Test Kitchen Tuesday

Did you have a good Valentine’s Day? I hope so! Now that the sugary holidays are behind us for a while, it would be a great time to treat your body to a nutritional cleanse, so I have a few items about those, below.

• One of my Healthy Book Club pals, Stacy Spensley, wrote a great article on cleansing and detoxing over here. She is doing a series, so if you don’t follow her now, you may want to – she really knows what she’s talking about when it comes to diet and nutrition.
• The Reboot with Joe team just came out with a Juice Bar locator, so you can easily find juice no matter where you are. Awesome!
• I’m thinking of buying an actual juicer, but have been asked to please wait until we have a kitchen. My hubby is tolerant, but we are running out of room for kitchen appliances in our little temp kitchen!
• Last week, when we were in Yosemite, we didn’t have TV, but the cabin had a Roku device with Netflix. We watched a documentary (y’all know I love documentaries) called Craigslist Joe. It was a fascinating story of a guy who solely lived off Craigslist for a month. He left some of the stories not quite “tied up,” in my opinion, but it was still a great and entertaining story, and leaves you with “warm fuzzies” that there are plenty of great people out there.
• I finally ran out of the Sun Warrior Warrior Blend protein powder that I reviewed here. I have to say, my opinion of it improved quite a bit as I got used to it, and after a 2.2 lb bag, I actually really like it. But, I also like to try new things, so I ordered this Lifetime powder and this Oriya Superfood Protein Medley to try out and report back. Both of these are vegan proteins. You might wonder why I usually don’t specifically call out whey protein in my recipes. I don’t really have anything against whey protein, but, I have a dairy sensitivity, so I typically avoid anything with dairy in it and favor a rice/pea protein blend. Also, many of the easily-available whey protein powders have a lot of undesirable additives to make them taste better, which I generally try to skip. If you’re more into whey protein, just make sure it doesn’t have artificial sweeteners, and it should be low in sugar. Tara’s Whey is a good choice.
• I am still trying to come up with a replica macaroon to these Hail Merry’s. Ay Dios Mio. I’m getting close, but, no cigar just yet. To be fair, I have only tried twice, and while they tasted good, they required more hands-on shaping before drying than I’d prefer. Since then, I have been distracted with all the fun stuff I’ve been dehydrating. However, here is a recipe from Tessa, the Domestic Diva, for chocolate knock offs that don’t require dehydrating! I think if you leave out the cocoa, you’d have the blonde version.

Have a wonderful weekend, and remember to enter my Aqua Zinger giveaway!