delicious

Lou Malnati’s Pizza

Josie Girl 7 Comments

I am a pizza lover. I might even go out on a limb and say that I am a both a pizza fanatic and snob. I love pizza and could eat it every night for dinner, but it has to be good pizza. Not the type of pizza that they serve at kids’ birthday parties (barf) or the kind that is soggy / too thick / bad sauce / overly cheesey / greasy, etc….  But once I find a pizza I like, I am a devoted fan. My favorite pizza places in NYC are hands down: Marta and Rubirosa. But when I can’t get to those restaurants (my husband isn’t a fan of eating pizza for dinner — he prefers it for lunch or a snack — one of our few conflicts), I love a frozen pizza. NOT JUST ANY FROZEN pizza, but Lou Malnati’s Pizza.

 

Lou.

Lou. We love you Lou.

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Kale Caesar Salad

Josie Girl 5 Comments

I have always loved kale (Ken even considered naming our son, “Kale” instead of “Cruz” — true story), but this kale caesar salad has taken my love of the dark leafy green to a whole new level. Like, I could eat four heads of kale in one day and be happy and content. This is an easy salad, with a super tasty homemade dressing that lasts in the fridge for several weeks. Once I discovered the recipe from Epicurious, I have literally made this salad 2-3 times a week. I can’t stop, won’t stop, why stop. So here is the recipe.  Enjoy!

 

Ingredients for Salad:

 

Ingredients

 

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Mah Ze Dahr Nutella Hand Pies

Josie Girl 6 Comments

Hello friends! I am so happy to write about Mah Ze Dahr once again! This past winter, the amazing online bakery founded by former Goldman Sachs executive Umber Ahmad was written up in the NY Times as having the best doughnuts in the city. As a loyal fan, I couldn’t wait to taste the doughnuts, so I went online to buy. And yet, instead of following my plan, I indulged in half a dozen of the Nutella Hand Pies. AND OH MY, they are amazing. True perfection. The New York Times needs to review THEM!

 

Bundle of deliciousness

Bundle of deliciousness

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Ample Hills Creamery

Josie Girl 7 Comments

Even in sub-freezing temperatures, nothing is better than Ample Hills Ice Cream. Sold at three different Brooklyn locations and as of YESTERDAY, at the Gotham West Market in Manhattan, this ice cream is like no other. More like a pot of 24K gold in comparison to bronze.  Not only does it taste delicious, but it is the only ice cream parlor in New York City that makes ice cream completely from scratch on the premises. It gets its eggs and dairy from local farms, and each aspect of the ice cream is handmade with premium ingredients. Holy cow.

 

The store

The Gowanus Ice Cream Parlor on a recent cold, snowy, freezing weekend afternoon. Check out the roof deck up top. I want to have a party up there — for lazy people who don’t want to come to my party in Brooklyn, they will not know what they are missing. It is simply amazing.

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3 Cookbooks

Josie Girl 4 Comments

Guilty pleasure: reading cookbooks! I love collecting, sorting through, and learning from cookbooks. Although the internet is a terrific place to peruse for recipes and ideas, there is something about the old fashioned, hard cover that I can’t get away from. There are so many cookbooks that I love and use, but currently, here are my three favorite:

 

Cookbooks

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Healthy Morning Glory Muffins

Josie Girl 3 Comments

Even Ken thinks that they are tasty (hard critic!).

 

Every time I am at Whole Foods, I end up picking up a “Morning Glory” Muffin to snack on. Both my daughter and I love them:  sweet, moist, and healthy.  So I decided to bake a batch of them myself! After scouring the internet to find the recipe that suited my taste, here is the one I found on eatingwell.com. I modified them slightly and love the result! They are refined-sugar free, gluten-free (because I used gluten-free flour), and nutrient packed!

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Healthy Banana Coconut Cookies

Josie Girl 4 Comments

The right size.

