recipes for food and detox

As promised, here are recipes for

• Julia Child's Boston Baked Beans (for the slow cooker)
  
• Bob's Red Mill Coffee Can Boston Brown Bread
• 100% whole wheat bread
• and a special recipe for a one-day detox, courtesy of You Are What You Eat Magazine

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Julia Child's Boston Baked Beans, from "The Way to Cook" p. 335
serves 6-8

As Julia herself says, because these are cooked slowly in a slow cooker, there is "no soaking, no fussing, just dump everything into the pot and away you go; come back the next morning and the beans are done."

**Note: I am leaving out the salt pork called for in this recipe. You may want to add things like liquid smoke or fake bacon to replace it, but I've had no problem just omitting it.**

Ok, this is really simple... are you ready?...

Put into your slow cooker the following ingredients in the following order:

2 cups small white beans, well picked over and washed (no soaking necessary)
5 cups water
1 1/2 tsp. salt (you can probably increase this to taste since you are leaving out the salt pork)
1 cup finely sliced onions
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 TB dark unsulphured molasses
2 TB Dijon-style prepared mustard
1/2 tsp. thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 TB grated fresh ginger
6 grinds of black pepper

Stir around, and cook on low heat for 12 to 14 hours. This long cooking time ensures a deep, rich, almost caramelized bean. Your house will smell awesome!

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Bob's Red Mill Coffee Can Boston Brown Bread, from http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipe/detail.php?rid=919

Traditionally, Boston Baked Beans are best served with Boston Brown Bread, steamed old-school style in a 1 lb. coffee tin.

This is copied straight out of the website:

Boston Brown Bread is different from the other breads because it is cooked by steaming rather than baked in an oven. It has a wonderful, satisfying flavor and is traditionally served with baked beans.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Rye Flour, Dark, Organic

1/2 cup Cornmeal, Medium Grind

1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/3 cup Dark Molasses

1 cup Buttermilk (note: to make vegan buttermilk, add 1-2 tsp. vinegar to 1 scant cup of soymilk)

1/2 tsp. Salt

Mix the rye flour, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Stir with a fork to lighten and mix. Add the molasses and buttermilk, and blend well. The batter should be the consistency of pancake batter.

Butter a 1-quart pudding mold or a 13-ounce coffee can and pour in the batter, filling the mold no more than two-thirds full. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and place in a deep kettle. Add boiling water half-way up the mold. Cover the kettle and steam for about 1-1/2 hours over medium heat, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the bread. Remove mold or can from kettle and cool on rack for 5 minutes. Then remove bread from the container and serve warm.

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100% whole wheat bread, from the back of a bag of Arrowhead Mills whole wheat flour
yield: 1 9" x 5" loaf

As a novice home bread baker, I was impressed by this simple, detox-friendly, and delicious bread.

4 to 5 cups whole wheat flour
1 TB. Active Dry Yeast (1 pack)
1 3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees Farenheit)
2 TB. nonfat dry milk (I substituted 2 TB. soybean powder here and it seemed fine)
1 tsp. sea salt
2 TB. honey or molasses
2 TB. vegetable oil (I used detox-friendly extra virgin olive oil)

Pour water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle with yeast. Allow yeast to dissolve (about 5 min). Add milk, salt, honey, oil, and 2 cups of flour. Stir well. Continue to stir adding a little flour at a time until dough becomes stiff and pulls away from sides of bowl. Turn dough onto floured board and knead 5-7 min., until dough is smooth and elastic. Shape dough and place in oiled 9" x 5" loaf pan. (Note: I chose to bake it free-style, without a loaf pan. I oiled the dough, placed it on a baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap and kept in the oven to protect it from the cold.) Allow dough to rise in warm place until doubled. Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake 45-50 minutes or until done.

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Finally, here is a special "recipe" for a one-day detox designed to help you recover from overindulgence. (Partying, drinking, fatty foods, whatever fun you had!) I found this in the British magazine, You Are What You Eat (Dec. 2006 issue, pp. 32-33), which has quickly become one of my favorite reads.

(Click here for another recipe I wrote about from this magazine, for "butternut, peanut, pea, and spinach coconut curry with cashew salad" which you see here)


What I like about this is that each step comes with an explanation of how exactly it is helping your body. This is ideal, obviously, and we can't do this every day, but it is a good guideline to keep in mind.

1. Start the day with a large glass of warm water with lemon juice (to hydrate, alkalize your body, and aid in liver and bowel function).
   
2. Eat some fruit or make a smoothie (berries are especially helpful)
3. After 1/2 hour or so, have a breakfast with complex carbs
4. Take a brisk walk in the fresh air (to re-oxygenate)
5. Drink a large glass of vegetable juice mid-morning (to replenish lost minerals, provide your body antioxidants, and to hydrate)
6. Drink nettle tea throughout the morning (aids liver and kidney function, provides minerals and chlorophyll)
7. Lunch needs to be a large raw salad (especially with sprouts). If you're really hungry, add in a bowl of brown rice or quinoa.
8. Mid-afternoon, have another vegetable or fruit juice (add any combination of : greens, spirulina, or bluegreen algae)
9. Drink dandelion coffee in the afternoon (helps liver function). You may also opt for dandelion tea or nettle tea instead.
10. 1/2 hour before dinner, drink a large glass of warm water
11. Dinner should involve another raw salad (try different ingredients than what you had for lunch to get a wide variety of nutrients) with a large bowl of vegetable soup with miso sprinkled with kelp or nori flakes
12. In the evening, take a relaxing bath with lavender essential oil
13. Have an early night, and keep eating those fruits and veggies tomorrow!

Enjoy these recipes. Please let me know what you thought of them!

recipes for food and detox