Detox Juice: Carrot and Apple

Just another week of trying out the juice detox. We've enjoyed the detox...kind of, more like, the day after a detox is quite nice, but the actual day of detox leaves us with a headache and ready to retire to bed early and STARVING the next day.

Regardless, Carrots and Apples are a good juice combination whether your detoxing or just want a fresh cup of juice.

Detox Juice: Cucumber, Orange and Mango

Extended Shelf Life for: Cucumber, Orange, Mango

I stumbled across this post in search of ways to use up the ridiculous amount of oranges that are lying around our home. I'm not opposed to nutty-health quarks, so I was all in on trying out a detox and since Mike didn't argue, we went ahead and went for it.

The post I read essentially recommended a single day detox which would begin in the morning with a glass of water mixed with the juice of one time to more-or-less prime the system. The rest of the day is enjoyed drinking water, herbal teas and 3 cups of fresh juice - your choice but she recommends sticking with the same throughout the entire day.

In our house, on our first detox attempt our mix was: Cucumber, mango and orange - quite delicious and a beautiful green color to boot.

In general, the day went better than anticipated, although I was ready for bed at 8:00 pm and definitely ready to get to eating the next day. However, I felt good, like my body was being given the chance to let go of some of the junk which I inevitably eat on a more-than-I'd-like-to-admit basis.

Whether you opt to try out a detox or simply want a new juice recipe, we definitely enjoyed this combination of fruits and vegetables!

Preservation Secret: Freezing Tomatoes and Bananas

Extended Shelf Life for: Tomatoes

When holidays with the family come to end, it's inevitably time to start diving again ^^

Fortunately, there's always a wealth of ingredients to be had and we've been at it for so long that I've developed a few tricks of the trade and preservation secrets.

For Tomatoes:

I love to roast my tomatoes for about 20-30 minutes at about 400 F. When you take them out of the oven the skins are easy to remove and a lot of the unnecessary, seedy liquid has drained from them. At this point, I run them through a food processor or our juicer (on the mincing cycle), bag them and freeze them. I'm increasingly passionate about this process and method, especially after reading that even farmers won't eat canned tomatoes because the acid and the tin can are not a healthy combination!

For the Bananas:

I'm working on preserving some (the peels primarily) in the form of vinegar. However, this is about freezing, and bananas are easy to freeze. I've done two-three different things for freezing bananas.

If I plan to make banana bread, pancakes or any other mashed banana treat I simply mash the banana in a large mixing bowl then transfer to freezer bags, each containing about 2 cups of banana mash, the generally required amount for recipes of such sort.

I've also frozen banana 'coins' so that I can easily make banana ice-cream which goes fantastically well with banana (n)ice cream sandwiches!

And finally, I'll occasionally peel the banana and freeze whole to use in smoothies, although making coins would work just as well.

Peanut Butter from a Juicer

While this is not a recipe to extend the life of anything, I just thought I'd let the blog world know that I do, in deed, make peanut butter with my juicer. (Read more about the juicer we own and operate and how much I love it here!)

As for making peanut butter in a juicer, you may find it's a bit of a chore and takes some patience, but you'll end up with natural peanut butter, that's simply delicious and costs only as much as a jar of peanuts (we were able to get ours for $2.50).

To make the peanut butter, use the mincing nozzle of your juicer (or whatever is recommended by your juicer model.) and run a small handful of peanut butter through your juicer chute at a time. You'll need to run the 'butter' through multiple times as the first few runs will give you a kind of powdery peanut mess. To speed up the process and create a slightly smoother peanut butter feel free to add Peanut Oil to the powdery peanut mix. Continue running the peanut 'butter' through the juicer until you reach your desired consistency - we went at it about 8-10 times.

Enjoy as you would any other peanut butter!

Beef and Chorizo Chili

Extended Shelf Life for: Peppers, Jalapenos, Tomatoes

When it comes to chili, I lack an official recipe. I do however have a few tricks-of-the-trade or preferences and a new discovery (or two!)

To begin, I just got a cast iron kettle and it just makes chili seem that much more delicious, amazing and perfect for the cold winter night.

Next, let me tell you that doing a combo chili which is 50% Beef and 50% Chorizo is brilliant!

Now, on to some tricks-of-the-trade.

I've just recently learned this little gem of advice that comes from my good friend SJ's grandmother:

• When preparing ground meats, add enough water to cover the base of the kettle or skillet to the meat. As the meat cooks, the water will evaporate and you'll end up having a very uniformly ground meat to support your soup or go into your tacos. (Perhaps this isn't revolutionary to most folks, but there's just something about this perfectly ground meat that makes the chili that much more enjoyable.)

Another trick-of-the-trade, espeically for divers or gardeners:

• If you have an abundance of peppers, go ahead and roast the whole batch in the oven until they're fragrant, run them through a food processor or a juicer with mincing capabilities, throw them in an ice cube tray and then into the freezer for future use in soups, sauces and of course chili! 

One more thing I like to do for our chili, especially when we have an abundance of tomatoes: 

• Run fresh tomatoes through a mincing juicer or food processor rather than throwing in canned tomatoes, fresher and ultimately a bit healthier (tomatoes in cans can have dangerous interactions with the aluminum considering the acidity of tomatoes).

And finally, our personal preference when it comes to eating a bowl of chili is to add raw onions, cheese and corn chips.

Juicer Favorites/Experiments gone Well

Extended Shelf Life: Apples, Grapes, Bok Choy, Carrots, Pomegranate

Since returning to Laramie, we opted to make a fairly grand purchase of an Omega J8500 Juicer and it has been revolutionary!

I'm confident you'll be seeing a lot of juicer related recipes popping up as we're discovering all kinds of uses for the appliance (if you're feeling a bit impatient and want to learn more now, check out this page about my experience with the Juicer).

For now, know that a combination of Apples, Grapes and Bok Choy is quite amazing!

Equally amazing is a combination of Apples, Carrots and Pomegranate.