Who knew!
2 green apples
1/2 lemon
1" ginger root
2-3 celery stalks
big ol' handful of kale
1 cucumber
Seriously delicious, served over ice.
Found this and other great recipes on
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A Few Good Juicer Recipes
Mostly so I won't forget them myself as I never write anything down:
Carrot Orange Ginger
2 Navel Oranges (peeled)
2 washed organic carrots
1/2 inch of ginger root
Serve over ice
Big Salad Drink
2-3 roma tomatoes
2 organic carrots
2 cups spinach
2-3 Collard leaves, stems removed
1/2 medium beet, skin removed
2 large celery stalks
3 cabbage leaves
1/2 radish (1 radish would be fine, was just not sure)
1/2 radish (1 radish would be fine, was just not sure)
1/4 cup broccoli
1/2 clove garlic
1/4 lemon, organic with peel
Serve over ice!!!
Citrus Dream
1 large ruby red grapefruit, peeled
2 navel oranges, peeled
1/2 lime, peeled
1/4 lemon (optional)
Serve over ice
Tropical Heaven
1 large ruby red grapefruit, peeled
1 kiwi, peeled
1/2 mango (no pit)
1/4 lemon
1/3 pineapple core
ZOMG SO GOOD serve on ice
Gettin' Juiced
For about a year or so I have wanted to get a juicer. I watched the movie "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" featuring Aussie fat boy gone slim, Joe Cross. I thought it was going to be infomercial-esque, boring, and forgettable. However that was not the case. I was riveted by the transformation of this doughboy into a bit of an Adonis.
I always like to give some background into my personal self when writing about things like this because we are all so different in our backstories. What works for one won't work for all.
As I get older and have had more children my body has bounced in and out of shape several times. I think the part of my life that saved me and gives me hope each time was the 2 years or so that I spent working at and working out at a local gym. By working there I WAS there and so would get an hour or two in before and/or after my shift. I only had one child back then too, and a husband who was fine with my daily hours-at-a-time absence. I was able to build up muscle to the point of feeling and even looking strong, and that has carried me through the subsequent years. Each time I fall out of shape and then get determined to get back into shape I have the wonderful thing called 'muscle memory' that causes me to reform my previous sculpture quite rapidly. BUT that only works if I keep working at it. I also fall out of shape very very quickly, much quicker than it takes me to rebuild. Mine is a body that needs to be active daily. My lifestyle is sadly not one that allows that without enormous effort.
Now, back to the original subject! I noticed the other day that when I put my jeans on that are normally very loose that they felt wrong. The fabric was digging into my thighs and when I sat down it hurt where the waistband was. I hadn't weighed myself in a long time because my scale eats batteries so I really had no clue what I weighed. Last time I had checked I was around 125 (at 5'7"). I got some batteries and gave it a whirl. When I opened my eyes I saw a number I hadn't seen in a long time. No wonder I felt like a blimp. I was starting to blow up!! In 2 months I have gained over 6 lb and 2% of my body fat back that I had worked hard to lose after having Autumn. Also my depression has been running rampant lately which has made me tired and out of focus.
The cause for this weight gain is really not rocket science. I have been rather sedentary lately and eating whatever and how much I want, mostly cookies and crackers and processed food. I had thought it wouldn't catch up with me since I am ignorant but the scale (and my tight fat jeans) don't lie. Unfortunately friends and family members will. Not to be mean, but because they love me and don't want me to feel bad about myself. And I know that *right now* I am not "fat" but the facts are that my weight has gone up significantly after staying steady for over a year.
What do I do about this problem? I tried doing the exercise video Jillian Michael's The 30 Day Shred that I have used before with good results. But after 1 week of doing it I came down with a stomach bug and then lost motivation. I tried eating salads every day for lunch instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that involves both the preparation which takes forever and is very messy, and then I have to chew the damn thing which is painful due to my unfortunate cross bite which makes my jaws ache after long periods of time. I can barely chew gum. So what can I do?? I thought of the Joe Cross movie.