 

For the past couple of months, I have been more into *real* desserts than *healthy* desserts. But now that it is the start of a new, clean, fresh year, I am back to loving / craving / wanting / needing healthy desserts. And this dessert is the perfect one — incredibly healthy, no refined sugar, no wheat, real ingredients, easy to make, and super delicious. WIN WIN WIN — almost like digging into an overflowing ice cream hot fudge sundae. This recipe is from 101 Cookbooks, one of my all-time favorite food blogs. Check it out! And make these cookies! They are part banana bread — part oatmeal — part macaroon. All in one deliciousness!

 

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Broccoli-Arugula Soup

Josie Girl 5 Comments

Theoretically, you could just go to the GOOP website and find this soup. But hey, it is more fun when I post, right? So full acknowledgement, this soup is copied EXACTLY from GP. AND IT IS SO GOOD! And healthy! And the perfect way to start the New Year! So go on and make it. And pretend that I was genius enough (or had the staff) to create it myself.

 

Ingredients:

 

Ingredients

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Vegan Spinach Dip

Josie Girl 4 Comments

This past weekend, we had our dear friend Katie Kaiser from Stanford visit.  In addition to being a great friend, she is one of the most phenomenal cooks I have ever encountered — as I still remember all her dinner parties during Business School and the meals she put together. So I asked her if we could cook together so I could learn some of her tips, skills, and recipes. POT OF GOLD! We cooked up a storm and she taught me so much — stay tuned for her various recipes that will be featured on the blog, Thank you, Kaiser! We love you! And so here is one of her recipes, delicious Vegan Spinach Dip!

 

Ingredients:

 

Ingredients

Ingredients

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Grizzlie’s Granola

Josie Girl 6 Comments

Best Granola Ever. I am addicted and obsessed with granola and this is HANDS DOWN MY FAVORITE brand. No other type of granola comes close to this heavenly bowl of goodness! For the past several years (at least 5 years, or even more!), my dear mother in Eugene, Oregon, has been sending me boxes of this granola from the bin in our local grocery store (which is ten times better than any Whole Foods) to New York City. I never knew that it was sold elsewhere! Until I found it in a random Korean Deli Store in Upper Manhattan. It was startling, exhilarating, and life changing! Grizzlie’s Granola — Aunt Maple’s Crunchy Granola — the best of the best.

 

Heaven in a bag

Heaven in a bag

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Jacques Genin Chocolate

Josie Girl 10 Comments

Even though I am done with marathon training (well, for NYC 2014…not forever….I am hooked), I still am hungry all the time. Especially for chocolates. Specifically, French chocolates. Recommended by a friend on our recent trip to Paris, we stopped by Jacques Genin, a well known French chocolate and caramel maker in the Marais. And let me tell you, it is worth the hype. At first, I thought that all high-end chocolate tastes the same — good, delicious, and decadent. But once I polished off the box of Jacques Genin’s, I realized that it was HIS chocolate that was oh-s0-flipping-good. He opened up his own chocolate store / tea house in the Marais neighborhood in 2008. It is beautiful and chic — an Hermes version of chocolate.

 

Damn straight

Damn straight

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Homemade Granola Bars

Josie Girl 5 Comments

As the self proclaimed Granola Queen (both in terms of the noun “granola” and the verb “granola”), I have played around with making granola bars. This granola bar is a winner. It takes under 30 minutes, requires no baking, has no sugar (unless you count honey and/or dates as sugar), and is delicious (obviously). MAKE ‘EM!

 

Ingredients:

 

Screen Shot 2014-10-16 at 7.14.38 PM

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Ken’s Homemade Mac and Cheese

Josie Girl 8 Comments

Guest blogger alert!  Here’s Ken… When he starts watching too much football on Sundays, I can usually guilt him into cooking/doing a guest blog post during commercials.  And his Jets are terrible so it’s not like he’s missing much.  Enjoy:

 

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If there’s anything in the vicinity of unhealthy on this blog, it’s a safe bet that it’s coming from me.  While I try to make an effort to combine healthy and, um, not-totally-girly, (see: Grilled Artichokes, Grilled Fruit, Grilled Romaine Salad, Lemon-Mint Pasta with Bacon, and a Guy’s Guide to Pregnancy), things like Beer Can Chicken are more up my alley.  Without further ado…. heart stopping mac and cheese.

