact, he took the rest of it as leftovers for his lunch at work. It had a yummy brown rice crust, which I brushed with pesto, just because pesto is amazing stuff. Since I didn’t have the artichokes, I used Aldi pasta sauce for the pizza sauce, then filled in with sliced black olives, diced green pepper and onion, then used grated tofu as the “cheese” substitute, as called for in the recipe. I was amazed by how tasty it was!

The family had leftover strawberry shortcake (from Sunday's family dinner) for dessert with whipped cream, and they’ve been drinking milk at every meal (because otherwise, it might go bad, since I’m not drinking any)… so I’ve been facing a lot of temptation! I used 2 oz of unsweetened apple juice to take my pills, but otherwise am drinking water (just the 32 oz I’m allowed) throughout the day. I still think cow’s milk is the thing I miss the most! But it is an easy thing to sacrifice, for the sake of worshiping God through this fast.

Another thing God brought to my attention today was that I’m still over-eating, even though I’m eating healthy stuff. I’m grazing… from dried fruit, to broiled polenta, to carrot sticks, or broccoli and cauliflower with hummus… I’m not actually allowing myself to get hungry throughout the day, since I’m constantly ingesting food. That’s something I was prompted to change, and have renewed my commitment to eating only when hungry, and only the meal or snack that was planned… not just whatever food my hand lands on! :-)