Make a Green Juice and Feel Better NOW

Do you desire greater health? YES! YES! YES!

Are you constantly making excuses? YES (It’s too cold, I’m too tired etc)

Is there always something seemingly more important to do in the moment? YES (fold the laundry, pay bills, clean the kitchen, buy groceries etc)

I figured I’d just answer the questions for myself. I’ve somehow put so many other things ahead of the list in my life when all I really wanted to do was just make and enjoy a homemade organic green juice. So while I stare at the pile of laundry next to me I’m sipping my green juice, blogging and feeling happy. Making and drinking green juice as I usually do, in the quiet of my home, early in the morning, has an extremely cathartic effect on me. I feel calm, refreshed and approach all the tasks of my day in a more relaxed manner. All the noise that was going on in my head about all the things that need to get done today that was truly making me feel overwhelmed is gone! All I did to make it stop the ‘noise’ was to do something I love that took less than 15 minutes from start to finish. So while I think everyone should make a green juice especially because it sets the tone to make healthier choices the rest of the day, the moral of the story is to just hit the PAUSE button as soon as your day begins and perform a task that is calming. For me, this morning, it was prayer and a green juice, what will it be for you?

Here are 2 green juice recipes that hopefully inspire you to take time for yourself each morning so you can feel better NOW 🙂

• Cucumber (1)
• Celery (2-3 stalks)
• Apple (2 apples)
• Lemon (1)
• Romaine Lettuce (1 head/heart)

Green juice recipes don’t get easier than this…

• Celery (3-4 stalks)
• Apple (2-3 apples)
• Lemon (1)
• Spinach (2 large handfuls)

 

~Make and enjoy a green juice for a better start to your day!~

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Juicing date with my mother and Juice Recipe #28

I had an incredibly fun Saturday evening. I spent it juicing with my mother. I obviously looooooooove juicing, hence the blog, but it is an activity I do solo. My mother has had a juicer for a while now and why we haven’t had a juicing date before yesterday beats me! Turns out, juicing is so much more fun when you have an equally enthusiastic partner. We had so much fun, made three different juices, and I took no pictures because I was too busy chugging them. My beloved mother had two big AHA! moments while we juiced.

The first one was that she does way to much prep work. After thoroughly washing the veggies, she chops them up into smaller pieces!?! I couldn’t believe it. I basically told her she did not need to help her super powerful centrifugal juicer out and that she should just (gently)  shove her veggies whole down the chute, as long as they fit of course. She had the most surprised look on her face as I threw whole cucumbers down the chute, large and long carrots, celery stalks etc.

Lesson #1: Don’t help your juicer out by chopping up the veggies. Your juicer can take it! Just wash and juice. Slice/Chop only to make larger veggies fit.

The second AHA! moment she had was that I have a rhyme and reason to my juicing while she doesn’t. My mother just juices a little of all of the vegetables and fruits she has available in her fridge. She ALWAYS juices this way and of course sometimes they taste great and a lot of times they don’t. That must not have been very encouraging for her. I’ve been experimenting with different fruit and veggie combos for so long now that I know, for the most part, what works together and what doesn’t.

Lesson #2: Recipes are great for making your own juices. Feel free to make them exactly as you see them or use them as inspiration but be warned that throwing everything-but-the-kitchen-sink down your juicer’s chute may not always result in a tasty juice.

While these lessons may seem pretty basic to novice or expert juicers, I hope there’s a beginner out there who will see this post and benefit from them.

One of the juices we made was this creamy and delicious orange-colored juice, the second was your usual deep red colored ABC (plus ginger) juice and the third was a green juice that I don’t think I’ve made before. Check out the ingredients below. We made an incredibly large batch but I will modify the quantity to what should make approximately 16 ounces.

MAMA’s green juice

• 4 organic celery stalks
• 1/2 large cucumber (1 whole small cucumber)
• small handful of cilantro
• 1 large head of organic romaine lettuce
• 1 organic apple
• 2-3 stalks of a dark leafy green, we used beet greens

~Happy Juicing y’all!~

Juice Recipe #25: Three Greens Juice and Juicing Tips

I LOOOOVE having a day off. I mean, who doesn’t? Nothing inspires me more to create delicious and healthy recipes like having a day off spent ONLY at home. My internal alarm/bladder woke me up at 5:40am which I was very upset about but I turned my frown upside down and found about four more hours of blissful sleep. I then woke up feeling refreshed and of course ready to have a fresh organic raw homemade green juice! I generally make smoothies when I’m headed to work and juice on my days off. Today’s juice had to be simple, green and as always yummy! Here are a few tips to make your juicing process far more enjoyable.

