Super Juice
- Juicing
-
09 Dec 2011
Introducing, Super Juice!
I’ve finally concocted a repeatable, yummy juice for my Breville Juice Fountain Plus. It’s meant to be a “healthy” juice, no doubt, but it manages to be pretty darn tasty, too.
Things to note:
- I prefer to peel all non-organic fruits and veggies (as applicable).
- I peel beets no matter what. They taste much less earthy when peeled first!
- Since lemons are kind of a pain to peel, often I’ll leave them out of the juicer and just use my handheld lemon juicer for the lemon.
- Zucchini can be substituted for cucumber. I’ve also added broccoli stems, with good results.
Super Juice!
Posted: December 9, 2011 at 7:37 pmSuper Juice Recipe Type: JuicePrep time: 5 minsTotal time: 5 minsServes: 1-2A healthy way to drink some fruits and veggies!Ingredients- 3 apples (Golden Delicious or other sweet variety recommended)
- 2 carrots
- 1 large stalk celery
- 1/2 cucumber
- 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 beet
- 2 cups spinach
- 1 inch chunk ginger
Instructions- Add ingredients to juicer chute and process on high or per manufacturer’s instructions.
NotesSpinach juices best when stuffed between two larger items in the chute (such as, between two apples).
{Tags: apple, beet, carrot, celery, cucumber, ginger, juice, lemon, spinach}
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Cranapple CC
- Juicing
-
18 Nov 2011
Yup, it has a name!
Cranapple CC juice.
I made that up.
Sorry to vanish for a couple weeks on ya’s! I am proud of my successful (albeit unofficial) completion of Vegan MoFo in October, but man – midterms attacked soon thereafter and I’ve been swamped (both student-me and teacher-me). Fear not, though, my pretties; I’ve been snapping photos all along to document the time we’ve missed together and soon you will be all caught up with my kitchen.
I’m still juicing, and getting better at it! I am almost ready to share a recipe that I’ve been repeatedly enjoying for a couple weeks now, but for today, please enjoy this festive Thanksgiving entry:
Cranapple CC juice, starring:
Apple, Cranberry, Cabbage, Carrots
This was some sort of Virginia-native apple species that I have of course since forgotten. It wasn’t quite sweet enough for juicing; I’d recommend golden delicious apples instead.
I absolutely love juicing cabbage – mainly because it makes such awesome purple juice!
Attack of the Cabbage!
This one wasn’t bad at all – just a little bit tart. A sweeter apple would have balanced this juice.
Cranapple CC Juice
Bottoms up!
Posted: November 18, 2011 at 1:55 pm
{Tags: apple, cabbage, carrot, cranberry, juice}
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School Spirit Juice
- Juicing, Vegan MoFo
-
29 Oct 2011
I had an absolute blast with this juice. Why?
CABBAGE JUICES PURPLE!
GO DUKES!!
I almost threw the whole head of cabbage into the juicer when I saw what an awesome color it turned into. But I digress.
3 Apples, 2 Carrots, 1/2 Lemon, 1 Ginger, 1/4 Cabbage, 1 Bunch Rainbow Chard
This was another low-prep juice, thanks to organic ingredients. I did have to peel the lemon, but that was it (other than chopping a head of cabbage into wedges).
Ingredients: 2 carrots, 3 apples (a local Virginia variety – sorry, I forget the name!), 1/2 lemon, 1 hunk of ginger, 1 wedge of cabbage, and a bunch of Rainbow Chard.
Ginger is the secret ingredient here. This is a really sweet juice, but the ginger gives it a kick of spice that is just perfect.
It's a Purple Party!
This was when I was freaking out. Look at that JMU purple!
Funnest juice ever!
Come on. Tell me that’s not the funnest looking juice ever.
Sweet with a zing
OK, so it doesn’t look as fun once you mix it up – but I promise, it’s delicious!
Posted: October 29, 2011 at 8:18 am
{Tags: apple, carrot, chard, ginger, juice, lemon}
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Green Lemonade
- Juicing, Vegan MoFo
-
26 Oct 2011
Juice attempt #2! Green lemonade.
Ingredients for Juice #2
Lemon, celery, carrots, kale, cucumber, strawberries, and spinach.
OK, so I modified the original recipe. I added the strawberries and the carrots… I mean, strawberry lemonade sounds awesome, right? And, well, carrots go with everything.
Party Juice
The juice bucket always looks like a party to me!
Green Lemonade Carrot Juice
I probably shouldn’t have added the carrots (it is my instinct to add carrots to just about everything); I suspect it killed the “lemonade” aspect of the recipe (and made the “green” in the name inaccurate).
