Sacred Heart Soup detox

I have tried fasting in the past, but I tend to eat too much coming off a fasting or eat too much in the evening and it doesn't really help the "detox" part of fasting. I heard about this soup from a friend whose family had great success. I am anti-diet fads, but detoxing is a great way to flush out the impurities of eating even the least bit of processed food.

This detox does take away my favorite ingredients and that is cheese, but cheese is an over-processed and fat-heavy reason I need to detox. For the most part, the detox is vegetarian and since I don't eat steak anyway I have adjusted the detox for non-meat eaters.

I have also included ingredients that I like, but you can view the entire list of acceptable ingredients at the website Sacred Heart Soup. After the first day's attempt, I needed to cut back on salt. This soup is surprisingly tasty.

Sacred Heart Soup

2 cans Hunt's roasted tomato soup (no seasoning)

1 can whole cut green beans, reduced sodium or salt-free

3 green onions, sliced

2-3 cups vegetable or beef broth (fat free and/or low sodium)

Nestle chicken noodle soup mix, extra noodles

4 stalks celery, chopped

4 carrot sticks, sliced

3 cups chopped kale or Japanese cabbage

1 tbsp soy sauce

black pepper

2 tbsp fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Spray soup pot with a little PAM. Saute green onions, celery and carrots. Cover with two cups broth. Beef broth offers more flavor to this soup, but I like it with vegetable broth as well. Add soup mix, cover pot and let simmer until vegetables are tender - 10 minutes. Add two cans tomatoes, with juice. Drain and rinse green beans - they tend to be canned with more salt. Add to soup. Add Worcestershire and soy sauce and black pepper and stir. Taste test for saltiness.

Add more broth if needed. Stir in kale or cabbage and parsley. TMI section: if you have never detoxed, it is not a pleasant week. You will detox from every place in your body, including your pores. I don't like cabbage anyway and I fear the consequences of using it in a detox soup. Kale is more nutritious and few side effects. Kale is very cheap and available this time of year.

This will make about six bowls of soup. I eat one for lunch and two at night, which takes out the soup in a day for two people. You can incorporate other foods during the week, but the schedule is strict. I have not been completely on target with the schedule, but this is what I do.

Day One: soup and fruit salad

Fruit Salad: tropical fruits are the mos nutritious and will provide the most beneficial calories

• fresh cut pineapple
• naval oranges
• kiwi
• mango
• strawberries

Day Two: soup and vegetable salad and baked potato

Salad:

• bibb lettuce
• shredded carrot
• sliced cucumber
• sliced radishes
• chopped tomato
• one tsp olive oil and vinegar

Baked potato

• 2 russet potatoes
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp dry ranch
• 1 head broccoli

Microwave potatoes for six minutes to soften. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Mix ranch and yogurt and refrigerate. Meanwhile boil broccoli for 3-5 minutes or until bright green. Once potatoes are cool, cut and remove stuffing. Mix potato with yogurt ranch. I KNOW I am cheating by adding ranch, but I am not adding any cheese and yogurt is high in protein. Use a potato masher to mix. Stir in broccoli. Bake again for 10 minutes.

Day Three: soup and salad

Day Four: soup and bananas (at least three) and skim milk

For some reason I am not good about eating bananas raw. For a "dessert" I will slice two bananas and heat them in a skillet for a few minutes until soft but not gooey. Pour into a bowl and had a pinch of coarse salt. They are goooooood.

Day Five: This is the tough day because you are supposed to eat at least three steaks. I do not like steak. If you don't eat steak, then disregard this addition. If you do eat meat, here is what I suggest: beef tips from a reputable butcher. I don't recommend ground beef unless you ground your own because you don't know is going into it. I buy organic beef from a local farmer. I add the beef tips to my soup recipe on day five as well as an additional can of tomatoes. Double the amount of tomatoes on your salad also.

Eat fruit to fight off dessert cravings. Cherries are also a great way to detox this week.

Day Six: soup, salad and beef

Day Seven: add wild rice to soup mix or add cooked vegetables to brown or wild rice.

I lost four pounds, which isn't bad, even for Biggest Loser standards. It's not a noticeable difference for other people, but it taught me a good lesson - I don't need nearly as much food as I think I do. Other people I know have done this diet with great success. You can lose 10-17 pounds in one week depending on how strict you are to the schedule and how much you have to lose in the first place.

Shop of the perimeter of the grocery store. Travel down the aisles only for canned vegetables, juice and spices. The fewer processed foods you consume, the easier your body can handle them. I gulp down my food and don't pay attention to when I get full. I have since been more conscious of when I am full and stop eating immediately. It is just as wasteful to eat food your body doesn't need than it is to throw out food you don't eat.

