Day 3 - The Change

I will not lie, Monday and Tuesday was rough. First I think it was the lack of caffeine. I haven't gone caffeine free but I am also not drinking it if not readily available to me. Second, I think my body was detoxing. Today was the first day I woke up not exhausted or with a headache. Of course as I type this my body is crashing and I may be going to bed early.

Overall I think I have had a great start. I have had two juices each day and drink water between each one. I do end up snacking on a mini bagel through the morning and snack on something in the afternoon (what ever is available). I did have one bad night and that was last night. We went to a restaurant do to me getting home later than normal. I order pretty good but I ate the appetizer of cheese fries, ate all my dinner (planned to only eat half due to the appetizer) and had 3 large sweet teas. I will not lie, those sweet teas were yummy and a turning point with my headache last night.

Since juicing on Monday, I have made 5 juices. Some recipes make more than others and that is always nice. The last one was a freezer surprise and very yummy at that.

3-2-1 Juice - Made 2x's and made three servings for this week.
Banana Orange Juice - Made 2x's this week.
Blue-Black-Strawberry and Lime Juice - Made only one serving
Can't Beet It Juice - Made 2 servings for this week.
Freezer Surprise - Made 2 servings for this week.

Besides drinking juices again, I have made my family some healthy meals. As you may remember we get a CSA basket each week. To help use up my goodies I have made some new dishes and amazingly my family has enjoyed them.

Collard Leaf Dolmades with Pork and Sweet Potato Yogurt - This yummy recipe comes from our new favorite PBS show, A Chef's Life. Through out this show, Vivian (the chef) highlights local foods from the North Carolina area. My husband and I love the show as well as one of our daughters. I made this for my family on Sunday and I won over my husband who is a picky eater. I then shared my leftover with my CSA Farmers and they loved it as well. I will admit it took me over an hour to cook it up but it was worth it!

To help showcase my other CSA goodies I went searching on the internet and came across WholeLiving.com. This is one of those sites that looks are deceiving, but in a good way. It is a really nice website with a great search engine that brings up multiple recipes for one ingredient. By the looks of the website I thought the recipes would be to fancy for my ordinary casual family but they are not. And the crazy part the last (well first) two recipes I have made from this site were a hit again with my family. I highly suggest your try Perciatelli Roasted Tomatoes and Eggplant and Roasted Radishes and Greens. Both recipes were surprising (well not the pasta) really good and made our family cookbook.

So tomorrow is another day. I have my juices made and my goal is to stay on target for tomorrow. Make it a great day everyone!

Fried Green Tomatoes

So I know this blog is more about juicing but I had to share this recipes I made on the fly for my family tonight. Even my picky husband and one of my daughters enjoyed them.

Ingredients:

• green tomato 
• italian bread crumbs
• cajun shake
• milk
• egg
• vegetable oil

1. Pour some oil in a pan and turn heat to medium.
2. Slice your green tomato. I used a mandolin for perfect slices.
3. Pour your italian bread crumbs in a bowl and seasoning. I added cajun shake to ours.
4. In another bowl, scramble an egg and add some milk.
5. Dip tomato in egg wash and then in bread crumbs. 
6. Add to oil and cook.

For those of you who like exact measurements. Well, that is not my thing. I follow recipes for awhile and then start making it as I want at that particular time. This does mean that my recipes are never exactly the same each time they are made but that bring about the variety of life. 

Freezer Surprise

As you may guess, this is what ever fruits you find in your freezer.

I have this tendency to throw fruit in a freezer bag in my freezer. Tonight I went looking to see if I could make another Banana and Orange Juice and found half of a banana and random fruit. I beleive most of it was raspberries with a few strawberries for good measure.

Even though I had some bananas on my counter I decided to put all the fruit from the bag in the freezer and add around 3/4 cup of orange juice. I started with a 1/2 c. of juice but added more as I tried to blend all the frozen goodness.

Besides it being yummy, it turned out to be like a sorbet. Thick and nice refreshing taste. I filled up one cup to drink for tomorrow (figure it will defrost more in the fridge) and eating some now. The only issue I have is the blackberry seeds. I am not a fan of all the seeds when juicing blackberries in the blender. I am thinking a NutriBullet would be good for blackberries but that is not in my future right now.

Blue-Black-Red Juice

Blueberry, Blackberry, Strawberry and Lime Juice

o   1 pint blackberries

o   1 pint blueberries

o   1 pint strawberries, hulled

o   1 lime, peeled

1.    Process fruit through juicer.

I got this recipe from my Breville Juicer manuel. Yummy juice to make. Best part, the juicer removes the blackberry seeds. 

A New Start

As you may have noticed it has been awhile since I posted. As you may also gathered, I did stop juicing. I found I didn't want the ones I made and just wanted to eat. Well, that has been over a month now and I ready to get back to juicing. Today begins my searching of recipes and creating my grocery list for tomorrow.

To start off my search I am using the veggies I have gotten in my CSA basket (spinach, turnips, radishes, collard greens and eggplant) as well as the two small watermelon I pulled out of my garden today. I do have some random fruit in the freezer and orange juice I bought my daughters who did not drink it. Off to see what I can find.