Whenever I have mentioned the word "juicer" it has brought out very strong opinions from both sides. You are either passionate about juicing or you think its the biggest waste of time/money/breath stupidest thing you have ever heard etc etc. Yes they can be expensive. OR you can find one that someone used once and got too lazy or grossed out to use again for very little money. Yes, healthy food like fruits and veggies are expensive, but so is open heart surgery and diabetes. And yes, it takes time to prepare food. ANY kind of food. Trust me I am the queen of eating cereal for dinner.
After really going back and forth about this whole topic in my mind for many months I finally decided to talk to my husband. Why not, can't hurt right? Luckily I have a husband who is pretty much on board with anything I want to do within reason. And he'll consume just about anything including juiced vegetables. I showed him a Breville Juice Fountain Compact on Amazon that cost well under a hundred dollars and said, "How about we get this and consider it our Christmas gift to each other?"
He went for it! We ordered it right then and got it this past Saturday. I ran out to Price Chopper that night (mistake #1) and loaded up on produce. FYI: Price Chopper restocks their produce on Sundays so the stuff that is there on Saturday evening is CRAP.
When I got home each of us (my son and older daughter) picked and made our own juices. Each of us was surprised at how not bad it tasted. My daughter was the only one who didn't end up finishing hers because it was too sweet.
The next day I decided to make myself a fake V8. I do love V8 juice and wanted to try to replicate it. I found a recipe on the internet and made it.
WAY too much beet. Way too much juice in general! It must have been for 3 people! I am not experienced enough to know how much juice all those veggies can make!
It was quite gross so I added a pinch of Lawry's seasoned salt and some Mrs. Dash Tomato Basil and choked it down. Way too much money invested in that glass of juice! Not about to waste it.
Next I made a fruit juice containing a jumbo red grapefruit, 2 oranges, half a lemon (organic with skin on), and a third of a lime.
Even though it was quite bitter I really enjoyed it and drank it all. In the morning I made a Carrot Orange Ginger juice. DELICIOUS. And next I made a pared down version of the V8 recipe with half of the ingredients and I peeled the beet this time. MUCH better. At dinner we sat down to spaghetti and I took a couple of bites and had this thought: "I wish I could just have a veggie juice."
WHAT.
Did that come out of MY brain??? OK something is happening here.
After eating only half of my spaghetti I went and made another citrus drink for dessert. Wow. I haven't felt like eating starchy sugary crap for three days now. However I have had McDonald's for lunch the past two days just due to circumstance!
Now to answer the biggest FAQ:
No, it does not give me massive diarrhea. The beauty is that for a person like me who has IBS it is ideal because there is no insoluble fiber in this juice! Insoluble fiber is one trigger for me and another reason I shy away from veggies. I am, however, adding Benefiber (odorless, tasteless, soluble fiber powder) to my veggie drinks so I'm not missing out, plus I eat 2 pieces of whole grain toast with real butter and peanut butter on them so I get fat for the little vitamins to ride around on!
I always like to give some background into my personal self when writing about things like this because we are all so different in our backstories. What works for one won't work for all.
As I get older and have had more children my body has bounced in and out of shape several times. I think the part of my life that saved me and gives me hope each time was the 2 years or so that I spent working at and working out at a local gym. By working there I WAS there and so would get an hour or two in before and/or after my shift. I only had one child back then too, and a husband who was fine with my daily hours-at-a-time absence. I was able to build up muscle to the point of feeling and even looking strong, and that has carried me through the subsequent years. Each time I fall out of shape and then get determined to get back into shape I have the wonderful thing called 'muscle memory' that causes me to reform my previous sculpture quite rapidly. BUT that only works if I keep working at it. I also fall out of shape very very quickly, much quicker than it takes me to rebuild. Mine is a body that needs to be active daily. My lifestyle is sadly not one that allows that without enormous effort.
