First Cleanse FAIL

Before we go any further, I want to clarify that Ted and I have not failed; we're actually doing quite well with our cleanse so far!

But last night's dinner recipe was the first one that was. not. edible.

So far our days look something like this:

• 32 oz of warm lemon water first thing in the morning

• 32 oz green smoothie, like so:

• Lunch is leftovers from dinner the night before.

• Dinner (and all other recipes) is whatever is recommended in our cleanse book.

• 8 oz warm lemon water to end the day

Last night's dinner was to be Cauliflower Mashers with Mushroom Gravy. I was excited. This is essentially the healthier version of mashed potatoes with gravy. Yum! A warm, "comfort food" dinner!

Things started off promising. I cut up an entire head of cauliflower, thinking all along that this is going to be a major dose of veggies - score! That got processed in the food processor with some onion, olive oil, etc.

I rehydrated some dried crimini mushrooms and reserved the mushroom water for the gravy (I'm so smart, I thought. This is going to be extra yummy gravy!).

Once the cauliflower mixture was well processed it went into a big bowl. It looks just like mashed potatoes! I'm so excited for this meal!

But meanwhile I'm trying to ignore the fact that this pile of mashed cauliflower smells reminiscent of the inside of a jack-o-lantern.... Maybe the gravy will mask the odor. I'm sure it will taste great!

The directions in the recipe were to process the mushrooms with some water and other ingredients to make it tasty. Which I did. Then I was directed to pour the gravy over the mashed cauliflower and enjoy! Except my gravy didn't really pour....

Ted advised against posting this photo on the blog.

This is the point at which we should have just scrapped this whole project and ordered a pizza. Keep in mind that we are famished at this point and have been looking forward to dinner for the past hour.

But we remained strong! No pizza was ordered! We were told at the start of the cleanse to try new things, so we did!

And it. was. AWFUL.

Ted managed to choke down a whole bowl of it with a look of determination on his face, but I couldn't even stand the smell of it. It was really, really terrible. Raw cauliflower mashers? Raw mushroom "gravy"? What was I thinking?! Of course it was horrible! Those are two things I would NEVER eat raw! Well, maybe mushrooms, but still.

In the end, I found a leftover beet to eat for dinner, and we sustained ourselves with homemade black bean hummus, which I had had the foresight to make earlier in the day. Thank God.

Yay for us, though! We were met with a challenge and stayed true to the cleanse. :)

Next challenge:  We leave for Bend, Oregon this afternoon for the family reunion. You can look forward to some posts about that over the next few days!