Another post in the saga of my food detox program (click here to read about that). Yesterday I asked people to consider what their last meal would be if they were going on a restricted diet, and listed what statistics say are the top 10 most popular foods in the typical American diet (click here to read about that). Of the top 10 list, the only thing on this detox food plan we could POSSIBLY have is tacos, but only if they were vegan and we made the taco shells ourselves. Otherwise, it was a big list of VERBOTTEN foods.

However, my last meal before the program did, indeed, include one of those top 10 VERBOTTEN foods. The main dish of that meal was…

It was #8: Grilled Cheese. However, it was made with this lovely sourdough whole wheat bread I had gotten that morning at the Cary Dowtown Farmers Market (shown above). And within it was white cheddar cheese from grassfed cows. Plus I served it with vegetable soup and fresh fruit, so it wasn’t a terrible meal overall.

To be honest, I had planned to make something else. But my son in college surprised me by coming home, and we were out and about taking care of things he needed, and I ran out of time. One of the glories of grilled cheese is that you can make it in a few minutes using ingredients most of us have around, and that really worked for us that day. And it was a great sandwich, so I have no regrets! I kind of think it may be harder for me to give up cheese than to give up meat…we will see.

So now comes the next question. Once you are on a program like this, what meal will you make for your first detox meal?

That I hadn’t particularly thought about. However, even if I had, my equations would have been thrown off by the fact that my son was home. WHICH I LOVE, but since it doesn’t happen that much when he is in college, I wanted to make the most of it. And one of the things I love is cooking him his favorite meals, especially foods he doesn’t get at his college cafeteria…although he really likes his cafeteria, especially because they have an organic farm on campus for their Sustainable Agriculture major and so they get great produce from there.

Spinach is one of my son’s favorite vegetables, and I had gotten some lovely spinach at the Farmers Market that weekend. Indian/Pakistani/Himalayen may be his favorite ethnic food type. So one of his favorite dishes is Saag Paneer, which is chunks of cheese in a creamy green sauce in which spinach is usually the base, along with other leafy greens. (Pedantic note: if the dish is made with only spinach, it should be called Palak Paneer, Palak being the Indian word for spinach, but Saag Paneer is more known and is thus misused in many cases.)

However, my eating program does not include CHEESE (Paneer) or cream. But could I find a creative way to make one of my son’s favorite dishes without breaking my new eating system? (Like, before it even got started?)

It turns out, Yes, I can! With a little cheat….

The Saag sauce usually is cooked with ghee (clarified butter) and cream. I substituted Earth Balance and oat milk. Besides the spinach, I also had some arugula I had gotten from the Farmers Market the week before and some micro greens. So I sautéed onions, garlic, chiles, and ginger in Earth Balance, added the greens and some spices, let everything cook down, added the oat milk, and then pureed it all. It was a tasty sauce, even though it wasn’t as rich as I usually make it (upside is that it was healthier).

But then there is the Paneer part. That is cheese, and we aren’t doing cheese this month. But I thought, I bet tofu could make a good substitute. Now in our program, we aren’t supposed to eat processed food, and tofu is a processed food. However, I am allergic to nuts, and nuts are a major protein substitute for meat and dairy in our program. Given that allergy, Dr. Cheryl agreed that I could use tofu as one of my protein sources, even though it is a processed food. She is more interested in keeping us all healthy than having rigid rules that don’t serve us. Since tofu was on my approved list, I used it. Other people on the program can use it after the first two weeks, so this may also work for for others in the weeks to come.

I bought extra firm toful, drained it (maybe too much), and coated it with some curry powder. Then I cooked it in the air fryer. It got crispy on the outside and stayed soft on the inside.

Meanwhile, I had cooked some organic brown basmati rice in the Instant Pot to serve as the starch for the meal. So here is what we got:

(Note: I know I’m not the best food photographer. It tasted better than it looks in the picture.)

I didn’t tell my son that anything was different, and he was excited to be served one of his favorite dishes. He ate FOUR BIG servings (it was kind of the only meal of his day, OK, but still think it meant it liked it).

I thought it was good. Yeah, I preferred the dairy version, but if I played around a bit with the recipe, maybe this is a better recipe for the future. I actually was surprised how close tofu was to the texture of Paneer in this recipe, which I think is important–things feeling “creamy” even if they aren’t actually made with cream is a great benefit. This version is healthier for me and the planet, and if it isn’t that big of a difference, maybe I should make it this way again. I think I will, beyond this food detox program.

So I’m enjoying this 30 day detox program. I’m appreciating learning some things to improve my diet on an ongoing basis. Plus I know having a more plant-based diet will support the planet. Win -Win for us all.