Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Day 2 of my Detox Nutrition Plan

Day 2 of my Detox Nutrition Plan proved to be a little more difficult in that I already began craving something fried.  I of course started my day with 2 capsules of Psyllium Husk for my colon detox.  You must drink at least a glass of water when taking these as they can cause choking if not enough water is drunken with them as per the instructions on the bottle.  For those who don’t know what Psyllium husk is, it’s a bulk fiber and expands when wet so it’s really good at cleaning you out as it works its way through your digestive track.

I woke up late morning and didn’t feel much like eating anything heavy so first I tried snacking on my cashews, and peanuts along with organic stone ground corn tortilla chips and a couple slices of extra sharp cheddar.  Both the cashews and peanuts were unsalted, as were the corn tortilla chips.  That held me over for about an hour before I felt hungry again and so I turned to some left over black bean soup in the fridge.

Oh if only you could taste how good and comforting this soup was.  Yessum!

Once that was over with I embarked on preparing myself something I’ve never made before but love to have anytime especially when I want to eat more veggies than meat.  Falafels.  It may sound strange but for years I never knew that falafels were made out of ground chick peas aka Garbanzo beans.  I went to the cupboard and pulled out 4 cans of Chick Peas and then assembled my ingredients and spices.  

With everything in place I began by processing the canned chick peas with the spices and half a white onion as I didn’t have any yellow ones.  I had to do this in two batches as all of the chick peas would not fit in the food processor at one time. Red Chili Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, Habanero Pepper, Chili, Powder, Coriander, Turmeric, Cumin, Onion powder, a little Oregano and lemon juice along with a little Kosher sea salt were required to spice the processed falafel mixture.

Using roughly 1 tspoon of each of the spices above with the exception of the peppers those I added a little more than a tspoon as I wanted my falafel balls to have some heat to em, I processed the chick peas until they looked like below.  

I got a skillet ready with Canola oil and put the heat to it so that frying could commence post haste.

I grabbed a spoon and ice cream scooper to help me form the balls of falafel mixture.  However, I realized that using my hands was easier and gave me a bit more control over the shaping of the balls and so after a few attempts with the scoop and spoon hand formed balls were added to the skillet.  

While the above started out looking promising they weren’t coming together as I’d hoped and the frying I felt was taking a bit too long for them to brown.  I couldn’t understand why they weren’t crisping up and then I realized my error.   I hadn’t added any flour to the mixture to help make it drier and better for frying.   I ended up just folding the above failed falafel balls into a sort of fried mash and plated it resolved to start over making a new set of falafel balls.  Here’s what they turned into.

The taste was spot on in my opinion and the kick of the pepper was just right.

Undaunted by early failure I refocused and returned my attention to the skillet.

I put these on paper towel in a bowl shortly after seeing them turn this awesome color.

These tasted pretty good considering it was my first time making them.  Stay tuned for part 2 the conclusion of my meal prep for the day with organic whole wheat spaghetti, and tomato sauce.