Juicing for Health: Carrot Beet Apple Spinach Juice Tastes Good. Really.

I've had a great juicer for years - high powered motor, easy to clean - but I had stored it in a cabinet awhile back and just forgotten about it. And juicing.

Then, I was surfing around and there was this discussion about the nutrients that are available in raw vegetables and fruits, things that get lost by the time they get into bottles or cartons or cans or bags. That's right, I remembered: I own a really nice juicer - why aren't I using that thing? (Slap of forehead.)

So, this week I pulled that puppy out and went to the store and bought organic beets, carrots, Fuji apples, and baby spinach. Some cilantro, too - but I also made pico de gallo, and the cilantro escaped the juice machine.

Today, I'm back in a routine of juicing daily and I feel the better for it. I've posted on this before (Food as Medicine: Juicing) and you can find links for lots of detailed information there. Right now, I just want to share how easy and fun this is, and here's my recipe (and a couple of tips):

Reba's Daily Raw Carrot Apple Beet Spinach Juice

8 small carrots or 6 regular/medium size
2 big handfuls of baby spinach leaves (don't skimp)
2 medium sized Fuji apples
1 medium sized beet (about the same size as one of the apples)

Wrap the spinach around the carrots to juice, it works better (the leaves can be hard to juice). Keep your working area clear and clean as you go: that beet juice will stain stuff (including your tee shirt).

I drink this over ice and with a straw. It's a pretty purple color.

For more on what this provides, read the links given with the ingredients above.

Great Non-Dairy, Natural Sweetener Banana Smoothie (Stevia Recipe)

This is a fast and cheap recipe for a smoothie that tastes great.  Really great.  Doesn't cost much, doesn't take much time, and it uses up all those bananas before they go bad.  Bananas are so cheap, I like finding different ways of using them (like this post).

Reba's Banana n Stevia Smoothie

Night before: 
Break up bananas into chunks, about the size of a water bottle cap, and freeze them (a Ziploc works well here, because they tend to freeze into a blob, and you can bang that freezer bag on the counter to break the pieces apart).  These will last awhile in the freezer, so I have started storing a big bag of banana bits - just for this smoothie recipe.

Ready to go:
Take your Magic Bullet (or blender, whatever machine you prefer) and for a single serving put about 1/2 a banana's worth of frozen banana pieces into the container - it's best to put in the bananas first
Next, fill up the container with Unsweetened Almond Milk
Add a generous helping of Pumpkin Pie Spice (I always buy too much of this stuff, so it's great to find ways to use it up)
Add stevia to taste (I always use the KAL Organic brand).

Whirrrrr that thing until you've got pure liquid.

Drink up!  It's just soooo good, the almond and the banana and the spices.  No sugar, no dairy, just good stuff.

The Refrigerator List : Birds, Bats, and the Occasional Beast

The old man next door, so old that his skin is almost translucent and his hands look like gnarled twigs, loves his back yard.  When he's not sitting outside on his porch, you can see his long white head watching things as he sits, drinking forbidden coffee, at his kitchen table.  An Albert Einstein haircut, a quiet smile.

A great neighbor. 

It's nice to see him roaming around early each morning, refilling his hummingbird bottles and squirrel feeders and putting out food for the feral cats.  Yes, even though we all know that that feral cat food also attracts our neighborhood raccoons and possums - when they're not dining on finds in the alley garbage cans.  (I've heard that mice and rats like this stuff, but our herd of wild Tom Cats keeps us from having that problem.) 

It's because of our neighbor that our family has found another fun experience in simple living.  We've become aware of nature in a new way.  Not from growing our own little veggies or waiting for rain, but from all the creatures that routinely come to visit our white-haired neighbor.

We've created a Refrigerator List.  Rules are you have to see something at least three times before it gets to go on the List; however, you can note sightings of which you're keeping track.  (Right now, we've seen a black bird with a yellow beak, but we're not sure what it is.)

It's got the kids on alert in the evenings after dinner and it's fun to researching some strange birds and things we've spotted (escapees from the zoo?); and we're listening in the quiet to all the small sounds that are really there in the dusk.  It's not really all that quiet, if you take the time to listen.

May 24, 2011 List

Red-shouldered Hawk (we see this guy so often we've named him Harry)
Mockingbird
White-winged Dove
Pigeon
Sparrow
Cardinal
Blue Jay
Grackel
Bell's Vireo songbird
Raccoon
Yellow-headed Verdin
Scissortail
Hummingbird
Mexican Freetail Bat
Thrasher
Squirrel
Robin
Western Kingbird
Feral Cat
Ladder-Backed Woodpecker

looking at: black bird with yellow beak, white birds (big) that fly overhead in pairs, brown noisy squirrel-like animal - chipmunk?