 

ingredients

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Karlie’s Kookies

Josie Girl 9 Comments

So, apparently when you follow supermodels on instagram, you start to think that you yourself are IN FACT a supermodel. Yep, that is right. I strut like one, dress similarly, resemble one, and I am a model now. OK.  Not really, but I *do* eat Karlie’s Kookies which most supermodels boast about chomping down on instagram.  So that makes us similar, right? What is a Karlie’s Kookie? Well, all the celebrities and fashionistas eat them (and post them on instagram), so they must be healthy AND delicious at the same time. And what do you know? They really are. Cross my heart, swear to god, these little cookies are made out of healthy ingredients and are so tasty good, too.

 

My goodie bag.

My goodie bag.

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Crane Crest Real French Dressing

Josie Girl 12 Comments

I have a close friend who is hands down the best cook in the world (actually, tied with my mother). Everything she makes in the kitchen is scrumptious, delicious, and out of this world good (she is also beautiful, loving, caring, stylish — damn I have AMAZING FRIENDS!!!!!). So when I was at her house last week and devoured a whole gallon of salad, I had to know HOW DO I MAKE THAT DRESSING? The salad was simple — cabbage and tomatoes — but I couldn’t stop eating it. It was the most delicious two ingredient salad I had ever tasted — all because of the dressing. My friend, embarrassed, said that the dressing was store bought (not her typical style) and said it cost her $17 for the bottle (NYC — your prices are totally bonkers a$$ crazy!).

Salad! But what makes the salad is the dressing....

Salad! But what makes the salad is the dressing….

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Mushroom Torte

Josie Girl 7 Comments
perfection

 

Torte / Quiche / Pie = All the same deliciousness. Especially when made by my Mama. Yep, the best cook in the world gave me a lesson on how to make tortes. Unbelievably tasty, and a home-run for any dinner / lunch / brunch dinner party. (My mom is such a pro in the kitchen that she made 8 of these tortes — all different fillings — in ONE afternoon. IF ONLY I had the charisma, talent, and energy that she has!) This torte was one of my favorites: mushroom. It is not simple, not vegan, gluten-free, or light — but it is full of flavor and a perfect addition to your plate. Center stage. This recipe was found from the Nordic Bakery Cookbook, which is amazing.

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Jacobsen Salty Black Licorice

Josie Girl 6 Comments

Enamored with anything Oregonian and delicious, I recently stumbled upon (in my mother’s kitchen) the most INCREDIBLE, tasty unusual, and delicious treat, made by a Local Company, Jacobsen Salt Co. A little background: my parents met and married in Stockholm, Sweden, 42 years ago. I also lived there as a 5 year old for a year. Soooo, I feel a connection to anything Swedish (add that to my long list of special connections: Oregon, Paris, hippy, etc..)  One of the many Swedish food loves is black licorice, and especially salted black licorice. It is definitely an acquired taste, but if you do like it, you LOVE it. And my mother is royally obsessed with black licorice and stocks up on it when in Scandinavia. So it was a treat for her to find her favorite candy made by a local company. Hip hip hooray!

 

Catchy

Catchy name, classy presentation.

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Raw Chocolate Coconut Bites

Josie Girl 5 Comments

I know I have a lot of haters of my healthy desserts (mainly, my husband, father, and brother…see the pattern), but THIS HEALTHY DESSERT is a must-make and must-eat. And not to be hated on. Even my father ate it and asked for more (true story). So, do me a favor and make it. I found the recipe off of my new-to-me-favorite-healthy-food-blog, Deliciously Ella. With a little bit of creative editing, here is the recipe for Raw Chocolate Coconut Bites. Yes, they are vegan. No, they are not nut-free. Yes, they are delicious. Yes, I promise.

 

Ingredients:

 

Ingredients

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