Wheesing The Juice!

Okay ... so if you didn't know how old I am you've now got a pretty good guess since that was a Pauly Shore reference!  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about do feel free to um ... educate?... yourself by visiting You Tube for the clip from the movie.)

Hubby and I both have always loved juice bars.  A grocery here that has long since been swallowed up by Whole Foods, Wild Oats, used to have a fresh juice bar that was awesome!  So as a gift to myself for my success so far I invested the money in getting a juicer of our own.

I was oddly excited when it came the other day.  I chose a Breville with pretty good reviews.  Hopefully it is as easy and long lasting as it says!   I also got a book called "The Juicing Bible" which I figured would help me figure out what I'm doing here.   The Juicer is MUCH bigger than I expected ... sadly taking up a lot of counter space - which I've realized is truly lacking already in our kitchen.  The book is more than just recipes - it has all kinds of information on different health issues and juicing recipes to help.  Honestly most of them seem a little complicated in terms of ingredients so I decided to google 'beginners juicing recipes' first and found some that are more my speed right now.

Hubby actually used it before I got a chance.  I was a bit worried as I saw him go for it without reading any instructions or recipe but his concoction was pretty good and after a 'look' he did proceed to clean out the different parts of the machine after he was done.  This morning was my first go. Hubby had been "kind enough" to get it "all set up for me" ... translation?  That means he used it himself and just left it all together sitting on the counter afterwards.   After all I'm going to use it too so cleaning will end up my chore ... growl, grumble ... oh and another morning surprise   "Honey I tossed your milk ... milk isn't supposed to have chunks in it!"  He threw out 1/2 a gallon of perfectly good whole milk because he'd never realized that 'cream top' does mean some chunks of cream.   My 'not a morning person grumble growl almost became a ROAR at that point but I held it together.  Instead of my coffee I tried my first juice recipe - very simple just apple, carrot and ginger.  I also whipped up a scrambled egg with leftover red pepper from dinner (Veggie Fajitas again - I do love that recipe!).

The juice was SOOOOOO good!  My grumbly growlies faded away as I slowly sipped it.  Oh don't worry... they'll come back as soon as I go up to the kitchen to face the sink full of dishes!  

UPDATE 2/23:  Still LOVE juicing and we do it pretty much every day.  The amount of carrots & apples we are buying is kind of comical.  Starting to get brave and trying to add in the greens this week.  I have to be honest I haven't used the book I bought much - their recipes are so in depth with so many ingredients and  a bunch of remedy-type talk.  I'm not there ... maybe later but not yet.   The only pain is washing the parts of the juicer every time --- and you CANNOT leave them to sit as I found out the hard way that they harden pretty quickly and then you are scrubbing instead of rinsing.  I tend to throw them in the top shelf of the dishwasher every other time so they really stay clean.  The colors can stain - ESPECIALLY beets!   Hubby made one drink that had majority beets and dubbed it "Time of the Month" Juice because it looked like a glass full of blood.  Nice - huh?  Made me think that's what the movies use - Bella seemed to enjoy drinking that blood because it was really yummy beet juice!  

Apple, Carrot, Beet, Spinach - very colorful!  Stir before drinking obviously!  Even the scraps look pretty ... 

Apple, Carrot, Beet, Cucumber & Ginger - pretty pink! 

Yummy green!  2 apples, 2 kiwis and a HUGE bunch of spinach. 

I found a recipe to make cookies for the dogs with the leftover pulp!  You have to be careful not to use anything they can't have.  I've only been doing carrot & apple scraps for them so far.  They LOVE the cookies and act like I'm giving them chicken scraps with how they dance and wiggle! 

Just the pulp, some peanut butter, some rolled oats and you can add some flax seed and parsley if you want. (Parsley for good breath!)   Takes no time at all and makes me feel better about the 'waste' of all that pulp!