Today's Food Adventure Brought To You By: Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow's site Goop.com has some amazing stuff on it. That is where I found the recipe for this yummy (yet time consuming) dish called Bibimbop. (final product pictured above). Bibimbop is basically a rice bowl with lots of veggies. This dish is pretty labor intensive, as you have to saute and blanche vegetables, make a spicy miso sauce and cook a separate dish called Kinpira. Now that I've made it once it will be easier but doing this for the first time it took up quite a bit of time. So for the ingredients list and detailed instructions see Gwyneth's website by following this link: Bibimbop

Here's my attempt, with photos. See captions for descriptions.

The first thing I did was blanche the broccolini and baby bok choy (which I over-cooked and ruined- so it's not in the final photo). I had never blanched veggies before so I had to look online for instructions. It's pretty easy (except for bok choy, LOL). Basically you boil the veg, but for a short time, you don't actually cook it all the way. Then you remove it from the boiling water, straight to a bowl of ice water.

next I sliced up the zucchini, mushrooms and minced the garlic. For some reason I didn't take photos while making the spicy miso sauce, but it was at this stage that I made it. That sauce was really easy to make- reminds me of bbq sauce. I like mine spicy so I put in a lot of hot pepper sesame oil.

I chopped up some baked tofu and fried it in some sesame oil. I had never had fried tofu before and it's super yummy!!!

Here's a shot of all of the veggies that will be tossed in with the rice. So we have: blanched broccolini, sauteed bean sprouts & zucchini with garlic and ginger, sauteed mushrooms (also with garlic and ginger) and the fried tofu. I couldn't find sesame seeds (crazy I know- I went to 2 different stores!!!) and I also couldn't find the kimchi from the original recipe so those two things are missing from mine. Below are the photos for the second dish in this recipe- Kinpira.

KINPIRA:

Here is the burdock root. It looks like a tree branch before you peel the skin. It peels just like a carrot.

cut the burdock root at an angle as thin a possible. My knife wasn't really sharp enough to properly do this with the burdock or the carrot, but it worked fine, I'm not too picky. Stack the burdock rounds in a row to prepare for "julienne" cuts. This is explained visually on the video on Gwyneth's website.

here is the "julienne" cut for the burdock root. I didn't take photos of the carrot as it's the exact same thing as the burdock root.

saute the burdock root for 5 mins before adding the carrot.

after adding the carrot, add water (or the japanese stock explained in Gwyneth's recipe). At this point you will also add the Mirin, Soy Sauce and agave nectar. Let this mixture boil, cover and reduce heat to low. You'll cook this for 15 mins. After the 15 mins you'll put the heat back up to high, remove lid and sauce until sauce is reduced and veggies are shiny.

here is the finished Kinpira.

in a bowl, put brown rice and top with all of the ingredients. The sauce is hiding underneath the veggies. The picture above is everything but the fried tofu and shredded nori. Below is the final product with all ingredients.

YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew, I Made It!!

Okay, the cleanse is officially over. I made it 4 days (well 3 and 3/4 days, really) which I'm really proud of. So how do I feel? Do I feel fully cleansed? Not really. Do I feel good? Yes! Have I begun to conquer some pretty nasty demons? Yes. Would I do this particular cleanse again? Probably not.

Here's the deal. The reason I don't feel particularly cleansed is because I never felt energized/light. I feel like I missed out on something there. I think it's because I forgot to do the laxative tea every night, which affected how much I really detoxed. I think I didn't detox to my full potential thereby never feeling fully cleansed. However, I do feel good. I feel like I have a clean slate to work with. For the most part I've made really smart choices since I've gone back to eating (the exception being the movie popcorn and child's sized box of Mike and Ikes- oops!!) The thing I am happiest about is my stomach shrinking, allowing me to start over again with healthy portion sizes- which was one of my personal demons.

I have to admit that I did get everything out of this cleanse that I was hoping for- so while I didn't feel particularly cleansed or detoxed I DID reach my original goal. The purpose for this cleanse (which I may have previously stated) was to push the reset button on my mind and my stomach. I wanted to be able to start fresh mentally, view food differently, prove to myself that I have the willpower, jump start my weight loss and regain control of my portion sizes by shrinking my stomach. I achieved ALL of these things!!

I have been trying to lose weight since the beginning of the year with very slow success- it wasn't until I got pneumonia that I lost any significant amount of weight (which obviously isn't the healthy way to lose weight, but it worked!). Since I was sluggish in losing weight yet again, I thought that doing this cleanse would again shock my system into letting some of the weight go. I knew that any weight I lost wouldn't necessarily stay off as some would be water weight but if I could lose at least 3 lbs out of it I'd be happy. So far that's exactly what I've achieved.

The next cleanse/detox that I am considering is on that Gwyneth Paltrow does that she posted on her website/weekly newsletter goop.com (my introduction to this detox is also courtesy of Miss Phoebe- who is my go-to gal!) I'm thinking of doing this 7 day detox in either June or July, as they will be warmer months and it will feel good to eat lighter- it just seems that the foods on this detox are summery!

So on to my next adventure!!! Trying new healthy foods/cuisines! I'm super excited!! So what is that next food adventure you might ask??? Well I'm thinking of trying a recipe I found on Goop called Bibimbop- so stay tuned for how that turns out!!