Still, this juice was pretty good. I haven’t nailed the recipe yet, but I’ll get there! This one was much more immediately palatable than the beet juice. It tastes like a breakfast-y juice.
I’ve been storing my juices in Ball jars in the fridge. I figure, each will be consumed within a day or two, so it’s all good. Shake it up, then drink up!
I’ve got some oranges, plums, fennel, cabbage, and pears to find recipes for. Need to make room!
Posted: October 26, 2011 at 8:50 am
{Tags: carrot, celery, cucumber, juice, kale, lemon, spinach, strawberry}
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My Foray into Juicing
- Juicing, Vegan MoFo
-
23 Oct 2011
It has just been a foray-into kind of weekend over here!
For my birthday, I used a gift card to buy myself a Breville Juice Fountain Plus juicer (thanks, Mom!). Earlier in the week, I watched the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and decided that juicing would be a good way to get myself to consume the fruits and veggies that are less palatable to me, or that I don’t like to prepare based on the hassle (like beets!). I’m not going to try any sort of juice fast or anything like that right now – not while I’m training for this half marathon – but maybe someday. And I already eat 6-9 servings of fruits and veggies a day on most days, and don’t intend to replace that with juice. I figure, juicing will be a good way to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet. And more is good!
I loaded up on produce at Whole Foods (huge selection of organics) and got to juicing! First up: an ABC juice.
1 Apple, 3 Carrots, 1 Beet, and Kale
Mer, of course, had to help.
Merlin helping with juicing
I washed the apple, carrots, beet, and kale (didn’t peel them – though if they were not organic, I would have). Stuck ‘em in the juicer one by one, and ended up with about 10 oz of juice. I decided to double the recipe so that I could stick some juice in the fridge for later. (Might as well get a few servings out of the mess!)
The Breville at work.
The juicer has 2 speeds – low, for softer fruits/veggies and greens, and high, for harder fruits and veggies. I used high for all but the kale. I’m not positive that I juiced the greens quite right, as they didn’t seem to yield much juice – though I guess that’s typical. I’ll do a bit more reading. As far as kale goes, I think I might prefer eating it as kale chips – so spinach might instead become my go-to in juices.
I love the huge food chute on the juicer. I was able to drop an entire apple in there. It speeds up things to not have to cut and prep all of the produce first. Tossing food down the chute was FUN! And the resulting juice looked like a party!
Juice!
The juicer was fairly quiet on the low setting, and – well, not as loud as my blender, but still a bit loud on the high setting. It was much easier to clean up than I anticipated. I had lined the pulp collection container with a plastic bag, so that part of clean-up was a snap. For the remaining parts, I just rinsed them in the sink immediately when I finished, and they all came clean. I figure, it will be a bit like using my food processor – I’ll be able to get away with rinsing/hand-washing for a week or so, then I’ll throw the pieces in the dishwasher. (They’re top-shelf safe).
The moment of truth….
ABC Juice - apples, beet, carrots, kale
I sniffed it. (Wine tasting flashback?)
Whoa. It smelled like…. earth.
*Gulp*
“Well,” I thought to myself. “Here goes nothing!”
I took a sip.
Hmm. It definitely tasted better than it smelled. It was a very mild juice – a little earthy (dang beets), but mildly sweet.
Oddly, the more I drank, the more I realized I didn’t mind the earthy taste. I suspect the appreciation would be lost on somebody that didn’t already eat a boatload of veggies every day – but my taste buds were OK with it. By the end of the glass, I was actually enjoying it.
I’m pretty excited about this new juicer! The one minor frustration is that I haven’t been able to find any good books on juicing, even on Amazon. There are a few with good reviews, but they tend to be extremely dated. I’m looking for something current, and something that doesn’t spend half the book preaching about all the diseases that juice will cure. Skip the preaching – I just want facts on the nutrients in the different juice-able fruits and veggies, and recipes for tasty combinations.
And maybe some how-to on prepping produce for juicing. I had a heck of a time figuring out what to do with the beets. I found information that said both the greens and the root are juice-able, but do they mean the leaves? The stems? The greens are supposedly the bitter part. I ended up only using the root. And, about juicing kale – is there a method to getting more juice extracted from it? Some secret trick to handling it as it goes down the chute?
Lots of newbie questions. While I may have to find my own way, it will be a delicious path!
Posted: October 23, 2011 at 8:10 am
{Tags: apple, beet, carrot, juice, kale}
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First Attempt at Sushi
- Dinner, Vegan & Vegetarian
-
22 Apr 2011
I’m nothing if not ambitious, my friends!