• Line the pulp container with a plastic baggie that you would usually get at a grocery store. It saves on clean up time! 
• ALWAYS clean all the parts of the juicer immediately after juicing. It makes for an easier clean up and extends the life of your juicer. Dried-on pulp on your juicer’s parts is not the business!
• If you’d love to have juice for breakfast and would like to save time in the morning then clean your produce the night before. 
• Always keep your juice recipes simple. Unless you’re nuts like I am at times and want to make an ‘everything’ juice and an ‘everything’ green juice. I try to keep my recipes under 5 ingredients. You really don’t want to know what celery, ginger, carrot, beet, tomato, apple, garlic, kale, lemon and collard juice tastes like, trust me! My everything juices were beyond delicious though 🙂 There was a method to that madness.

So back to today’s juice. Here are the ingredients:

• 4 large organic celery stalks
• 2 organic granny smith apples
• 1 organic romaine heart

~Juice & K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Sweetie)~

Do you have any other tips? Do share…

Juice Recipe #24: Green To-Go Juice aka ‘Christmas-Guilt’ Juice

I did not survive Christmas very well. Like many people, I could not resist over-indulging on my mother and mother-in-law’s delicious culinary creations.  I do not feel one ounce of guilt though *total lie* because I know that I’ll more than make up for it in the days and weeks to come and because it was only one gosh-darn day of gluttony. I went to bed Tuesday night vowing to have something.. .anything green for breakfast. I was beyond exhausted of course, so I slept in and woke up with only enough time to shower, dress, juice and go! Here’s the seriously yummy light and refreshing green juice recipe I created with left-over fruits that I’d cut up for a breakfast on Monday.

I made 32 ounces of it but the measurements below are for approximately 16 ounces.

• 6 stalks of organic celery
• 1 large pink grapefruit
• 1 organic granny smith apple
• 1  handful of red seedless grapes

This green juice was so good I’d barely driven 3 miles before it was all gone. It’s a winner 🙂

~Juice & go!~

 

Juice Recipe #23: Lean Green Juice!

This green juice recipe is sure to make you feel & look great. It was the perfect light and super healthy breakfast recipe and it has super ‘green’ powers to make anyone lean (after lots of doses on a consistent basis alongside a healthy diet of course). Yes, being lean doesn’t come easy. I know because I’m still on that path but I love and appreciate every step I make in the right direction. And by lean, I don’t mean skinny, I mean… ‘right & tight’ 🙂 I just can’t think of a better way to describe it. Feel free to help me out.

Anyway, here’s the recipe to this delicious and refreshing green juice. Your whole body will thank you for it. This made exactly 32 ounces which is a whole lot but I woke up starving, ran a few miles and needed that much. Cut ingredients in half to make the usual 16oz.

• 4 medium/large collard green leaves
• 5 celery stalks
• one handful of mint leaves
• 3 granny smith apples
• 1 cucumber
• 1/2 lemon (I juice with the peel on)

Some of the benefits of this green juice, just to name a few, are that it is anti-inflammatory, alkaline, a diuretic, promotes weight loss and improves immunity.

Ingredients of The Lean Green Juice

Lean Green Frothy Goodness

Lean, green and filled to the brim.

Settling in

~Juice & Get Lean!~

Sources:

Benefits of Juicing Collard Greens

The Incredible Powers of Celery Juice

Juice Recipe #20: Bright Orange Goodness

So I made 32 ounces of Bright Orange Goodness as I’m calling it to have for breakfast tomorrow. I prefer to drink my juices immediately after making them for many reasons…

• that’s when they taste the best/super fresh!
• they are just the right temp for me, not too cold and not too warm. I’m one of those “water with no ice please” people. A few juices tend to taste better chilled or on ice though.
• and most importantly, they haven’t began to oxidize yet. Juices are loaded with the most live enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals immediately after. So if juicing strictly for health is your thing, the best way to store them is not to! 🙂

We don’t live in a perfect world though so because I have to get up at an ungodly (5:30am) hour to get ready for work tomorrow and every minute of sleep is worth more to me than my first born child (that I don’t have yet), I juice the day before sometimes. Sssshh!! Don’t tell the juice gods. But do tell about this awesome recipe when you try it. Go with organic veggies and fruits whenever possible but if you had to pick only two (heehee!) go with the celery and apples. They are always at the top of the naughty list for being super high in pesticides.

• 4-5 organic carrots
• 2 organic fuji apples
• 8-10 organic celery stalks
• 1/2 an organic lemon

~Juice, enjoy and store only if you have to!~

PS: Fill your container all the way to the top with your juice if you’ll be storing it to minimize the amount of air and therefore oxidation of your juice.

Juice Recipe #17: My ‘Everything’ Juice

I woke up this past Saturday morning and was doing my usual browsing on YouTube for inspiring juicing videos when I came across a video titled Juice Recipe for Perfect Health and Radiant Beauty. I really enjoy watching the Life Regenerator’s videos on YouTube and was particularly inspired by it. In the video he makes his own ‘everything’ juice because he’s moving (I have got to learn how to add videos to this blog! I’m such a newbie). I enjoy juicing any time of day and any day of the week but my absolute favorite is on a Saturday morning. Interestingly enough, this is how my mother juices ALL the time. She has no rhyme or reason to her juice ‘recipes’. She literally just throws whatever she has in her fridge into her juicer and somehow creates pretty tasty concoctions. I have absolutely never made a juice before with so many ingredients or as I’m calling it… an ‘everything’-I-have-in-my-fridge juice. I had lots of fruits and veggies that were super ripe so this was the perfect excuse to juice and then go grocery shopping!