Now, back to the original subject! I noticed the other day that when I put my jeans on that are normally very loose that they felt wrong. The fabric was digging into my thighs and when I sat down it hurt where the waistband was. I hadn't weighed myself in a long time because my scale eats batteries so I really had no clue what I weighed. Last time I had checked I was around 125 (at 5'7"). I got some batteries and gave it a whirl. When I opened my eyes I saw a number I hadn't seen in a long time. No wonder I felt like a blimp. I was starting to blow up!! In 2 months I have gained over 6 lb and 2% of my body fat back that I had worked hard to lose after having Autumn. Also my depression has been running rampant lately which has made me tired and out of focus.
The cause for this weight gain is really not rocket science. I have been rather sedentary lately and eating whatever and how much I want, mostly cookies and crackers and processed food. I had thought it wouldn't catch up with me since I am ignorant but the scale (and my tight fat jeans) don't lie. Unfortunately friends and family members will. Not to be mean, but because they love me and don't want me to feel bad about myself. And I know that *right now* I am not "fat" but the facts are that my weight has gone up significantly after staying steady for over a year.
What do I do about this problem? I tried doing the exercise video Jillian Michael's The 30 Day Shred that I have used before with good results. But after 1 week of doing it I came down with a stomach bug and then lost motivation. I tried eating salads every day for lunch instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that involves both the preparation which takes forever and is very messy, and then I have to chew the damn thing which is painful due to my unfortunate cross bite which makes my jaws ache after long periods of time. I can barely chew gum. So what can I do?? I thought of the Joe Cross movie.
Whenever I have mentioned the word "juicer" it has brought out very strong opinions from both sides. You are either passionate about juicing or you think its the biggest waste of time/money/breath stupidest thing you have ever heard etc etc. Yes they can be expensive. OR you can find one that someone used once and got too lazy or grossed out to use again for very little money. Yes, healthy food like fruits and veggies are expensive, but so is open heart surgery and diabetes. And yes, it takes time to prepare food. ANY kind of food. Trust me I am the queen of eating cereal for dinner.
After really going back and forth about this whole topic in my mind for many months I finally decided to talk to my husband. Why not, can't hurt right? Luckily I have a husband who is pretty much on board with anything I want to do within reason. And he'll consume just about anything including juiced vegetables. I showed him a Breville Juice Fountain Compact on Amazon that cost well under a hundred dollars and said, "How about we get this and consider it our Christmas gift to each other?"
He went for it! We ordered it right then and got it this past Saturday. I ran out to Price Chopper that night (mistake #1) and loaded up on produce. FYI: Price Chopper restocks their produce on Sundays so the stuff that is there on Saturday evening is CRAP.
When I got home each of us (my son and older daughter) picked and made our own juices. Each of us was surprised at how not bad it tasted. My daughter was the only one who didn't end up finishing hers because it was too sweet.
There is no way in Hell I would ever eat all this in one day. Or even one month!
WAY too much beet. Way too much juice in general! It must have been for 3 people! I am not experienced enough to know how much juice all those veggies can make!
It was quite gross so I added a pinch of Lawry's seasoned salt and some Mrs. Dash Tomato Basil and choked it down. Way too much money invested in that glass of juice! Not about to waste it.
Next I made a fruit juice containing a jumbo red grapefruit, 2 oranges, half a lemon (organic with skin on), and a third of a lime.
YUM
Even though it was quite bitter I really enjoyed it and drank it all. In the morning I made a Carrot Orange Ginger juice. DELICIOUS. And next I made a pared down version of the V8 recipe with half of the ingredients and I peeled the beet this time. MUCH better. At dinner we sat down to spaghetti and I took a couple of bites and had this thought: "I wish I could just have a veggie juice."
WHAT.
Did that come out of MY brain??? OK something is happening here.
After eating only half of my spaghetti I went and made another citrus drink for dessert. Wow. I haven't felt like eating starchy sugary crap for three days now. However I have had McDonald's for lunch the past two days just due to circumstance!
