September Challenge: Two Weeks Down, Two to Go!

I unfortunately don't have many new photos to post today. Only two, from dinner last night. We went out for Marielle's parents' 35th wedding anniversary, to Aroma Meze. It's an upscale Greek tapas place, where we had a private room and a set menu planned by the chef. He was told that there would be two people on a detox at the table, and invited me to call him to work something out! We ended up with a fantastic array of dishes:

- dolmades (grape leaves stuffed with dill-herbed rice and sheep's milk yogurt)
- a delicious dip called Spanakomizithra, which was a blend of spinach, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic and almonds
- zucchini fritters with tzatziki and cucumber
- chicken breast scaloppini stuffed with spinach and feta with an avgolemono sauce (egg and lemon)
- sesame seared feta drizzled in honey

We probably could've eaten more--I think we were fairly satisfied until we realized that we were done our set menu but the rest of the table was only about halfway through theirs. And all of it looked delicious! (They had dolmades as well, a Greek salad, the chicken scaloppini, phyllo pastries filled with a variety of fillings, cheese flambé, shrimp flambé, a mixed sausage platter, duck confit, calamari, Medjool dates filled with gorgonzola, foie gras, with a candied walnut on top... I'm probably forgetting something too.) But it was nice to leave a restaurant without a food baby for a change, and we could've snacked when we got home if we wanted, but it turned out we actually were completely satisfied.

These are the only two dishes we have photos of (the dolmades, and the sesame-seared feta, which I think was the unanimous favourite from our menu).

Other than that, things are going well. There are still things I'm dropping the ball on (yoga, meditation, keeping up my handwritten detox journal) but food-wise, everything is a-ok. We went off a little this weekend both nights (we had a little dinner party on Friday night with two friends, and had some wine as well as a cupcake and some beet loaf for dessert. The cupcakes weren't too bad but the icing certainly wasn't on the program, and the beet loaf was organic and delicious but did have some spelt flour in it). And then last night, the zucchini fritters and chicken scaloppini weren't 100% Joshi-friendly because of some light breading. But neither of us is too concerned.

Normally we do the Joshi detox for 21 days, as suggested in his book, so since we're tacking an extra nine days onto that, I don't think it's the end of the world that we went off a tiny bit. We're having a dinner party again next Saturday--this time with my parents and grandmother--but we're sticking to an entirely detox menu. I'll make sure to take photos and update afterwards!

Today is Sunday, meaning we have to flush our livers this morning and then head back to bed. Not going to lie, I really need it this morning. We went to bed after midnight and I was up at 6.30am for no apparent reason. I'm hoping to nap during our mandatory rest time, and I might wake Marielle up shortly to get this show on the road.

Afterwards, I plan to make two kinds of soup (smoky split pea with leek and curried cauliflower purée) as well as our favourite tahini-lemon detox dressing. We made our meal plan for the week yesterday before doing groceries and decided to make a chicken shawarma style dinner tonight:

- chicken thighs, baked with seasonings and sliced super thin
- brown rice, cooked normally but then thrown into a frying pan with a little olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and lots of green onion
- sliced onions with sumac
- big green salad with feta
- a blob of hummus and everything drizzled with the tahini-lemon dressing

Yum! Can't wait! We've also been dying to make baked falafel--I think we'll try that on Friday night. Either baked falafel or Asian lettuce wraps with ground turkey, sprouts, onion, etc.

My goal for this week is to try to do something in the morning before work, whether it's walking Tyson, doing a short yoga DVD, or just journaling and doing a bit of a meditation. Maybe just three times at least. If I shower at night I can get up at six in the morning and have a whole hour before I have to start getting ready. Sounds do-able.

We also might go through our closets today and switch out our summer and winter wardrobes. It's that time of  year already! Christmas is in three short months! Amazing. Hard to imagine it, with the sun shining outside, trees still full of healthy green leaves (though some have a couple of gold and red leaves peaking through here and there), and not a cloud in the sky.

Time for a nice morning walk! Hope Marielle isn't too cozy in there...