Home Is Where The Juice Is

Green Juice Guide

I just got back from a great weekend, a weekend workshop of total immersion in sign language. It was amazing and exhausting and wonderful, but the food choices were .... let's just say the food choices were not. good. And the coffee was even worse. I just don't even want to think about it any more. I'm so happy to be home. 

One of the first things I did upon arriving home (after crashing for two solid hours) was to go out to the garden and harvest kale, chard, and Brussels sprout leaves to make myself a gigantic glass of juice. I could hardly wait to have something green. 

I said at the conclusion of the weekend (we were still in ASL mode, so really, I signed it) that next year, I'm bringing my coffee maker. Maybe I'll just bring my juicer instead.

Ridiculously Easy Dinner

The Crock Pot Mexican Chicken was terrific! And it was great coming home late in the day to the smell of chicken and chilies, and the promise of dinner waiting. I didn't make it to the grocer Friday afternoon for limes and cilantro (crazy insane afternoon), but the chicken was still pretty darned tasty with fresh pea sprouts and avocado. Maybe I can get it all together next time and add a little salsa or a bit of pico de gallo, too. I think this one's a winner.

Spa Water

  

Enjoying my yummy tangerine cucumber spa water this morning. This lemon cucumber water includes lemon verbena, which would be a wonderful addition to my herb garden! 

Come on, warm weather!

School is absolutely hammering me this week. I think I would surely cave were it not for the two of you. I just wouldn't even be doing this were it not for your encouragement and knowing that you're counting on me for the same. MWA!!

We're invited to a Superbowl Party tomorrow night. Five hours of football, ripe with opportunity to miscombine. Yikes. Any ideas? I need some help!

OMG! I DID IT!! I just opened my first young coconut! Oh, this is just divine! Maggie, please tell me how to make the macaroons?

Sorry, I've got to get back to the kitchen, that coconut is calling me ...

Another yummy combination for an afternoon pick-me-up - apple/pineapple/ginger/lemon/pomegranate juice.
It's delicious. It's pink. What more could you ask?

This is just crazy amazing. I've lost twelve pounds in seventeen days. (This is day seventeen, right?) Twelve pounds! Is that crazy? I know I don't have to tell either of you what this is like, that I'm eating avocados, and putting olive oil on my salads, I'm drinking juice all morning long, eating dates and walnuts and Lara Bars and chocolate ... I'm eating like crazy, I'm almost never hungry, and I've lost twelve pounds! 

I know part of feeling really good comes from 'feeling clean'. (Maybe you know what I'm talking about.) I just feel like there's space inside my body and not like every cell is bursting at the seams. Plenty of room for food and energy to flow and for releasing toxins from every cell.

Some Like it HOT!

This may be my new favorite blog.  Look at this recipe for jicama "porridge" for a warm start to a cold morning.  I'm gonna try it right now with apples rather than jicama because Monday is grocery day and I am down to the basics.  I'll keep ya posted...
http://detoxinista.com/2012/01/grain-free-breakfast-porridge/

Dinner or Crime Scene?

I have been The Naked Chef today.  I made Beet Burgers (yes, I did!) and they were yum (topped with goat cheese and in a lettuce "bun") and Paleo Slaw (cabbage slaw recipe from my friend Sara) for dinner. The girls ATE THE BURGERS!  Can you believe it?  My white kitchen looked like the scene of a brutal crime after juicing those beets but other than that, all is well.

Coffee

I still love coffee...the social aspect, maybe just the comfort of it being something that hasn't changed through all of this.  There is something to be said about enjoying a cup of coffee in the afternoon or on a "coffee date" versus feeling I NEED to have it to start my day.   I have been having trouble finding coffee shops that offer nut milks (opposed to soy or cow's milk) so resorting to my stand-by skim latte.  St Paul Peeps, any suggestions????

Green Machine...

Without even 'trying' I am off coffee (today)... I just made another Green Lemonade (Kale, cucumber, celery, ginger, and apple) this afternoon and feel super energized. Hmmm, can I keep this up? Do I want to?

So I tried to make a mexican hot cocoa this afternoon with almond milk.  I decided I HATE the taste of almond milk heated.

I made the yummiest smoothie this morning:
1 banana
1 c almond milk
handful of walnuts
1 tsp raw honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
ice

Kind of like a cold horchata!