Veggie Sushi
My family’s Easter gathering is tomorrow, and as a vegan (and even as a vegetarian), if I don’t want to starve, I have to bring at least one dish I can eat. It’s all good; I don’t expect anybody to bend over backwards to make sure there’s something for me to eat. This holiday, I decided to try something new: veggie sushi.
I’ve never had sushi before. In fact, I spent the first 36 years of my life misinformed, thinking that “sushi” meant “fish.” (It doesn’t; sushi is actually the rice). What gets wrapped in that rice? Anything you want! Including veggies.
So I got myself a $4 bamboo sushi rolling mat, and set to work.
First, I prepped (way too many) veggies.
Sushi veggies
I had red peppers, sundried tomatoes, avocado slices, green onions, carrots, and cucumber slices. I also had some shiitake mushrooms and steamed asparagus on the side, and a small batch of buffalo tempeh and a small batch of ranch tempeh spread (inspired by PPK’s Spicy Tempeh Rolls).
I got to rolling. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be – though the rice is super sticky (keep your hands wet!), and it seems I was over-stuffing my sushi rolls a bit. Still, it all seemed to work out. I need more practice getting the rice to the ends of the nori sheets, though.
This roll was a simple avocado, carrot, and green onion roll.
Rolling up sushi
My 10-pack of nori sheets only had 9 sheets in it! Gypped! That’s OK… since I was over-stuffing the rolls, I only had enough rice for 9 rolls anyway.
9 Uncut Veggie Sushi Rolls
(Please pardon the “well seasoned” cookie sheet. I need new ones). I left some of the ingredients sticking out of the ends, because in the very first episode of the Post Punk Kitchen, Isa did that, and the end pieces looked cool with stuff sticking out. I’m not sure mine will look quite as cool, but can’t blame a girl for trying.
Next, I discovered just how not-sharp my formerly-awesome-sharp-knife is. Not so good for cutting sushi. I cut up one roll and taste tested it (pretty good!), but I’ll cut the rest up tomorrow.
The result: my very first veggie sushi:
The result: veggie sushi, first try
Not so bad, eh?!
I made a couple buffalo tempeh & cucumber rolls, a couple ranch (actually, Sanctuary Dressing) tempeh and avocado rolls, and a variety of mish-mosh veggie rolls.I feel like something in there probably needed some salt, but maybe that’s where the soy sauce for dipping comes in.
I’m definitely stoked about sushi now! Can’t wait till July for my Vegas trip, where I will be checking out some Vegas sushi.
What’s your favorite sushi filling?
Posted: April 22, 2011 at 10:23 pm
{Tags: asparagus, avocado, carrot, cucumber, red pepper, rice, sushi, tempeh}
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Simple Lunch
- Lunch, Vegan & Vegetarian
-
16 Jun 2010
I get really excited when I make a wrap and it actually wraps up nicely. Sometimes I stuff it too full. Sometimes I’m a clutz and just can’t get the thing to roll up without all of the guts falling out. Sometimes I do great, right up to the cut-it-in-half part, and then destroy the whole thing while trying to cut it.
Today, the stars aligned, and I made a pretty wrap!
I really could make a category here called “Adventures in Wrapping,” but it would be nearly empty because most of my wraps are nowhere near photo-worthy.My first foray into the world of making wraps was based on the discovery that cucumbers make a pretty decent sandwich base. You see, I occasionally have a hankerin’ for a Jimmy John’s sandwich. When I went vegetarian, I had to change my normal sandwich order over to the #6 – the creatively named “Vegetarian” (sans mayo and tomato, please – I still can’t stand the texture of tomatoes). It basically amounts to a cucumber sandwich with a wonderful avocado spread.
I started using cucumbers in my wraps, and was really digging them. Then, I worked out my own version of a vegan avocado ranch spread, inspired by a dressing recipe in the You Won’t Believe It’s Vegan!
cookbook.
Ever since, I’ve been using those two as the basis of many delicious veggie wraps.
Today’s concoction features, of course, cucumbers and avocado spread, along with a chopped up veggie burger, about 3/4 of a carrot (shredded), a handful of baby spinach, a handful of arugula, and a drizzle of garlic-infused extra virgin olive oil. (That’s my giraffe friend Milly pictured in the background).I have tried a lot of wraps in my day, and finding ones without offensive ingredient lists can be difficult. Lately, I’ve been using Smart & Delicious Tomato Basil Soft Wraps from La Tortilla Factory. The ingredient list isn’t perfect, but it’s not terribly bad, and they’ve got 12g of fiber per wrap at only 100 calories. They’re nice, big 9″ wraps and are (as the name says) very soft and easy to stuff with goodies (even for a wrap-challenged soul like me).
