For the last week or so I’ve been travelling.. In terms of eating etc., it hasn’t been too healthy so I am avoiding the weighing scales… though I know I won’t be able to avoid them for much longer ..
Yesterday evening I collected a box of fruit and vegetables from my local shop and this morning’s breakfast was 100% juice (apple, carrot, orange, celery, lime and ginger)
Christmas, of course, is not the best time of the year to worry about a diet.. or to even try and stay on one..
Harvesting beetroot by amortize on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/99317668@N00/2647422770)
Getting the combination of fruits and vegetables in juices right might not be “rocket science”, but it’s still important.
Some combinations result in amazing juices that are a wonderful explosion of taste on your palate.
Other combinations, however, just don’t work as well, if at all.
This morning I tried a combination of beetroot and orange, with a bit of ginger root.
While the result was drinkable, it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as other combinations. Beetroot with carrots works out a lot better.
Lesson learnt 🙂
Since I bought the blender a couple of weeks ago I’ve been dying to try it out. This evening I decided that a post dinner “treat” was in order so I made a healthy smoothie 🙂
As I’m going to be away for a few days I’ve been trying to make sure that I’ve used up as much fruit and vegetables as possible as I’d hate them to go to waste – plus they’re really tasty.
Since I’d never made a smoothie before and I wanted to use up ingredients that I had to hand this is what I ended up with
And here’s the finished product:
The end result was fantastic, though incredibly cold (doh!). Leaving it to warm up slightly ie. giving it 5 minutes before you drink it probably isn’t a bad idea, as straight from the blender it was headache inducing cold!
I didn’t calculate the calories in this, but I suspect it’s a couple of hundred, as there are two full bananas and a yoghurt in there. I’m not too sure about the frozen berries, but I’m glad I picked up a few packs when I was in SuperQuinn earlier during the week, as I wouldn’t have been able to make this otherwise 🙂
James cooked a very tasty variation on this recipe the other evening. (He added some boiled sausage .. )
So I ended up with quite a bit of kale..
Kale is incredibly healthy and packed full of nutrients. Some people call it a “super food”, but it wasn’t something that I was that familiar with until recently. (Spot a trend? Yes – I’m learning about food!)
Last night I wanted to cook something using kale and as many vegetables as possible. I ended up doing a bit of an experiment with what I had in the kitchen:
Once the stock was added I just let it cook away for about another 20 to 30 minutes until the kale reduced down which led to this:
I’ve no idea what you’d call this, but it was very tasty 🙂
I’ve also got no idea about the calories etc., but it’s basically loads of vegetables with chicken breast, so it’s probably quite healthy..
Harvesting beetroot by amortize on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/99317668@N00/2647422770)
Beetroot is a fantastic vegetable, though you usually find it already cooked or pickled. Making juice from beetroot was a whole new adventure in juice for me, so finding the right combination of juices was key.
I ended up adapting this recipe to suit me ie. smaller quantity and different proportions.
The end result is quite tasty, though it retains the deep dark red colour from the beetroot.
Fruit & vegetables for juicing (Photo credit: blacknight)
Avocado is one of those fruits that I’ve never really known what to do with.
I’ve eaten it over the years in many forms, but I’d never actually prepared anything using it.
Since trying to “crank it up” a bit with the juices etc., I went off and bought a load of fruit and vegetables to try out a few different juice and smoothie combinations
One of the “new” additions for me was avocado.
This evening I used some in a salad and it was truly delicious.
So what’s so good about avocado?
Have a look at the nutrients in an avocado – it’s truly impressive:
Jason Vale aka The Juice Master is organising a collective juice detox in the New Year.
Last year ie. 2012, he announced the detox via Facebook and did so quite late in the year, so this time around he’s giving people plenty of warning
To make it a little more interesting there are also some prizes up for grabs
Personally I’m seriously considering doing a juice only diet for a week or two, though I’m not sure if I’d want to do it at the same time as this collective effort.
So if I vanish off the face of the planet early in 2013 for no apparent reason you now know why 🙂
Seriously though ..
After seeing some of the people who have successfully done juice only dieting I’m beginning to think that it might be viable for me .. Now the entire 60 days thing might not be!
You can find out more about it here