Here are my ingredients and pictures of the finished product. Of course I had beets so the final product red.

My ingredients included: beets, carrots, broccoli, celery, apples, pineapple, grapefruit, lemon and grapes. I made 72 ounces of juice that I spent the next day and a half drinking. Yum 🙂

         

The best part about my ‘everything’ juice is that it ended up tasting EXACTLY like the tree tomato fruit which I have never seen here in the US but grew up eating and enjoying in Kenya. It tastes sweet, tart and sour all at the same time. Is tart and sour the same thing? LOL! I have no idea. Anyway,  It was a beautiful and nostalgic moment when I tasted my juice. It reminded me of the abundant and wonderful childhood I had as I was always surrounded by the freshest tasting fruits and vegetables. Until the time comes when I can go back ‘home’ and enjoy a tree tomato fruit and more importantly the company of my friends and extended family I will have my ‘everything’ juice. Thank God for my ‘everything’ juice.

~Juice ‘everything’ and enjoy!~

Juice Recipe #11: Celery, Carrot, Orange and Lemon Juice

Hey folks!

I really like how simple, tasty and affordable this recipe is. For anyone who’s starting out juicing, you may have began to realize that it’s easy to go through your supply of veggies and fruits pretty quickly by juicing them. This recipe uses veggies and fruits that are pretty inexpensive (at least where I am) and still pack a whole lot of nutrients. Celery juice is anti-inflammatory, a diuretic and lowers cholesterol. As for carrot juice…well folks…it really does improve and/or maintain vision. I wear glasses, and I really do believe that my prescription stopped getting worse (as it was in previous years) thanks to all the carrot juice I’ve been drinking in the past few years.  Oranges and Lemons are loaded with vitamin C which is by far one of the most powerful antioxidants.

Here’s the recipe:

4 stalks of organic celery (folks, please note that conventional celery is very very very high on the list of veggies loaded with pesticides, there’s quite a few veggies and fruits I buy conventional due to cost or availability and celery is NEVER one of them)

3 organic carrots

1 organic orange (washed, peeled and cut in half)

1/2 an organic lemon (wash thoroughly and leave peel on)

 

~Juice and Enjoy!~

 

Juice Recipe #4: Celery, Cucumber, Kale & Green Apple Juice

This is a wonderful and simple green juice to make that’s ridiculously healthy and nutritious. I really just made this recipe up as I am beginning to do more and more and it came out wonderfully. Every single juice recipe I post is a juice I consider extremely delicious and nutritious. I have made plenty of juices that taste awful but I see no point in wasting space talking about them.

When juicing cucumbers that are not organic I wash and peel them. I know there are still chemicals that are within the juice of the cucumber if its not organic but it definitely reduces the amount if you peel them. I used about 4 stalks of celery, 2 kale leaves, one whole cucumber and one green apple for this recipe. Everything was organic besides the cucumber as I just couldn’t find one.

Here are some of the wonderful nutrients and benefits of cucumber juice!

Cucumbers have vitamin A, C and K, potassium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorous,. They are therefore good for our skin, hair and nails, a diuretic and anti-inflammatory. Bear in mind that many of these nutrients are found within the skin so if possible always juice organic whole cucumbers. Cucumbers added to any green juice makes it extremely refreshing. Can’t wait to make more of this juice on hot summer days 🙂

~Happy Juicing!~

Juice Recipe #3:Celery, Kale, Cilantro, Lemon & Green Apple Juice

Here’s the third installation of Juice Recipes and it’s a recipe I made up with what I had in the fridge today. Celery, Kale (one leaf), Cilantro, Granny Smith Apple and 1/2 a lemon. note:  I peel my lemons so as not to make it too bitter and as always I take out the apple’s seeds. Always make sure to thoroughly wash all fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens.
 I’m really making an effort to be creative with my recipes now and boy is it paying off because today’s green juice is just oozing with vitality. It was refreshing and invigorating. There’s no doubt this would be a ‘Hall-of-Famer’ should someone choose to create such a thing for homemade fresh vegetable & fruit juices.
 Here’s a breakdown of some of the awesome nutrients and benefits for just 2 of the juice’s ingredients.

Celery: Packed with vitamin A, tons of B vitamins, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium….the list is really long! It’s anti-inflammatory, aids in digestion, extremely filling because of the high water content, helps get rid of toxins and excess fluid by acting like a diuretic which means it would help reduce blood pressure! yay 🙂

Kale: This is just a super green! I doubt there’s anyone who hasn’t heard how amazing and nutritious our dark leafy greens are! Here’s just a few benefits of this great green. It’s got vitamin A (boat loads!), vitamin C, vitamin K , Folic acid, potassium, calcium and iron. It’s an incredible anti-oxidant.

~Happy Juicing!~