Good luck and please post success stories if you have them. You will get tired of the soup by day five but if you can make it to day seven you will feel a great sense of accomplishment.

Light Carrot Cake

Because of a grocery store mishap I found myself with a ton of carrots and no planned meals for them. Carrots are a rock star on the vegetable list, although I don't care for them much, so I needed to find a way to use them. Racheal Ray has a reader recipe section and recently came out with a great carrot cake recipe.

Carrot cake is not the worst cake for you, but it does have a lot of sugar and oil. This recipe substitutes the texture and juice with pineapple for a lot of the oil. The sour cream also helps to enrich this cake without having to depend on fats as much. I was able to substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream inside the cake, but the icing definitely requires real sour cream. Daisy makes a good lite sour cream.

Light Carrot Cake

2 big carrots, cleaned and shredded

1/2 cup pineapple (4oz can, drained)

1/2 cup walnuts (toasted are better but you can use raw)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup sour cream ( or 1/4 cup yogurt and 1/4 cup sour cream)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

ground cloves

ground cinnamon

ground ginger

3 tbsp butter, room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

If you are toasting your nuts, preheat oven at 400 degrees and toast nuts for 7-10 minutes. As soon as you smell them, take them out of the oven or they will burn. I skin my carrots before shredding them to get as much of the moist carrot as I can plus you get the cleaner carrot. Mix nuts with pineapple and carrot.

Mix flour, baking ingredients and spices. Recipes always underwhelm me with spices, so I don't use measurements for spices in my recipe. Average about 1/2 tsp, but I sprinkle until I get a good color in the flour mix. I don't believe you can over-spice carrot cake, but my sister has a great story about confusing 1/4 tsp of cloves for 1/4 cup of ground cloves. Those were some black cookies.

In a large mixing bowl cream sugar with 1/4 c sour cream, oil, vanilla and egg. Stir in carrot mix and then flour mixture. I made this cake in my new bunt pan for a prettier presentation, but you can also use a regular cake pan. Bake on 350 for 55 minutes. Be sure the cake is cooled before trying to get it out of the pan.

When mixing the icing, be sure that the butter is soft. The butter and sour cream (1/4 c.) will dissolve the sugar so be patient when trying to get a cream consistency. Let cake cool before pouring the icing on the cake. I kept the icing in a separate container to use later. The cake will stay moist for most of a week.

Homemade Granola Breakfast

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday magazine for Maple-Nut Granola. This is one of her easier granola recipes because it uses cabinet staples and you don't have to dig around some healthfood store for barley flakes and wheat bran.

A few things to note: I used more nuts than was recommended, about 1/2 cup each. I prefer more protein in the morning to keep me awake and full before lunchtime. I do use pecans and almonds, but you can also use walnuts. Be sure to use the raw, unsalted, unroasted kind. Otherwise they will taste overdone when baked with the granola. I also add a few sprinkles of cinnamon pieces or grated cinnamon stick. If you have it in stock, pour 1/4 cup of ground flax seeds in the mix. The good fat is great for your heart and helps you stay full in the morning.

And DO NOT cook granola for 30 minutes as recommended. I bake for about 15 minutes, stirring once when the granola smells very fragrant. Seriously, stay close to the oven when you bake this because it will burn easily. As your granola cools, it will get crisp.

I use about 1/3 - 1/2 cup of fat free Greek yogurt - Fage is my favorite but kind of expensive; Oikos is also good. Honestly, I would never recommend fat free anything, but this yogurt is so rich and the granola so flavorful, you really don't need the extra calories. If you try the fat free and don't like it, go with the 2% instead. Beware there are Greek yogurt brands that are VERY fatty; always check the label.

Stir in one packet of splenda or 1 tsp of honey (nature's sugar) in the yogurt. Top with a handful of granola and 1/2 - 1 whole banana, sliced. I am not one to eat the same things often, but this has been my daily breakfast for weeks at a time. It has the protein from the yogurt and nuts; whole grains from the oats and a whole serving of fruit. And it is very easy to transfer this breakfast to work or assemble at work if needed.

If you do tire of the same yogurt and granola breakfast, use the same ingredients to make Crunch Berry Pancakes. I know it sounds like a kid's cereal, but they are fantastic and not bad for you. Instead of blueberries and raspberries, I used fresh strawberries. I think this recipe will go with any kind of berry you have in stock. Just make sure you do chop the fruit to avoid lumpy pancakes. I did not use the butter or powdered sugar and they were sweet enough to eat without syrup. A perfect Sunday morning breakfast.