You may remember from yesterday's post I mentioned Hubs and I for seven days restricted ourselves to eating only plant-based, unsweetened whole foods. The biggest surprise for me? I didn't much miss the cheese, sugar or chocolate (gasp!). For an entire week we drank nothing but water. I honestly did not think I would last a day, much less the whole week. I felt better; I slept better; I functioned better. I decided I would try to continue with this diet after the week was finished, but low and behold this post on my Facebook news feed from Gigi's Cupcakes on the sixth day:

I'm ashamed to admit I caved. I just couldn't resist that wonderful cinnamon icing staring at me. BUT, I only had one bite; I couldn't eat it all. It was...wait for it...TOO sugary. What? Huh?

Anyway, during the week of non-indulgent foods, I found myself eating more often throughout the day. But, instead of satisfying my sweet cravings with some sugary snack from the vending machine, I ate a banana with 100% all-natural peanut butter. You know, the stuff with the oil at the top that you have to mix into the peanut butter? The real stuff? Actually, it was pretty good with the bananas, so I decided that would become my new afternoon snack.

Eating only plant-based foods also forced us to cook more. Absolutely everything at the grocery store has preservatives or hydrogenated oils added...stuff that is bad for us. Even pre-made salsa! Really? Does that jar of salsa really  need that sugar in it? Thank goodness salsa is easy to make as it became a staple meal for me during that week.

Also, we thought buying the organic, healthier versions of different foods would cost more, - like a salad costs $5 while a double cheeseburger costs 99 cents - but when you're replacing all of the food you usually buy with a completely different type of food, it all equals out. We might have even saved money. We bought SO MUCH produce because I wanted to avoid going back to the grocery store at all costs, and it will continue to last us for a few more days!

Below, I've picked my six favorite all-natural, plant-based meals from those seven days, in no particular order:

Guacamole
Ripe avocados, roma tomatoes, diced onion, chopped jalapeños and cilantro, freshly squeezed lime juice, sea salt and garlic powder. Does it get any better than that? We also found some 100% all-natural BAKED Tostitos Scoops at Sam's, which made it even better.



Fresh Garden Salsa
You might remember a spectacular salsa recipe from this post back in January. This time, I didn't want to use all of my roma tomatoes, so I found an alternative from The Pioneer Woman. It calls for canned whole tomatoes and rotel, neither of which I had on hand. I did, however, have a couple of cans of organic diced tomatoes and a random 4 oz. can of green chilies, so I had to adapt it a little. Here's what I threw in a blender: the organic diced tomatoes (juice and all), 1/4 of the 4 oz. can of green chilies, about 1/4 of a yellow onion (diced), 1 roma tomato (halved), 1 or 2 minced garlic cloves, a jalapeño, a handful of cilantro, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground cumin and juice from 1/2 a lime. Pulse until it reaches the consistency you want and voila! It's so delicious! In fact, I'm eating it as I type this. Yum.

I'm weird and like eating fries with mustard instead of ketchup. Ours were seasoned just right and, lucky for me, mustard comes from seeds. :)








100% Whole Grain Cereal
Before last week, the only cereal I was interested in was Cocoa Puffs and Reese's Puffs. This is not a lie. I almost ate this entire box, but had a little help. After I poured the flakes into a bowl, I coated them with a tiny bit of pure maple syrup and a sprinkling of cinnamon. I added some raisins and unsweetened almond milk. Yum!










Fruit Smoothies
We did drink nothing but water with our meals, so when we drank fruit smoothies they were to replace a meal. I had a couple of these for breakfast throughout the week. Everyone knows how they like their fruit smoothies, but here's what I put in mine: frozen mangoes, peaches and strawberries, fresh pineapple (with juice), a banana and unsweetened almond milk. Creamy and delicious. The photo to the left is not what mine looked like, but it looks great, too!







Vegetable Fajitas
One night, Hubs and I met my mom at Abuelo's and had their vegetable fajitas. I just knew that fajitas without chicken would be like milk without chocolate syrup: Boring, bland and a waste of time. It turns out I was WAY wrong! I happened to have the exact same vegetables in our fridge so that was our meal the next day, too! I sliced onion, red and green bell peppers, zucchini, squash and jalapeños, then made my own fajita seasoning with chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper - the darn pre-packaged seasoning contained sugar. Grr! I sprinkled a pretty good layer of the fajita seasoning on the veggies and stuck them in the refrigerator for a while. When I was ready to sauté them, I drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil in a 12-inch skillet with some minced garlic and waited until the garlic was good and roasted, then poured the veggies on. The aroma. The colors. Omg. So delicious! I served those up with some homemade masa tortillas and of course the guacamole and salsa. This may be my new favorite meal ever - and it contains no chicken, no ranch dressing, no buffalo wing sauce and no chocolate!

Did I really just say that?

If you missed yesterday's post, you'll definitely want to see the Treats page for a dairy-free, whole wheat banana bread recipe.

Hopefully we can keep this health trend going, but I know I give in to temptation way  too easily. It is very hard to resist the bowls of chocolate and sugar-filled candy lying around the office on a lonely Friday afternoon. :)