The Washington State Diet: Week 1

 

Day 1 of The Washington State Diet began with a bowl of strawberries and raspberries. The first bite was passionate, and I was so excited that I was going to get to eat berries. I had grown tired of grapes and apples alone the past several weeks. But as soon as I finished the bowl, I realized I might get tired of the berries after 4 weeks.

Lunch was simple. Cod, baked in the oven with lemon and garlic, atop a bed of plain watercress. Yes, watercress is indeed native to Washington State, but sadly this is one of the only "leafy" greens we will be seeing for a while. Therefore, I've been using it a lot.

After coming home from a walk, I tried a new vegetable which in quick order became my new favorite: The Jerusalem Artichoke. Delicious! I looked up how to bake it online, and found a very quick and simple recipe; wash them thoroughly, toss it with some oil and salt, add a little garlic and bake it in the oven at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes. They are amazing. And I apologize for the shoddy picture below - it doesn't do the vegetable justice.

Next, to go along with the new found veggie, I prepared a delightful shrimp dish which I have to say was also delicious and worth trying out. You can find the recipe below.

The next few days were rather boring, I'll be honest. I was trying to get a sense of what kind of fish I liked, what kind of fish would taste good at lunch not heated up (I don't believe in microwaves), and what kind of ideas I could create for the following week with what I understood about the ingredients I was able to work with.

Recipes for the week:


Asparagus Shrimp Fry

Ingredients:

1 lb. wild caught shrimp

2 cups white wine (preferably dry)

5-6 stalks asparagus 

4-5 cloves garlic minced 

3 TBSP organic sunflower oil

sea salt to taste


Instructions:

1. Peel, and clean the shrimp
2. In a pan, heat up oil with minced garlic

3. Stir garlic until golden brown; add chopped cleaned and chopped asparagus
4. Cook until halfway tender 

5.Add white wine 

6. Stir asparagus 

7. Add shrimp 

8. Cook until shrimp is cooked thoroughly and asparagus is soft/tender 

9. Add salt to taste while cooking 

 

 

 

 

Char & King Salmon Fillet 

I really feel like this is so basic it's not even worth writing about, but it is delicious and super easy. Take your fillet of fish, and place it on foil on a baking sheet. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Add minced garlic and juice of lemon to fillet. Bake for approximately 20 minutes and you're good to go. If you want, you can also add a little white wine to the fish while it's baking.

Jerusalem Artichoke Dip

It was pretty much instantly when I tasted those roasted Jerusalem Artichokes (a.k.a. Sunchokes), that I thought about making a "hummus-like" creation out of them. And I did, and it was fantastic.


Ingredients:

5-6 Jerusalem Artichokes, cleaned and peeled 

A generous amount of sunflower oil 

1 head of garlic 

juice of 1/2 lemon 

salt to taste


Instructions:

1. After cleaning and peeling the sunchokes, chop them as you would like preparing for mashed potatoes 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Boil on the stove until they are soft and fall apart from the touch of a fork

3. In a small pot, heat sunflower oil and add peeled, whole cloves of garlic

4. Don't burn the garlic! As soon as they turn golden brown remove them from heat. 

5. In a food processor add the sunchokes, the garlic only (reserve the oil for later), lemon juice and salt to taste 

6. While on low speed, gradually add the heated oil to the mixture 

7. Dip with carrot chips

My week, as I said was nothing extraordinary. My breakfasts were limited to berries, snacks were walnuts and hazlenuts, and then of course the carrot chips with the sunchoke dip; lunches were watercress salads with left over baked fish from the night before; and dinners were mainly the roasted Jerusalem Artichokes with some form of baked fish. If I was feeling peckish in the middle of the day or in the evening I would turn to nuts and berries - for that is all I was allowed to nibble on.

A creative trick while I was sick early in the week, was a tea I came up with all by myself (though I'm sure others have thought of this many moon prior to me). Because I can't have honey now, what could I use instead? I allow myself the lemons, but hot water with lemon on its own isn't the greatest. Mint! I had fresh mint in the fridge and wild mint was on my list of acceptable items I could eat on this diet. So I boiled hot water, added some fresh mint and the juice of 1/2 a lemon and voila! I had myself some nourishing and healthy tea.

While this diet may be a bit on the spendy side, what I will say is that it really forces one to feel like the Indians undoubtedly did. You don't have choices. This is what God has given you to eat, and you need be grateful for what you have available. They didn't have the luxury of ordering in Indian takeaway or large pizza with everything on it. They couldn't but they were probably healthier for it. Forcing yourself to live "off the land" as easy and convenient as it is for me to do it, is hard but worth it I think.

I'm also constantly amazed at how awesome God really is. All of the foods that I have been preparing and eating on this diet really do work well together. There is no one or two ingredients that I've put together and said - oh this doesn't taste good together. It's incredible that the things He has bestowed upon each respective place are naturally good in unison with one another. The berries go well with the walnuts. The fish go well with the watercress. The Jerusalem Artichokes go well with the fish... and on and on it goes. 

Baked Cod with Berry Puree

Ingredients:

1 fillet of fresh Cod

1 lemon

3 oz. blackberries 

3 oz. raspberries 

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F

2. On a baking sheet, line with tin foil and place cod on top

3. Add juice of 1/2 lemon; bake for 12-18 minutes until thoroughly cooked 

4. In a food processor add blackberries, raspberries and juice of 1/2 lemon 

5. Place on low speed 

6. Add sauce to top of cod 

 

 

 

Pan Fried Rockfish with White Wine & Garlic

 

 

Ingredients:

2-3 cups white wine (preferably dry) 

1 lb. rockfish 

2 cloves garlic, peeled, whole 

1/4 cup organic sunflower oil 

salt to taste

1 lemon 

Instructions:

1. In a deep pan, heat sunflower oil

2. Add rockfish and turn heat down to high-med

3. Cook for approximately 6 minutes or until fish is slightly brown on one side; then flip 

4. Add white wine, juice from lemon and garlic 

5. Begin to continuously spoon liquid in pan onto top of fish; do this over and over until fish begins to turn a nice color 

6. Cook until a natural almost breading starts to occur with the fish, or until you can see that the fish is cooked thoroughly

Butternut Squash Fries

 

This isn't 100% my recipe, but let's say I 'improved upon it', by using the ingredients that I'm allowed to use. I stole the idea from the "Tasty" app, but the way I have made it (twice now) is simply delicious, and frankly I can't imagine eating butternut squash any other way.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. butternut squash 

salt to taste 

generous amount of organic sunflower oil 

2 cloves garlic, minced 

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F

1. Chop off the head and bottom of the butternut squash; then peel it 

2. Slice it down the center and scoop out the seeds 

3. Chop it up appropriately to make French fry-like shapes

4. In a bowl, combine the butternut squash with the oil, garlic and salt; mix together by hand 
 

5. On a baking sheet, add mixture and lay flat 

6. Bake for 25 minutes, flipping them halfway, until they are soft and cooked thoroughly

Stay tuned next week for Week 2 of The Washington State Diet. I hope you guys are enjoying this journey I'm on, and that you will glean something special from it for yourselves!

"Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart." - Ecclesiastes 9:7