CookieD-oh

We successfully completed our juice fast!  Well, me more than hubby.  He may have dropped out a day or so early.  But it was still a big accomplishment! And what better way to celebrate the end of a juice fast than with making giant birthday cake that you can't eat because you're trying to stay healthy!? My dad turned 65, so Grandma threw him a party!  I brought the cake.  And a lemon meringue pie.  The cake was served at the party.  The pie was not. Dad's favorite is chocolate cake, so I made a giant chocolate cake.  Only, because it's me, I had to do a little something extra.  So the bottom tier wasn't chocolate at all. It was a flag cake!  Sorry for the hacked up picture. The slices themselves were perfectly flaggy.  But I didn't get any pictures of those. Of course. For the flag cake I used this recipe from Sweetapolita . I actually make the cake recipe four times. Each recipe filled a 10-inch cake tin about perf...

It's day nine of the juice fast and we're not dead yet!  Although Hubby is a bit cranky.  Hopefully he can hold out for the next day and a half.. On that note, I looked at my kitchen counter the other day and saw this: It's like a healthy person broke into my house and left their stuff behind. Anyhoo, the almonds are not part of the juice fast.  I made some granola bars for my kids the other day, after I dared to read the ingredient label on the box that I purchased from the store.  It was then and there that I declared, "If my kids are going to eat junk, then by golly, it's going to be junk that I made for them myself!"  Who's with me!?  Anyone? OK, so I found this recipe for granola bars over at the Pioneer Woman  and decided to try it out.  I was not able to take pictures, as I needed both hands for this recipe.  (You can thank me later.) And there's the finished product.  You can see the remains of a jar of carrot jui...

Hello again. The hubby and I have decided to go on a 10-day juice fast.  (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)  So we bought a bunch of fresh veggies and fruits, borrowed my mom's juicer, broke out the blender, and got to work! Check out that juicer... That's vintage 1984, Baby! But guess what?  It works just fine. I guess you're really supposed to drink the juice as you make it, but because of my odd work schedule, we needed to make some in advance.  We started with homemade V-8.  It was then that we discovered my husband has a deep-seated hatred for beets.  Go figure. Anywhoo, here's some of what we came up with: Aren't they purty?  From left to right: Pear-cucumber-mint, watermelon, carrot-parsnip, and Mean Green.  Mean Green includes kale, celery, cucumber, apples, ginger, and lemon.  It grows on you.  And the green stuff is best for detoxing. Not pictured are the V-8, grape, and pineapple-watermelon t...

Seriously.  Oh my goodness.  I saw this recipe over at Blueberry Kitchen and had to try it.  I was not disappointed. (Why do my pictures look upside down lately?!?!?!?!) Anyhoo.  Blueberry jam is not widely available around here.  Go figure.  So the hubby and I left he kids with Nana and went on a small road trip to Amish country. (OK, so we didn't really go all the way to Amish country just for blueberry jam...but we did find some while we were there.) I should have gotten two jars.  I ran out. Fortunately, I had previously purchased a jar of blueberry preserves, in case I wasn't able to find jam. While I was making the rolls, I noticed Hubby had left his favorite shirt on a kitchen chair, so I took a picture. This isn't a step-by-step, just a few random pictures.  The dry ingredients and the butter: The lovely, lovely dough after its first rising: You can see where I ran out of jam and switched to preserves. Ro...