Day 7… Whoo hoo week 1 over!

Well, we have now completed a full week of what I called the Daniel “fast”. I am please to have made it so far. I am not saying that I am not missing my treats. The first thing I think I will eat  after this will be a yam stew with lamb neck or ox tail, washed down with the vintage Bordeaux wine my brother Flaubert gave me in Paris last week... uhhmmmmm!

Back to the fast. I came to the realisation that I am a dummy! Doh.  Though I spent last month preparing for this month of fast, I didn’t read the book of Daniel…euh hello? That’s where I should have started. I thought I knew that book like the back of my hand…! First thing I noted in the FIRST CHAPTER  is that the fast isn’t a big deal at all. The only reason Daniel ate only fruits and vegetables was because he didn’t want to eat from the king’s reserve as often the meat might have been leftover from sacrifices to false gods and Daniel didn’t want to defile himself with that.

I don’t even think he called it a fast as it seems his request to be brought only vegetable for his meals would have been a permanent request with a test period of 10 days. There is no mention of him then praying about anything in particular while he limited himself to vegetables. See Daniel 1 v8-16.

In the light of this, I will no longer call this experience a “Daniel fast” as I don’t think there is no such thing. I will call this a Daniel diet or an XL- Vegan-Lent, because this is what I am finding it to be.

XL-Vegan because this fast excludes all foods that involved animals/insects (even milk and honey), also excludes sugars and refined products. The vegan diet includes the last two categories. Lent because this in effect what I am doing. Besides Lent includes sacrifices AND prayers for 40 days. To that effect, I will now finish this experience on 12 of April and not on 31^st March.

During the last 7 days, I have tried and discovered some new foods to add to my diet and some new ways of cooking the ones I used already. Yesterday I found the Roasted Soya nuts in Tesco this works very well are as a variation to roasted peanut. They taste great too. I am going to try tomorrow morning to have crushes buckwheat for breakfast as a replacement of oatbran. I am getting a bit tired of it.

Oatbran pancake with fried onion & Almonds

Djansang tomato sauce & plantain

Today for breakfast I hade some leftovers (see yesterday’s post) oatbran pancakes with fried onion topped up with crushed almonds flakes… and  a kiwi for sweetness. I normally have the fried onions with fresh baguette topped with cheese and placed in the oven to melt the cheese…  This announces the week end!

For lunch today, I had a Cameroonian dish; the tomato & djansang sauce with boiled-in-skin yellow plantain. The sauce is usually cooked with the mighty meaty catfish….tasty.

Recipe available on request. Tweet me @hjulienne

Well, that is the week of thanksgiving finished. I still haven’t succeeded once in saying grace before eating… I seriously need to work on that. Isn’t it a minimum requirement for Christians?

A la semaine prochaine!

This is a smile not a plantain!