Be prepared to hate me now – I did a juice cleanse, and I liked it.

That’s right – for 3 days, I drank nothing but juice, juice, juice. 6 times a day. Juice with kale, spinach, parsley. Juice with cucumber and carrots. Pineapple and cilantro. A cashew milk for “dinner.”

Who am I?

A few months ago, I’m sprinkling bacon on donuts and marshmallows. Today I’m talking about juicing? If it’s any consolation, I tried to juice a nice chunk of pork belly but it clogged the damn thing up.

No, not really. And, wow, that’s gross.

It’s just like this: Remember when I said that my guts hate me. Well, I showed them who’s boss with an ass ton of produce. And guess what? My guts don’t hate me anymore. In fact, they don’t even rumble back at me after most meals. I can ease back on the pimple cream because those went buh-bye. The stock price of Coca Cola products must be plummeting because I’ve eased off my 8-a day Coke Zero habit (yes, you read that right). I have MAYBE 1 soda a day. That’s my new happy hour.

In short, my pants are fitting better, and I’m feeling better – quite glorious, in fact.

Have mercy for small miracles.

And my new favorite way to start the day? With a green juice. My new favorite afternoon refresher. Another juice. Ugh, what happened to me?

Perhaps I’ll ponder that during my next cleanse.

(Which is now. Squeeee!)

(Ugh, I’m annoying myself.)

In the meantime, I’ll share with y’all one of my favorite juice refreshers that will be a perfect way to unwind on the deck come one upcoming spring evening.

(And if all this healthy stuff offends you, I promise to look the other way when you drop a hefty slug of vodka in the glass.)

Cucumber Grape Juice Cooler
(Adapted from The 3 Day Cleanse)

10 ounces green grapes
1/2 a large cucumber
1 pear
1 large stalk celery
1 lime, peeled
3 sprigs mint

Juice all the items on low speed once. If desired, run any wet pulp back through the juicer. Serve immediately.

I absolutely, hands-down-and-shake-them-all-around, love the peppermint brownie that Starbucks puts out for the holidays. Like, in a way that borders on scary. I seriously don’t know what they put in them, but I surmise that crack is highly likely.

Well, the other day, I NEEDED one of those brownies. But I wasn’t leaving the house because my hair also NEEDED to see a shampoo bottle and, frankly, that just wasn’t on the schedule.

So, I got to gathering the ingredients for a homemade, copycat recipe I found online, grumbling all the way through because that junk was complicated. Each recipe called for multiple steps, refrigeration, doing the hokey pokey, etc. Anyway, I’m whizzing around the kitchen, grabbing bowls, fiddling with ovens, hoisting flour, dodging puppies and my clumsiness just got the best of me. While reaching for the sugar on an overhead shelf, I got smacked, square in the head, with a bag of chocolate chips.

Story of my life.

When I bent to retrieve the bag, I saw that it wasn’t just any ole’ bag of chips. It was that bag of Nestle Tollhouse Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels I haphazardly threw into my basket a few weeks ago on a spree at Target.

Oh, now there’s an idea.

You could say it was divine intervention. I say it was a Christmas miracle for this little Jewish girl.

Instead of making that copycat Starbucks recipe, I made a brownie that has all the basic components of those blessed Starbucks treats: chocolate, peppermint, cream cheese, brownies, calories, calories, and CALORIES.

The result? Um, let’s just say I found out how many brownies I can fit into my mouth at once.

It’s 3, and it isn’t something that I’m proud of. But at least I didn’t have to wash my hair for them.

Peppermint Chip Brownies
(adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup Nestle Tollhouse Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels

Preheat the oven to 350.

First prepare the cream cheese swirl by creaming 2 tablespoons butter and the cream cheese with 1/4 cup of sugar. Beat in one egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Fold in 1 tablespoon flour. Set aside

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt.

In another medium bowl set over a pot of simmering water, warm the butter and chocolate until the butter is all melted and the chocolate is halfway melted. Remove from the heat and whisk until all the chocolate is melted. Whisk in the sugar until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue whisking until the mixture is well blended. Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and fold together until combined. Spread the brownie mixture into to an 8 by 8 pan.

Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the brownie mixture and swirl to achieve a marbled effect. Sprinkle with the chocolate/peppermint chips

Bake the brownies 20 – 25 minutes and allow them to cool before slicing.

*If you can’t find the mint chip mix, just use semi sweet chocolate chips and add a bit of peppermint extract in the cream cheese swirl mixture.