The Cooking Light 3-Day Detox

Hear me out on this one.  “Detox” is dumb.  I have full faith that, unless you’re subsisting off alcohol, processed foods and sugar, your body is fully capable of “detoxing” itself.  That’s what your liver and kidneys are for, right?  But when Cooking Light published a 3-Day Detox meal plan in their January issue, I couldn’t resist, because I like being given a meal plan and I like when Joey and I get to do a little kitchen project together.  Like the Food Lover’s Cleanse, except way shorter, way easier and way less expensive.

Truthfully, I wasn’t even going to post about it, because it didn’t seem exciting or important enough, but I’m trying to take the time to write about those exact things.  They go by unnoticed, but they actually make up most of our lives, ya know?

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Things I Learned:

  • I’m not about a smoothie breakfast — something about not actually chewing food makes me feel like I haven’t actually eaten anything
  • Pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes are the best — I was not even looking forward to that dinner salad on Day 1, but then it was amazingly delicious and those sweet potatoes for breakfast the next day were so satisfying
  • My snack game could be way better — a pear and almond butter is so much better than a Larabar, so why don’t I take the time to actually prepare a snack more often?!
  • C.R.E.A.M., AKA carbs rule everything around me — as in, by the end of Day 3, I felt like if I didn’t eat something more than that 1/2 cup of quinoa for dinner I might actually cry

Okay, I like to think I eat pretty healthy and I don’t think I overeat all that often, but I was kind of starving by Wednesday so I don’t know who that meal plan was designed for, but those portions/meals weren’t cutting it.  While the food was all tasty as hell, it also wasn’t super filling and I so did not get into that “detox” to lose any weight.

In other words, we finished our 3-Day Detox with two big old chocolate chip cookies 🙂

Best Tastes of 2016: From Our Kitchen

Nothing like writing all these year-end recaps, then cramming them all in during the last few days of December, right?  2016 was the year of pancakes, LOTS of summer grilling, salads-in-a-jar and adventurous meat cooking, but there was also a lot of amazing stuff in between.  Here’s the best of the best!

Best Family Recipe:

Red Beans & Rice from my uncle’s recipe (February 9)

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Best Pizza:

Cast-Iron Pan Pizza from Bon Appétit (March 2)

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Best Baked Recipe:

Mini Vegan “Brioche” Buns from Take a Megabite (March 29)

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Best Side Dish:

Creamy Chive Potatoes from Bon Appétit (April 4)

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Best Burger:

Spinach Goat Cheese Burger from Eat, Live, Run (June 9)

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Best Grill Meal:

Grilled Lamb from Cooking Light (July 4)

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Best Summer Pasta Dish:

Spaghetti with Tomato and Walnut Pesto from Bon Appétit (August 9) — made 110% better by the fact that Joey made it for me ♥

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Best Pancake:

The Easiest (Vegan) Pancakes from Oh, Ladycakes (October 15, but also many times after that)

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Best Salad:

Fall Squash & Fig Salad with Maple Mustard Balsamic Dressing from Yummy Beet // thanks to our salad-in-a-jar habit, we ate a lot of salads this year, but this one was my favorite.

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Best Winter Pasta Dish:

Garlic and White Wine Pasta with Brussels Sprouts from Minimalist Baker (December 15)

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 Best Cookie:

Two-way tie between:

Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Displaced Housewife (October 13)

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And The Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies from Pinch of Yum (February 25)

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Best Granola:

Pumpkin Maple Pecan Granola from Edible Perspective // If you had asked me my favorite granola prior to this fall I would have told you nothing could come between me and the Lightened Up Summer Granola from Oh She Glows but then I decided to give this one a try and it instantly became my new favorite.  I think it’s those dates.

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Best Cooking Success of the Entire Year: Christmas + Our First Turkey!

Don’t get me wrong, I was blown away by the lamb we grilled ourselves for the 4th of July, but that was so low pressure compared to cooking a 20-pound turkey for 15 people on Christmas.  The days leading up to it, I kept wondering if this meal would end up on this list or on the other list.  Thankfully, it’s here.  The turkey was juicy perfection, the rolls were puffy mini cloud status, the rice/sweet potatoes/mashed potatoes/gravy/cranberry sauce all went off without a hitch and people went mad for the raw Brussels sprout salad (?!).

In other words, this meal was the crowning glory of my culinary life thus far.

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Food forecast for 2017?  Hopefully more pizza!  In all seriousness, culinary growth (even if it’s just in my own kitchen) is one of the biggest, most fun and most unexpected joys of my life.  Here’s to its continuance in the new year!