Thursday, September 20, 2012

Big Love Is A Super Veggie Juice!


This is a big glass of self love! Full of cancer fighting goodness! We are stepping up the juicing around the castle, and this tall glass of fresh juice is the 'Afternoon Special.' A fresh juice that was amazingly delicious, considering how much cruciferous vegetables I added to the mix. Normally a thyroid patient would not add so much of these veggies to fresh juice, but I have no choice now. I am going for kicking cancer's butt. Phooey on the doctors and their cancer talk. I am healthy, and I am staying healthy. So I have to change it up, juice more, and do some strong goiterogenic veggies in my juice. You can go to my "Cancer" page at the top of this blog, for a list of the helpful cancer fighting foods. 
Let's get to it! Drink up and feel the rush!

Big Love - Super Veggie Juice

1 handful of dandelion greens
1 small clump of flat leaf parsley
2 carrots
1 granny smith apple cored
1 red delicious apple cored
1 whole lemon
6 leaves of romain lettuce
1 big handful of lettuce greens
1 inch ginger peeled
4 long skinny broccoli stems with tops
1 tiny red beet with stems on top
1 round clump califlower
1 tsp barley grass powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp turmeric

Add the barley powder and spices after you make your juice. Stir and enjoy! The cool thing about adding the cinnamon is that you smell it every time you take a sip, and that last mouthful is like drinking an old red hot candy. Tip: When I am finished drinking my veggie juice, I sometimes drizzle water down around the inside edge of the glass to savor every little drop left on the side of the glass. I don't want to miss anything! And that goes for living a big love filled life too!




Thursday, September 13, 2012

What's That? Cactus Pear, Celery, Jicama Juice


We like to mix it up within our big food adventure, and occasionally we try some exotic to us, fruits and vegetables. Living where we do, certainly no cactus plants grow outside in this part of the world! Since we have never seen cactus pears in the wild, we definitely said, "what's that?" when saw them in a food store last weekend. We immediately decided to give the strange looking fruits a try, not even knowing anything about their taste. That's the gosh darn freaky fun of it!

I needed to find out about these little critters, so I watched a few YouTube videos about cactus pears, and also watched a number of people harvesting the fruit in the desert themselves. Tricky business. Seems we are very lucky not to experience the thorns and nasty stickers that come from gathering these cactus pears in the wild! Be sure to hold them with paper towels while you cut them if yours still have any remnants of cactus thorns on them! Overall there was some disagreement about how to open the fruit. I decided to go with John Kohler of OK Raw's method. You can see John in the video at the bottom of this post creating a cactus cooler that he makes with coconut water.



I sliced off each end, and then ran my knife just at the depth of the skin lengthwise. The juice can stain, so be careful not to be wearing anything white or fancy. If your cactus pears still have thorns use gloves or some paper towels to do this maneuver to protect your hands. I then rolled the outer skin off the inside flesh.


Cactus pears grow off the tip edge of cactus plants. If you have seen cactus flowers then these would be in the same area of the plant. Most of the cactus pears I saw on videos had seeds in the center that you scooped out with a spoon. 


Ours had the seeds throughout the inside flesh (see photo below), and the seeds were hard as rocks. I took a taste of the pears, they were sweet, but oh those seeds... I decided to add the two cactus pears to a juice recipe. This way the macine can remove the seed problem. People do like to juice cactus pear for it's healthy benefits because it contains magnesium, vitamin C, and helps in reducing inflammation in the body. They are also supposed to be good for diabetics. You can read more about the nutritional benefits here and here.


I thought that I would add them to a celery-jicama based juice, since that is what I had on hand. That is the beauty of juicing, so many combo's are oh so good! Hubby was not going to be home till much later. I made a bigger batch of juice than I usually do, because I knew I would be drinking most of this myself right away. Best to drink your juice as fresh as possible.


Cactus Pear, Celery, Jicama Juice

2 cactus pears peeled / inside flesh only
8 stalks of celery
1/3 jicama peeled
1 peeled English cucumber 
1/2 inch of peeled ginger
2 granny smith apples
1 tsp of Cinnamon




Add all of the above ingrediants to the juice machine, and mix with spoon in pitcher. Pour into glass and stir with a crunchy celery swizzle stick. Enjoy! This batch made a quart of juice. I drank the pint container before I poured the rest into the quart, so maybe it was a bit more than a quart of juice. It looked so good I had to drink it! Yum!


If you are not drinking your fresh made juice till later, it is best to fill your mason jar to the very top to remove the air, and replace lid tightly, and refrigerate. The cactus pears made for a beautiful color of juice! Be brave and try new things! 


Enjoy John in the video below showing how to use cactus pears, and as always giving you the low down on juicing machines!








Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Consider Trying Bison Burgers


For those folks in transition that still enjoy eating meat, a healthier alternative to beef is Bison. Also known as American Buffalo, grass fed Bison is leaner, so the total fat, cholesterol and calories are lower than a beef burger. You can view a chart of the nutritional differences between meats here, where you can see Bison has higher iron and B-12 values than other meats, with the exception of salmon. When I was still eating meat earlier this summer, I found Bison to be quite tasty. It's true, although I did not plan on it, I have naturally transitioned into a vegan at this point. My hubby still eats some meat, and I like to allow everyone to change their food patterns at their own pace. That is why I am posting this alternative to the red meat you may usually may eat, as I like to support you no matter where you may be at this time with your own food choices.

For us there happens to be a Bison farm in operation not too far from where we live, as you can see in the photo below it's a really gorgeous farm to drive by. Unfortunately they never opened a store at this location. We would have to travel quite a distance to get to their other Bison farm, where they have a store set up to sell the Bison Meat. 


Since that is inconvenient, we purchased this pound of a different brand of ground bison meat at the natural food market. If you do not have a Bison farm nearby in your area, other options are that you may find Bison meat at natural markets, large farmers markets, Whole Foods, and online
 

Because Bison meat is leaner, you want to cook it lower and slower than beef. Take your time, no need to rush. I did not add anything to the burger meat below. I handled the meat lightly when making the patties, and then gave to Ben to grill.



For our burgers we added some fresh avocado, onion. lettuce, and heirloom tomato. Although I prefer no roll myself, the roll of choice was from Ezekial's frozen sprouted breads. Dinner was served with ears of fresh sustainably farmed non-GMO corn! Yum! I also made a relish of chopped raw corn kernels, onion, cucumbers and tomatoes from the CSA, drizzled with a light balsamic vinaigrette. A light and tasty weekend meal! Since working with Bison meat may be new to many people I found some helpful videos for you to view below.



The video above shows the basics of grilling and handling ground bison. The video below shows a slightly different version using a marinade in the ground Bison for extra moisture. I think you will see this is a very easy meat to work with on the grill or in the kitchen. Be brave and try new things. This makes food an adventure! Even if I'll be having a portobello mushroom burger myself. Just sayin'. Things changed for me.

 

Bison comes in all the other meat cuts you know such as steaks, roasts, and sausages. If you see Bison offered at your local restaurant, give it a try. It's a far better alternative to eating other meats, and I think you will really like the change of pace.



Looks like a cute family. Just so you know, Bison can run up to 40 miles per hour, so don't be climbing over the fence.