I swear, wraps taste better when they look pretty.
Posted: June 16, 2010 at 5:20 pm
{Tags: arugula, avocado, carrot, cucumber, spinach, veggie burger, wrap}
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Garden Lentil Burgers
- Gnowfglins, Recipes
-
09 Apr 2010
Who needs meat when the lentil burgers taste this good?!
I’m sitting out of the GNOWFGLINS e-course this week, as they’re covering chicken and I’m now 3 weeks into eating vegetarian, but I still did some cooking in the traditional vein. I made a recipe from the GNOWFGLINS web site – garden lentil patties – which I made into garden lentil burgers! They turned out incredibly flavorful and filling. This recipe is definitely a keeper!
First, I soaked dried lentils overnight with some raw apple cider vinegar. (This helps to neutralize the phytic acid in them and improves the absorption of the lentils’ nutrients). I’m new to lentils – to my knowledge, I’ve never had them before, so I had no idea what to expect.
Then I drained and rinsed the lentils and put them on the stove with some fresh water to simmer. While they simmered, I prepped the veggies: carrots, celery, red pepper, and… dang it, I forgot the onion. Oh well. It made for a very colorful bowl of yum, though!
Once the lentils were done, I added the rest of the ingredients – some oats, some Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, tomato paste, extra virgin olive oil – and mixed it all up. My hands were way too messy to get any pictures!I tried my best to mash the mix into patties, but I wasn’t having very good luck. Most of my patties fell apart on the baking sheet. I guess I’m not a very strong patty-maker. Maybe a little more oats would have helped hold them together? I’m not sure. Here’s what they looked like after their first half of time in the oven:
I then flipped them over, and only a few survived the flip. I had mostly lentil crumbles instead of lentil patties! A couple did stick together pretty well. Not sure what my magic trick was on those ones!The recipe made 13 patties – I probably should have cut it in half, since I’m only feeding moi. I put one of the better-looking patties on an organic whole wheat bun (Rudi’s ftw!) and added a little veganaise and onion seasoning on top (since I forgot the onions). Served it with some organic spring greens with a little organic caesar dressing, and voila: dinner!
They may not look pretty, but this burger was delicious! It will definitely make it into regular rotation in my kitchen.Each patty has about 200 calories (assuming you get 13 out of your recipe, like I did), 6g fat, 29g carbs (8g fiber), 9g protein, and a boatload of vitamins – 45% of your daily Vitamin A, 32% Vitamin C, and 15% of your Iron, amongst others. Yum!
Posted: April 9, 2010 at 8:58 pm
{Tags: carrot, celery, Gnowfglins, lentils, oats, onion, red pepper, soaking}
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Kale and Roasted Root Vegetable Soup
- Gnowfglins, Recipes, Vegan & Vegetarian
-
24 Mar 2010
If you would have asked me to eat a “root vegetable” last year, I’d have gagged and said no way, even though I had no idea what root vegetables were. Roots? Just sounds bad. It turns out, though, that I really like the root veggies that I’ve tried since going organic! (For the record, the root veggies in question for this recipe are onions, carrots, garlic, and sweet potatoes). Yum!
The “firsts” for me in this vegan-friendly recipe include:
- First time I’ve cooked with or eaten kale
- First time I’ve made beans from dried and not from a can
- First time I’ve made soup from scratch
- First time I’ve worn my new Asics GT 2150 running shoes
OK, so the shoes are probably irrelevant to the recipe, but they sure are comfy! And hopefully, they’ll not cause blisters the way my old gym shoes did.
The recipe below comes from Emily’s blog – The Front Burner. Check out her recap – she takes much better food photos than I do, and explains every step in detail. This soup covers a slew of nutritional bases – it’s a good source of Vitamin B6, Folate and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Manganese. It’s low fat, with no saturated fat and no cholesterol.
On with the cooking!
First, I should explain that I did not use canned beans for this recipe. As part of this week’s homework in the GNOWFGLINS e-course on traditional food preparation, we were to make beans from scratch. I bought some dried navy beans at Whole Foods yesterday, so to prepare for this recipe, I soaked 2/3 cup of dry beans in water with a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar. I soaked the beans overnight, then this morning, rinsed them and put them in the crock pot to cook on high for an hour then on low for 6 more hours. I added a thumb-sized chunk of kombu (a sea vegetable) to the crock pot during cooking to tenderize the beans and break down some of the sugars in them that tend to make them… gassy. Kombu also imparts some mineral goodness. By the time I was ready to cook dinner, the beans were ready to go.
The next step was to chop up carrots and a sweet potato and stick ‘em in the oven to roast. They didn’t look very exciting so I didn’t take a picture.
