Wahooo!

Finished my juice fast yesterday and exercised a BUNCH! Wasn't planning on it all, but I biked, did yoga, and step aerobics. I spent some time on the elliptical Wednesday night also. So, quite a way to finish off my fast! Anyway, I'm back to solid food, wahooooo!!

For breakfast, I had a banana-spinach-coconut water-cinnamon smoothie, my fav. So creamy mmmmm.

Lunch was a lovely kale salad with spicy pineapple and scotch bonnet peppers (courtesy of El-Mahdi), dried coconut, raisins, coconut oil, almond slivers, and hemp seeds. Thanks to Joseph for the inspiration of pineapple and coconut in a kale salad! Don't think I woulda ever thought to do that :)

And finally, dinner. I've been wanting to make this for awhile and now I have!! Here we go... wait for it..... are you ready yet?! Raw vegetable Moroccan tagine! The base was, of course, couscous! Just soak raw couscous for 15 min in water and whaBAM! My couscous was a bit wetter than I prefer, but that was due to an issue with my strainer. For the sauce, I blended carrot, tomato, garlic, onion, olive oil, turmeric, saffron, cumin, cinnamon, coriander, molasses, salt, pepper, a Moroccan spice blend I have from France, and I'm sure some other various things that I can't recall at the moment. I poured that over cut up carrot, zucchini, tomato, raisins, and dates and tossed well. Spooned that beautiful mixture onto the couscous and added a few chunks of dried figs for garnish along with celery leaves. I know I know, there's no celery or figs actually IN the dish, but they made it look pretty and were nice flavor additions.

I am very pleased with this dish. If you can get past the fact that this tagine is a bit crunchy at times rather than mushy, it's actually quite pleasant. Nice and light, but with enough exotic flavors and umph to leave you quite satisfied. The more I ate it the more I liked it, I love sweet and savory combinations yummm. I love discovering new things, so rewarding! Ahh, my life is full... and now so am I ;)