Juice Machine!

JUICE!  So Todd and I just watched this fascinating documentary: "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" which shows how one man decided to go on a juice fast for 60 days to lose weight and get healthy.  Not only did he lose a ton of weight, but he became super healthy and no longer needed any of his prescription drugs and had more energy than ever! Anyways, if you cannot tell, it was a pretty inspiring movie. You should watch it. Here's a link to the guy's website which explains more about his story: Reboot Your Life.

One thing the movie definitely illustrates is how LITTLE we Americans eat our fruits and vegetables.  But with a juicer you can pack in a TON of fruits and vegetables into one drink! 

So yeh, we bought a juicer.  It should be on our door step by this weekend and we're both super excited to "juice up".  Here's one recipe that looks pretty awesome: Great Greens Juice.

Have you tried a juicer before? Any good recipes to share? Leave a comment below! :)

Fresh Ginger Cake

Today is a chilly grey President's Day in Seattle, WA, so I thought tea and cake sounded like a warm and delicious afternoon snack. Here is the recipe from The Junior League of Seattle's "Simply Classic". The cake turned out much more like a bread, served with butter made it extra amazing.

2 tbsp butter softened

2 tbsp sugar

1 large egg

1/3 c honey

2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 tsp lemon zest grated

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbsp crystallized ginger finely chopped

1/2 c buttermilk

2 tsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease & flour bottom and sides of 8 inch cake pan.

In a large bowl beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, honey, fresh ginger, lemon zest, and vanilla. The mixture will curdle a bit.

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. In a small bowl toss crystallized ginger with 1/2 tsp of dry ingredients and set aside. Add remaining dry ingredients alternated with buttermilk to butter mixture beating well after each addition. Stir in crystallized ginger.

Pour batter into cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and sprinkle with powdered sugar - and enjoy! 

This Week in Winters

This is a our sweet ride this week, a Fiat. It feels like I'm driving in both a go-cart and a clown car.  It's so tiny that we get stares driving it around Winters where pickup trucks are the norm.  But it's nice to have a change from our regular rental cars.  

And this is my "Valentine's Treat" to myself yesterday after swim practice. I finally caved and went to In-N-Out for the first time in the 7 months we've been down here!! Can't believe I waited that long.  It was delish! Our refrigerator broke last week, so until our landlord gets it fixed I'm finding every excuse to eat out. :)

For Valentine's dinner, Todd took me out to the local Indian restaurant, Clay Oven, rated "Best Indian Restaurant of 2011" - or as I say, "The Only Indian Restaurant of 2011." It was the one place in town not completely packed for the holiday, so we enjoyed some tiki masala and garlic naan bread. Yum. 

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm SO ready for the weekend! It feels like it's been a long time since we've been able to really kick back and enjoy our Seattle home, and this weekend will be extra long with the President's Day Holiday - I can't wait!! 

SF Architecture

Here is the Crown Zellerbach Paper Company building in San Francisco.  Looks like just another big office building? That's what I thought too. Todd and I took Rick Evan's Architecture Walking Tour this weekend when we visited the city, which opened our eyes to the history and art of the buildings in the Financial District that we typically wouldn't give second thought to.  I highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting the city, or even people who live there! Rick was a very engaging and fun tour guide. He has a couple other tours in the city that I hope to go to on another visit!

Anyways, back to this building.  This was the first glass building built in the city after World War II. You can notice the "sheen" on the grey section of the building. This is caused by light reflecting off of the materials used - 1 inch square Italian cut tiles!! The builder was Italian and insisted that most of the materials be brought in from Italy. According to Rick, this mosaic wall is so beautiful with the light reflecting off the emerald mosaics that fashion shoots take place here against the wall all the time. I took Rick's "fashion photo" here myself.

Some other things we enjoyed while in the city: dinners at Range and Bar Jules, breakfast at La Boulange, lunch at Epic Roasthouse (yes, most our travel focuses on food), shopping around Union Square, and driving through the Golden Gate park, Lincoln Park, and the Presidio.  Gotta love SF!

Officially Domestic: Bread & Scrapbooking

Here's one of my creations of the week: homemade bread! Another tasty recipe from Brother Juniper's bread book. This time it called for dried breadcrumbs included in the mixture, polenta on the bottom of the loaves, and spraying the tops with water for the first 10 minutes in the oven - all to give the bread extra crunchiness. Yum!

This has been a pretty calm week in Winters. Other than baking and cooking for my hubby, I've been going to the usual swim practices, cleaning our small apartment, reading the third book of the Hunger Games series (fantastic!), and creating my first Shutterfly photo album. We got a Groupon discount for one of these, and it's my first time using the tool. SO much fun! It's super easy to use, you just upload the photos you want in your album and then pick the colors, style, and text you want to add in. Very much like an easy scrapbook.  

This weekend Todd and I will be celebrating our two year wedding anniversary in San Francisco, where he used to work. We're really looking forward to visiting our favorite restaurant, Bar Jules. We'll also be trying some new activities: an architecture walking tour and perhaps a trip to Alcatraz. Should be fun!

Have a great weekend everyone!