Detox Soup

Every once and a while, I clean my room. Not like put my clothes away, make my bed clean (which, for the record, I do twice, maybe thrice a week) but like throw out old tee-shirts, re-arrange my closet, clean out all my purses and clean under my bed cleaning. I'm also a believer that people should do that with their bodies every once in a while. Back in college, I used to do this via special K... two weeks of eating nothing but organic yogurt and special K cereal. It always sucked the first few days, but really did work! This year, I decided to change things up and do a one-month detox with actual food ( no hate special k!) Week one consisted of NO dairy, gluten (wheat), processed foods, anything with "sugar" or any sort of fake sugar in the ingredients, nothing out of a can or a package, and no caffeine. So what did I eat? Not much. TONS of fruits and veggies, quinoa (a grain that does not have gluten... almost as good as rice or pasta) and lots of bananas and organic almond butter (ingredients: almonds, salt.) This detox soup was really yummy and actually pretty filling, I ate it for lunch every day that week!

Detox almond-kale-ginger-potato soup (inspired by Martha Stewart chicken-almond soup)

5 cups veggie (or chicken) stock

1 Small yellow onion, diced

1 large sweet potato, chopped up

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 oz chicken tenders, chopped up and baked at 400 degrees for 40 minutes (optional, I made it veggie-only)

1/2 cup organic almond butter (no added sugars)

2 cups kale, chopped

2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger

salt and pepper

1) shop up and put onion,sweet potato and garlic onto cookie sheet, drizle with olive oil and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes (make sure they don't brown, just soften up a bit)

2) combine stock, baked onion sweet potato and garlic and chicken (optional) bring to a boil, reduce heat cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. 

3) in a small bowl, combine almond butter and about 1.5-2 cups of the simmering chicken broth, stir together and put aside. 

4) add kale and ginger to remaning simmering broth and veggies, simmer for about 5 minutes. 

5) stir in almond butter and broth mixture into broth and veggies, simmer for about 5 more minutes. 

6) Season with salt and pepper, and enjoy!!!! 

Happy Valentine's Day!!

In honor of this holiday that I happen to L-O-V-E, here is an easy recipe for a tasty treat...Heart Shaped Brownie "Cookies"

Ingredients:

1 Box Brownie Mix (or if you are feeling ambitious make your favorite homemade brownie recipe)

8 Oz. Package of Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Strawberries

Directions:

Prepare brownies according to directions on box. Pour batter into pan, creating a thin layer (about 1/2 inch thick). Bake brownies at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow them to cool completely. Then cut into hearts - either one big heart or multiple smaller hearts totally up to you :-)

Next you want to make the frosting; simply combine all ingredients (cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla) and mix completely. Frost the brownies then add strawberries to finish! 

These delish treats are the perfect combo of chocolately sweet and cheesy goodness with natural sugars from the strawberries and they will have anyone you share them with thinking you are a the ultimate Domestic Diva!!

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!!

xoxo,

Dieter

Big-Ass Cookies from an Old Geezer Recipe

After decorating our walls with vintage cookbook covers, we thought we should maybe actually read some of these geezer recipes. One of these old timers was a recipe for "Old Fashion Bakers Dozen Cookies." Now.... the words "old fashion" in a cookbook from 1940 leads me to believe that this recipe was created by people dwelling in caves, hunting and gathering (baking ingredients AND buffalo.) 

Giant cookie (notice cute wall behind giant cookie)

Old Fashion Bakers Dozen Cookies

Makes 13 BIG ASS cookies( or 24 normal people cookies)

3 cups flour

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

6 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and salt together. Give it a lil' stir and set aside. 

Cream together shortening, butter and sugar. Add eggs, milk and lemon rind. 

Use a wooden spoon to stir flour into butter mix

Take 1/3 cup batter and make into ball. Put on lightly greased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly with bake of a spatula. Repeat until cookie sheet is full. 

Bake on lightly greased baking sheet at 350 for 15 minutes, or until edges are brown. 

(be sure to space these guys out, they are HUGE!

While cookies are cooling, do some sit-ups, do 10 minutes of yoga, just do something to burn off the 3240 calories you are about to binge on, because these cookies are AWESOME

Vintage Cookbook Wall...Antique store treasure hunting

(Dieter and Mairz in the kitchen)

"Sunday Funday" used to mean waking up at noon, going to get breakfast, and spending the day drinking... anything and everything. Now, "Sunday Funday" means waking up at 7:00 AM, walking to brunch, and spending the day in Ocean Beach shopping for antiques. (Well... this isn't completely true, if there is football on we revert back to the good ol' boozin' sunday.)

This week, we found some awesome/hilarious cookbooks from the 50's and 60's. We LOVED the covers, and Dieter came up with the idea to buy a bunch of them and frame them for our big blank yellow kitchen wall!

First thing, we found our favorite 8 pictures and threw them in some nice $2.00 Ikea frames. Then,  we figured out the design we wanted on the floor. 

After some serious discussion (a solid two, maybe three minutes) we decided on a design we liked and hung um' up!  (we threw in some shelving as well... we still need some cute somethin' somethins' for them, the wine glass is not permanent. )

Baked Onion Rings, because fried=better

Today it was a chilly 64 degrees here in San Diego. I couldn't complain, because while I was wandering around the city in a skirt (and sweater) my friends and family back home were dealing with this

(I stole this picture from my cousin Meaghan in Chicago)

In honor of it being cold, windy and juussstttt a little snowy, here is my very favorite recipe for a great cold-weather comfort food, onion rings! (This is also in honor of it almost being the super bowl, when we plan on consuming enough fried food for a small, no, large African village.)

1.5 cups cornflakes

1.5 cups breadcrumbs

1 egg

1/4 cup buttermilk (don't skimp here, use real, thick, unhealthy buttermilk)

1/4 cup flour

teeeeny pinch of cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

1 medium onion (I use vidalia) cut into thin rings

about 2 Tablespoons olive oil

-preheat oven to 450. If you have a food processor (lucky) pulse the cornflakes and breadcrumbs until fine crumbs. If you don't have one, just put the cornflakes in a large ziplock bag and crunch the cornflakes until they are all crunched, then add to breadcrumbs. 

- In another bowl, mix egg, buttermilk, flour, cayenne and add salt and pepper

- Dip onion into egg mixture and then into cornflake and breadcrumb mixture, place on large plate. Repeat until all of the rings are dipped in batter and cornflakes and breadcrumbs. Put about two tablespoons of olive oil onto large baking sheet, put it in the preheated oven for 1 or 2 minutes. Take sheet out and tip it to coat it evenly with oil. Put rings on the sheet and bake 10 minutes. Turn over the onion rings, back about 6-10 more minutes or until brown. 

-Take them out and enjoy!!!!

(The puppers back in Wisconsin braving the snow this morning)