Bright Green Soup!

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A delectable, raw Spinach Thyme Soup that included loads of green veggies, herbs and spices, hemp oil, agave, meat-free chicken bouillon, and a subtle kick of garlic. Elizabeth paired this nutritious, bright green bowl of soup with a similarly hued side salad complete with mixed greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and diced bell peppers. Were there also slices of sunflower seed bread to dip into our soup? Indeed there were.

The Goods: In case there were any doubts, this lunch acts as proof that we are still obsessed with making soup in five minutes in our new Vita-Mix. People, it's bright green soup! In five minutes! It will never get old. This light and fresh vegetable-filled lunch was exactly what we needed after a week of over-indulging in sweets. So, in true VN style, we followed our cleansing, healthful lunch with to-die-for desserts from Sticky Fingers Bakery. Yes, our publisher's did generously order us Valentine's Day treats from Sticky Fingers, and yes, we know that they are the best.

Raw Week: Zucchini Zaniness

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: A zillion uses of zucchini! Today's zukes were peeled into ribbons to make raw pasta, which Elizabeth topped with a pesto of basil, garlic, cashews, and a splash of hemp-seed oil. Since you can't very well make ribbons out of the seedy parts of zucchini, those got blended with carrots, maple syrup, and cinnamon to make the little soup shooter you see at the top of the plate. Finally, a very, very simple salad of romaine and red bell pepper completed our plates.

The Goods: We're still enjoying our raw refreshment after the insanity of Expo West, but today we were feeling a little bit dessert deprived. Thankfully, we found a stock of really yummy raw gelato in our freezer from Organic Nectars, which we quickly devoured. We're not sure if the whole gelato-gorging process is really in the spirit of the diet cleanup, but it followed this week's raw law to the letter, which is good enough for us!