beka stays hungry : parchment paper salmon

Right now I’m doing a 10 Day Cleanse as part of AdvoCare’s 24 Day Challenge. But it’s not one of those dramatic cleanses where you can only eat grapefruit and drink shots of wheatgrass. Instead, you eat wheatgrass and drink shots of grapefruit juice.

Juuuuuust kidding. It’s actually really reasonable: eat vegetables, fruits, lean proteins and some complex carbs; don’t eat sugar (chocolate!), caffeine (COFFEE…), dairy (Greek yogurt!), things that are fried, things that are white, and things that you generally shouldn’t be eating in the first place.

When I decided to do this I thought that the Dinner Challenge for this week would be totally lame-o.

Like Steamed Grapefruit on a bed of Wheatgrass.

But nope! This meal was anything but blah.

I got the idea for the ingredients from this recipe on Whole Living and the idea for the cooking method from this recipe on Whole Living. And then I put the two together in the aisles of Wegmans.

It’s how I roll.

Parchment Paper Salmon

Ingredients:

• 1 salmon fillet (4-6oz)
• 2-3 lemon slices
• handful of parsley
• salt and pepper

Directions:

Lay the salmon widthwise on a piece of parchment paper (12 inches x 17 inches, approximately). Season with salt and pepper. Place lemon slices on top of seasoned salmon and lay parsley over lemon. Bring the top and bottom ends of the parchment paper together and fold them to form a crease, continuing to fold until you reach the salmon. Then wrap the sides of the parchment paper underneath the salmon so that it forms a nice little package.

(If you’re more of a visual learner, or if my directions are less than helpful, you can check out Martha’s video tutorial.)

Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes, depending on the size of the fillet. Serve over brown rice and mixed greens. (Also pictured with a side of orange blob, which is actually 1/4 of a gigantic sweet potato mashed with cinnamon, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper.)

Now, truth be told, I’ve seriously hated the whole rating process I had going on with these Challenges. I’d let out a long and loud “UGHHHHHH” when I got to the rating section of each post because I had to hunt down the original text and then answer my own ridiculous questions and the whole thing just made me disgruntled…for no valid reason. So from now on I’m just going to give a numerical rating and an explanation to preserve my sanity and the purity of my thoughts. This week I’d say:

Rating: 4.5/5. This is going to become a staple, I can feel it. So healthy, so easy, so good!