Detox Salad

This past weekend, Ron and I spent Friday and Saturday in beautiful Leavenworth, Washington. Leavenworth is a little town about 2.5 hours from Seattle that is modeled after a Bavarian village and surrounded by mountains. I've wanted to visit this place for several years now, so when I saw that they had an Oktoberfest marathon weekend, I was stoked. As soon as we learned we were moving to Seattle, I registered us for the half-marathon! Awesome! Well, not completely 100% awesome. Ron and I have been on a streak of going on terrible short weekend trips. First, our trip to Whistler, B.C. was cut short thanks to my getting terribly ill (and Ron wearing shorts in 10 degree rainy weather). Then, our weekend trip to San Francisco was quite possibly the worst trip I've ever experienced in my life. So we weren't expecting much going into Leavenworth but we still had high hopes.

Overall, the trip wasn't terrible so we were pleasantly pleased! Perhaps our bad streak is over? (Please say yes.) The town absolutely exceeded my expectations! It was completely adorable with cute little shops that all seemed to be Christmas related; I spent nearly an hour inside Kris Kringl! But it was the hotel -- ohhhh, the hotel -- that caused us to duck out a day early and lose a couple hundred dollars (a room during off-peak time is $79 but was marked up to $249 per night for this weekend!). The hotel was... BAD. You see, I somewhat knew going into it that the hotel was not going to be good. The run was scheduled for the last weekend of Oktoberfest - the most popular weekend of the year in Leavenworth - so nearly all rooms were booked by the time I was trying to get a room. So, when I found one, I jumped on it without doing much research. A few days before the trip, I checked the reviews and saw that our hotel was ranked 20 out of 20 hotels in the little town. Oh boy. Let's just say we should've slept in the car. Dirty grim aside, at 3:00 in the morning, I was still up, staring at the ceiling wondering why we weren't invited to the party above us. I didn't complain about, ahem, the bugs, smells, or stains, but I did mention the noise to the woman at the front desk. "For $250 per night, I just assumed we'd get some sleep in the hotel." She replied, "It's Oktoberfest. What do you expect? Most people are drunk so we figure it's a non-issue if guests just pass out." Oh, ok. Hospitality fail?

But, despite our lack of sleep, we somehow ran a delirious 13.1 miles the following morning. I think we would have done much better if we had slept and didn't spend 50% of the course running on single-file trails in the woods. But it went ok and we had fun. The sun came out and the mountains were beautiful. We spent the remainder of the morning walking around Leavenworth and eating hearty German fare that inspired me to go on a vegetable binge once we returned. So here is this delicious detox salad that is based off of a salad from Whole Foods. I've never tried the Whole Foods version but so long as I have these ingredients, I'll be making this amazing recipe from Oh She Glows blog. I feel rejuvenated and detox'ed already! It makes a ton so you'll be eating leftovers for days.

Detox Salad
from Oh She Glows
Ingredients

• 2 heads broccoli, stems removed
• 1 head cauliflower, stems removed
• 2.5 cups shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup currants
• 1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 4-6 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, to taste
• salt and pepper
• pure maple syrup, to drizzle on before serving

Instructions

1. In a food processor, process the broccoli until fine. Add into large bowl.
2. Process the cauliflower until fine; place in bowl. Process the carrots; place in bowl.
3. Stir in the sunflower seeds, currants, raisins, and parsley. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Drizzle with maple syrup to taste and enjoy!