New Apron Pics!

Check out the Aprons For Sale page to see a pic of "The Beth" apron!

It was a Stupidly Hard Detox

That lasted just under a week!

I felt SO bad, so listless, so achy, so irritable, so LIFELESS that when I told the doctor how I was feeling she thought I had the flu and told me to stop the MediClear shakes but continue the elimination diet.

But...the whole reason she wanted me to DO this was for the detox...not to see if I was allergic to anything!

So that night after explaining it to Matt and barely nibbling at our boring dinner and lying on the couch (as I had been for 6 days), Matt took Roy on a walk and proceeded to text me, "So, want me to order a pizza?"

It took me 2.6 seconds to decide that YES. I wanted a PIZZA. GLUTEN. DAIRY. TOMATOES. PEPPERONI. I want it ALLL!

And Matt picked up a 6 pack of beer to boot.

And by the next morning I was completely recovered.

Glory glory hallelujah!

The Stupidly Ridiculously Hard Detox

That's supposed to be good for me.

Sigh.

I know it probably is.

Doesn't make it any easier, though.

My naturopath recommended I do a three week detox while drinking the MediClear Plus protein powder.  I do know detoxes are good. They give your body a break. Even fasting, in moderation, has been proven to be healthy. It gives your body a chance to fully digest things and heal itself.

And so we're doing this thing.

Here's a rundown of what we're giving up:

COFFEE!!!

Dairy (oh my sweet butter how I miss thee already)
(and that includes eggs)

Gluten (BREAD, people, BREAD!)

Sugar. And chocolate. Sniff.

Beef. Pork. Sausage. Bacon. Oh bacon...how were you ever once a sin?

Soy (as stir fry fanatics, do you know how much soy sauce we go through in a month?)

Peanuts. Solid staple of my diet right there, people.

Alcohol (last night's dinner would have gone perfectly with a chilled Pinot Grigio...)

Tomatoes (I can't even have salsa?!)

Corn ( or tortilla chips?!?!?!)

Grapefruit (oh. okay. darn.)

That's the gist of the list.

Yikes.

We started yesterday morning and Matt and I both had headaches all day from the caffeine withdrawal. Or maybe the EVERYTHING withdrawal. Because its the end of day two and I still have a headache...though not a full blown migraine, thankfully.

So, as we go through this journey I thought I would do what I always do...blog about it.  Because recipes that are THIS exclusive are pretty darn hard to find, I thought I'd share them here. That way if you ever want to torture yourself in the future you know where to turn.

Day 1

Woke up and had our first MediClear smoothie. Hmmm. This stuff needs a kick...pomegranate juice or orange juice or something acidic to cover up that protein-y taste.

By nine I was irrepressibly groggy and my non-sweetened herbal tea was NOT cutting it.

I had made Lentil Soup the night before so we would have easy lunches all week. Little did I know Matt would eat half the big batch the first day.

That night for dinner (after a two hour nap because both of us were too headache-y tired to do anything else), I had some chicken legs with thigh meat that still had skin. Heated up some olive oil, patted the chicken dry and salted and peppered the little leggies and let them cook until crispy golden.

For our Mushroom Risotto I sautéed half a yellow onion in olive oil for a few minutes, then added the arborio rice and sautéed that a minute or so. Then I added a cup of chopped onions and twice as much chicken broth as rice (in this case 1 cup rice to two cups broth) and lots of pepper. A few stirs, brought it to bubbling, then put the lid on and put it on low for 20 minutes.

Then we heated the oven to 425, chopped up some carrots, new potatoes, the other half of the yellow onion, and some garlic. Tossed it in olive oil, salt and pepper and let it roast 20 minutes or so while the rice finished.

All in all it looked like a meal we would eat on any night of the week.

Day 1...we conquered you.

Breakfast for Dinner

So this is nothing new, but I love having breakfast for dinner.

We're heading into a detox next week, so we're trying to eat up all the things we can't have. Like eggs, bacon, and toast with butter.

So that's what we made last night for dinner!

So if you're feeling that cooking up some pasta and chicken and making a salad is just too much work, throw some bacon on the griddle, whip up an omelette with veggies inside and pop in some toast.

Good times...good times...

Dreading the Detox...

But in a very weird way looking forward to it too.

Looking forward to hopefully not feeling bloated all the time...like this morning I was very hungry with a rumbly stomach but in a different way felt full and bloated...what to do?

So starting next Tuesday when we get back from our trip to Whistler, I'm going on the MediClear detox. No dairy, gluten, soy, chocolate, alcohol, sugar, peanut butter, tomatoes, corn, beef, pork...I'm going to stop there so I don't start crying.

All that to say I'll be doing a lot of different cooking in those 3 (yes THREE) weeks, and will hopefully find or come up with some diary-free gluten-free recipes that actually taste decent.

Lord help me.

Aprons...anyone?

I love making aprons.

There's a zillion ways to make them individual, they're practical, they're irresistably cute, and I can make them in a few hours!

Its been my tradition to give aprons and a wooden spoon as a bridal shower gift, or aprons in the wedding colors as part of a wedding gift. I love doing something that personal and hope the brides like it too!

As I'm working on my 9th apron I'm beginning to think about maybe starting a little side business of selling these. I've come a long way since those first few, and the ones I'm finishing now are sturdier and cuter!

I'll post pics later, but if you're interested in an apron either for yourself or for a friend, give me a holler. They take about 3-4 hours to make, and I haven't quite added up what materials would cost generally (it largely depends on the price of the fabric), but I'm guesstimating to make it worth my time I would sell them for about $35-40. That means I'd probably be making $5 an hour profit, but I enjoy making these anyways and its something that can be unique and personalized.

Thoughts?

What To Do With Those Braising Greens!

Since we've joined our CSA, Jubilee Farms, we've gotten a very large bag of mixed braising greens every week. Sometimes two bags!  What to do with all this! One can only eat so many stir frys!

Last week I went straight to work.

Preheating the oven to 200 degrees, I washed the greens then spread them out on a cookie sheet. 

Then I let them dry to a crisp in the oven for about 2 hours.

Once they were crispy and cool, I put them in a zip lock bag and pounded the heck out of them until they were pretty fine.

The result was I had a huge bag of greens that would have taken 3 stir frys reduced to a small bag! Much more manageable!

A few evenings later we were looking for an easy dinner to make. Pasta and a jar of marinara is always an easy fix, but I wanted to use some of our greens.

I warmed up the marinara (Trader Joe's Organic Marinara) in a small saucepan, then tossed in the entire baggy of braising greens! 

I gave it a few stirs and let it simmer for awhile. 

After the pasta was done cooking we tossed it altogether and topped it with grated Parmesan.

And we each got a half a bag worth of all the good stuff in the braising greens in one dish! Oh, and you couldn't even taste a difference!

This dish can be vegetarian, or you can cook up some chicken in olive oil and garlic to add some protein.