Green Goddess Juice

Let me start by saying that my husband is the usual juicer in our little family of two. I’m not going to lie, our juicer intimidates me just a little bit. This is probably because I happen to be one of the most paranoid people in the world and I also possess a ridiculously overactive imagination, which leads to weird fears like what if my finger accidentally slips into the spinning grinding loud piece of the juicer? What if I drop the apple in wrong and it shoots back out and takes out my eye? Seriously. These are the things I think about. For the record, I blame the Final Destination movies.

But anyway. I needed to make juice the other morning because I wanted to use the leftover vegetable pulp (you know, the stuff you normally throw away after you juice out all the good stuff? I feel like it’s such a waste to just toss it!) to test a batch of turkey veggie meatballs and Kevin was unfortunately already at work, so I was on my own. I’m happy to announce that I survived the ordeal with all digits (and eyeballs) intact, although I did make a pretty spectacular mess out of the kitchen when it was all said and done. And I ended up with a pretty tasty batch of juice to boot!

My body has been in desperate need of some nutrients lately (probably to counteract the beer/pizza/cheese/peanut butter mousse binge I recently indulged in) so I focused on a lot of green in this juice. It’s a super nutritious blend of spinach, kale, parsely, cucumber, celery, carrot, apple, lime, and ginger.

I would write a long paragraph on the many benefits of each of the fruits and vegetables included in this juice but I’m feeling sort of lazy and all you really need to do is google “benefits of green juice” to find a plethora of websites that will go into all the juicy details – pun intended! 😉

Green Goddess Juice

serves one, easily adapted

Ingredients:

(all to taste)

– 3 cups spinach leaves

– 4-5 stalks kale

– 3 stalks celery

– 1/2 cucumber

– 1 bunch parsely

– 4 medium carrots

– 1 lime

– 1 medium apple

– 1 knob ginger

Instructions

Add all ingredients to juicer and enjoy!

And all that leftover vegetable pulp you have once you’re finished juicing? Just wait – I’ve got something for you! Stay tuned!

Carrot Apple Lemon Ginger Juice

So, 80% of my office is sick. Oops. I’m praying I did not have as much to do with that as I suspect I did. It just goes to show that when you’re sick – even with “just a cold” – STAY HOME! Your office will thank you. I probably should have stayed home longer than I did. Instead I’ve just been drinking lots of this:

In an effort to get well as quickly as possible, Kevin and I are taking advantage of one of my favorite appliances – his (now ours – yay marriage!) Breville juicer. When he lived in California we juiced a lot more than we do now, mostly because it was less expensive and California has much better (and more plentiful) produce than Virginia. But one combination we are able to get regularly and inexpensively is our latest and greatest combination of carrot, apple, lemon, and ginger. Packed with tons of vitamins and antioxidants, this juice combination is a huge immunity booster. I could practically feel my body beating away the nasty cold germs!

Plus, the kick of ginger balances the sweet of the carrots and apples and blends well with the bite of the lemon. You can easily play around with the amounts to make this juice as sweet or as spicy as you like! Either way, you’re bound to feel better.

Carrot Apple Lemon Ginger Juice

serves two

Ingredients

5-6 carrots

3 medium apples (we used honeycrisp for extra sweetness)

1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled

2 lemons

Instructions

Add your carrots to the juicer, followed by the apples and then the lemons. If necessary, clean out all the fibrous bits from your juicer and then add the ginger. Stir to combine and enjoy!

Mexican Brunch

One of my favorite things about The Man being on the East Coast is cooking together. I am lucky enough to be marrying a guy who loves food as much as I do, and he’s a great cook. Plus he’s one of those people who can look at the contents of my pathetically empty fridge and create something incredible, whereas I have to plan every meal. So when The Man announced that Saturday was going to be Mexican Brunch day, I was overjoyed.

(sidebar: we went grocery shopping and my fridge is no longer pathetic nor empty. Quite the opposite, actually. As is, I have no idea how we’re going to eat all the food we just bought.)

One thing about us – we love Mexican food. LOVE. And Mexican food for breakfast is pretty much the icing on the cake. Cream cheese icing. On carrot cake. It’s that dear to us.

I already had a beef roast in my freezer, so we pulled that out to thaw in preparation to make machaca for breakfast. I think I’ve mentioned machaca before, but if not, it’s a mexican shredded beef dish with onions, tomatoes, diced chilies, and all sorts of delicious spices. Ohmyword, so good. For some reason my machaca never turns out as good as The Man’s, so I was happy to turn the kitchen over to him.

Just look at that luscious spicy beef! So good, I can’t even describe. Even though it doesn’t look so good in this picture…trust me, it’s darn good beef.

As with any traditional Mexican breakfast, we scrambled eggs with our machaca and served them in corn tortillas. Then we topped them with refried beans, guacamole, onions, queso fresco, and tapatio. Love me some tapatio! And of course, you can’t have a Mexican meal without beer!

Funny story about that, actually. The last time I was in CA (before the Big Event) we went to our favorite Mexican place for breakfast. Normally we’re the only ones there but this particular visit was different – several tables were occupied. After looking around for a few minutes, sipping on my black coffee, I realized something: everyone else was drinking. Everyone. There was a table of guys in the corner drinking beer. The couple next to us had glasses of white wine and something made with tequila. Another table have several rounds of Bloody Mary’s. The Man was quick to explain that it’s perfectly normal to have a beer with your chorizo at 0900. And here I thought restaurants couldn’t serve alcohol before 1100! (At least, they can’t in Pennsylvania.) Who knew?!

I couldn’t be the only table not drinking (hello peer pressure), so we quickly ordered a Pacifico and a Bloody Mary. Totally made the breakfast.

So of course, we cracked open some ice cold Coronas with salt and lime and served them alongside our machaca con huevos. Delish.

Adding a little tapatio to the tacos…everything tastes better with tapatio.

I don’t know what it is about Mexican food that makes it so darn good, especially when half the time it looks like something…well…something not really all that appetizing. Take refried beans, for example. There is absolutely nothing aesthetically pleasing about refried beans, but holy cow I can eat a lot of them!

Have I mentioned we really love Mexican food? No?

Delicious.

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