Everyone's heard of the Master Cleanse where you drink nothing but water with cayenne pepper and maple syrup, or the Cabbage Soup Diet or the juice fast or all the others on the market so it's not surprising that the #1 question I was getting asked while doing the Ultimate Reset was, "So what are you eating?" Well, here's the answer!

You know the song. 'Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. Domo domo. Domo domo.' Yeah, that one. I've been singing it in my head for DAYS and I couldn't figure out why... until today. Turns out 'Domo Arigato' is how I pronounce 'Nori Gomasio' in my head. So what's Nori Gomasio? Well, according to the Beachbody Ultimate Reset Program & Nutrition Guide it is "a delicious simple Japanese condiment to use on rice or veggies", and delicious it is! We first made it on Day 3 with the Nori Rolls and have used it to season other recipes since. It's super simple and nothing I ever would have thought of making on my own, but we're both in agreement that we love it and it will forever have a spot on our dinner table, and only three ingredients to boot! Sesame seeds, Himalayan salt and nori seaweed. Since I've now got you singing the Mr. Roboto song in your head, too, I figured the least I could do was give you the recipe for this salty seaweed goodness. And I'll throw in tonight's  Sweet Potato & Roasted Red Pepper Bisque recipe, too, just because I like you. :)  And if you don't have the song stuck in your head yet... maybe this will help:

Nori Gomasio

1/4 cup sesame seeds (any color)
1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
1 sheet nori seaweed

Place sesame seeds in a clean, dry frying pan over low heat and toast, stirring often, until they turn golden. (Try to pull them off the heat before they pop.) Allow to cool for about 10 min. Place in a coffee grinder or blender with salt and nori and pulse a few times until most of the seeds are cracked open. Be careful not to grind to a flour-like consistency; you want some of the texture of the seeds to remain. Store in an airtight container. Makes 4 servings. 

Sweet Potato & Roasted Red Pepper Bisque

1 sweet potato
1/4 red bell pepper
1 cup vegetable broth or water
1 tsp finely grated ginger root
1 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp miso paste, diluted in 1 tsp hot water

Peel and cube sweet potatoes. Steam until tender. Set aside. Meanwhile, roast red bell pepper on gas stovetop or grill turning frequently until evenly charred on the outside OR in the oven at 400° for 15-20 min. turning every 10 min. or until skin is charred. 

Put pepper in bowl and cover with towel for 10 min. to steam. Clean off skin by running under cool water. 

Place all ingredients in blender. (If you want chunky soup, set aside some chunks of pepper.) Blend thouroughly, adding more liquid to achieve desired soup consistency. 

Serves 1

Day 3 of the Ultimate Reset and I'm feeling great! My energy is good, sleeping good, not many noticeable changes yet. I haven't been too hungry, but definitely felt like my calorie intake was lower than it should be so today was the first day that I added in the optional snack. I chose hummus with raw veggies from the list of options. I am seriously LOVING all the recipes! Breakfast was fruit with sesame seeds and coconut flakes. For lunch today I had an amazing green lentil salad with lime and cilantro (give me anything with cilantro and I'm happy!) and a micro green salad. Dinner was a little trickier.... My only complaint so far (and it's only because I can be an airhead) is that some of the meals use a number of recipes... all of which are on different pages. Tonight's dinner was one of those meals. Nori Rolls with Tempeh and Nori Gomasio, Japanese Cucumber Salad and Miso Soup. While flipping back and forth through the pages I accidentally landed on the Hearty Vegetable Miso Soup recipe, not the Miso Soup recipe I was supposed to be preparing. Beachbody has made shopping for the cleanse super easy because they give you a printable shopping list for every week. Seeing ingredients in the recipe that weren't on this week's shopping list should have been the first giveaway... but off to the grocery store we went to get cabbage, broccoli (because I ate it all for my snack earlier today) and celery. The soup was coming along great... until I realized I was making the wrong one! Time to get the right soup going, which thankfully only took a few minutes to make. Then on to the Japanese Cucumber Salad... which I now notice that it's supposed to marinate for ONE HOUR. Oh boy. This entire time Scott is trying to help me, without getting in my way, and without killing me! He took over and helped make the Nori Gomasio which was REALLY good. It's a sesame seed, Himalayan sea salt, toasted nori seasoning. After all this it was time to assemble Nori Rolls. While they were no where near as pretty as you would get at a sushi restaurant (that seriously is an art!) they were really good. In the end, we ate dinner about an hour and a half later than we had planned, but the food was well worth it and these are recipes we'll definitely be using again in the future. We even got to use the plate set my mom got us! Scott is jokingly saying he should write a blog about tonight's dinner, too, from his perspective. I hope he does! So far I'm not missing working out as much as I thought I would. We went for a 3 mile walk last night and this afternoon. And with so much time tied up with food prep I honestly don't know when I would fit it in. After a delicious Asian inspired dinner I'm now off to study Shiatsu for my NY state massage boards next week. How fitting!