Up next: the stranger in my fridge, Kale. (No, not Kato). Here’s what it looked like, fresh from the bunch:
The recipe instructed me to pull the leaves from the stems. I wondered all the while if I was doing it right….
I sure had a lot of kale…. the leaves reminded me of a cross between broccoli and seaweed. (Maybe I just had seaweed on the brain from my recent trip to Whole Foods).Next I chopped up an onion and minced some garlic and sauteed them for a few minutes before throwing in the roasted carrots and sweet potato.
Then, in went the vegetable broth, and then the kale. The kale was huge and fluffy in the pot! I feared I was messing the whole thing up, but I took Emily’s word for it that the kale would wilt. I covered the pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes. At the 5 minute mark, I was still pretty nervous – the kale was huge! I think I might have had a little too much kale to begin with, so I added 1 cup of water. That helped, because by the end of 10 minutes, I could stir the kale into the mix and it was starting to look like soup.I added the seasonings and simmered for 5 more minutes (ready to jump out of my new shoes because it smelled SO GOOD!)
When the soup was done, I ladled it into a bowl and topped it with a dollop of homemade guacamole that I had in the fridge. (Emily recommends topping with chunks of avocado). I slathered some Earth Balance spread onto a slice of my homemade sourdough bread, and…
Dinner!
All I can say is… this soup was AWESOME!! So tasty! My first impression of kale: thumbs up! Kale is a form of cabbage, a relative of cauliflower and broccoli. It’s a highly nutritious, dark leafy green, and has good anti-inflammatory properties and is believed to have potent anti-cancer properties as well. In this soup, it tasted mild – almost sweet. It’s a hearty green – good for chewing!For all of its nutrition, a big ol’ bowl of this soup clocks in around 235 calories. I can’t wait for the leftovers! 100% delish.
[recipe-show recipe=kale-soup]
Posted: March 24, 2010 at 8:59 pm
{Tags: avocado, beans, carrot, kale, onion, roasting, soup, sweet potato}
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Gnowfglins: Soaking Grains
- Gnowfglins, Recipes
-
06 Mar 2010
I’m wrapping up Lesson 2 in the GNOWFGLINS e-course on healthy and traditional cooking, and tonight’s dinner featured a technique I learned this week: soaking grains. Well, I actually learned this last month in the Nourished Kitchen Real Food Challenge, but for that challenge, I soaked flour for baking. Today, I soaked rice and made it from scratch.
I’ve never made “real” rice before; all of my rice experience is of the boil-in-bag, instant variety. This was the other extreme!
It’s important to soak grains to prepare their nutrition to be fully utilized by the body. Whole grains contain enzyme inhibitors and other natural substances that can actually interfere with digestion and block absorption of minerals and vitamins. Soaking the grains in an acidic solution neutralizes these substances to make the grains’ nutrients more available in digestion.
I started with a cup of dry brown basmati rice. I soaked the rice in 2 cups of filtered water with 2 tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar. (Lemon juice or other acidic liquids could also be used). I let my rice soak for 9 hours, though overnight is even better. One benefit (besides the nutritional benefits) – this process cuts down the actual cooking time of the rice.
When my rice was ready to go, I drained the soaking liquid and replaced it with filtered water (though you could cook the rice in the soaking liquid – I wasn’t sure if I’d like the tang of the vinegar in my rice, so I played it safe).
Then, I cooked the rice and turned it into Nutty Carrot Rice!
To go with my rice, I made an Italian breaded chicken breast. I actually get 2 meals out of 1 chicken breast, so I made 2, which should feed me well next week.
Add some baby spinach with vinaigrette on the side, and you’ve got… dinner!
The rice was very good – a nice departure from plain ol’ boring rice. It had a bit of a kick to it – I guessed at the cayenne pepper and used 1/4 teaspoon, and I think I probably should have cut back to 1/8th. (I like spicy food, but “spicy” to me is “mild” to the rest of the world). It complemented the chicken very well, and had a nice, nutty flavor. Nutty rice with a kick! Mozzarella cheese would have been good on the chicken, too. I didn’t have any!The rice recipe makes 6-8 servings (I ended up with 7), so I’ll be eating rice for a while….
Try it out! This was an easy combo, and the whole meal clocked in around a half hour prep, a half hour cook time, and around 375 calories (assuming you eat the entire chicken breast). Lots of vitamin A, too.
[recipe-show recipe=nutty-carrot-rice]
[recipe-show recipe=italian-breaded-chicken]
Posted: March 6, 2010 at 9:43 pm
{Tags: carrot, chicken, Gnowfglins, peanut, rice}
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