Now to answer the biggest FAQ:
No, it does not give me massive diarrhea. The beauty is that for a person like me who has IBS it is ideal because there is no insoluble fiber in this juice! Insoluble fiber is one trigger for me and another reason I shy away from veggies. I am, however, adding Benefiber (odorless, tasteless, soluble fiber powder) to my veggie drinks so I'm not missing out, plus I eat 2 pieces of whole grain toast with real butter and peanut butter on them so I get fat for the little vitamins to ride around on!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Burlington Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony
I should probably write about Thanksgiving, but seeing as I had a stomach bug or something I didn't figure it would make for great writing material (unless you go to that website I stumbled on when googling "why does my son plug the toilet every time?") so I figured I'd write about something a little less TMI.
Last week I heard mention of the tree lighting ceremony that takes place in downtown Burlington every year the day after Thanksgiving. I made a mental note (always futile) to go this time since I have never been. Fast forward through the unpleasantness of the illness, coupled with the overwhelming of the holiday and my distraction of watching every Black Friday iPhone video out there of something resembling large amounts of cattle being herded into a barn way too small and then fighting over the last bit of hay and, well, I forgot. Until 15 minutes before we should be there, that is.
We decided to go on a walk around town since it was 57 degrees out (with 40mph gusts of wind but whatev) and I had been laying in bed for far too long. Autumn just wanted Daddy to hold her.
When we had just gotten back from a walk and had kind of settled into the couch it dawned on me. I jumped up, looked up the time for the lighting, and we jumped in the car (much to Autumn's dismay as she was watching Shawn the Sheep) and headed out. We found parking right off as the college students are all gone and I grabbed my big heavy tripod and pretended I had a bunch of self confidence as I marched with it through the huge crowd of screaming kids and parents. We got to the front of where the tree ceremony was and for some reason WPTZ thought it was a good idea to park their mobile news van with it's cherry picker on top smack dab in front of the right side of the pavilion. If they had backed up or moved it to the right, or better yet NOT PARKED THERE AT ALL there would have been a ton more space for PEOPLE to stand! I mean, what is the point of having a FAMILY festival if huge amounts of prime square footage are taken up by the news van? Is this festival really that newsworthy that you have to ruin it for the actual spectators so the people at home who didn't put effort into coming out can watch 10 seconds of footage or less about it and then forget it even happened? There was also this pavilion which was quite large and planted directly in front of the tree so you could really only see the top half of the tree itself. I would have stayed and watched the show, but between the news van thingy and the other obstacles that are posted around that part of Church Street, I said no way.
I decided that we should go to the other side of the tree where you can't see the show but the entire tree was in full view. We walked over to that side and of course there was another big ol' white van parked there, but way fewer people and we were able to comfortably stand there (I with my tripod ready and waiting) and not feel crushed. I really am not sad that I missed Shumlin's "Eff You Irene" speech (I think I already heard it at Tunbridge Fair), or the caroling, or the Christmas story that doesn't tell the actual story of Christmas at all, or the Santa Claus that would have scared the crap out of Autumn. I purely wanted to see big, gaudy, colorful TREE.
We stood for about 30 minutes in the slanting rain and thankfully warmish winds waiting for 6:02pm SHARP for the tree to be lit. They did a countdown and on 2 I whipped my sweatshirt off of my camera and clicked. Unfortunately right at that moment I must have moved my camera forward too far and my initial shots came out slightly out of focus.
I wasn't satisfied so we crossed the street to the I think Unitarian (Episcopalian? Universalist? I have no idea) Church yard which is slightly elevated and I took these shots:
We went to the Lake Champlain Chocolate outlet store and got Peppermint Hot Cocoa and then went over to the mall to use the bathrooms and sit down to drink our treats.
Autumn was being really good, but did get a little antsy toward the end.
She was so tired though and was running on donut holes and Swedish Fish. Mom of the Year award goes to me again.
Then because I've always wanted to get pics of Church Street Christmas lights at night when the street was wet and reflective I started going to different points and taking pictures.
Not really as good an outcome as I had hoped because they were taking their sweet time taking everything down and the news van was still squatting in the street like a giant sheep. Yes I've been watching too much British claymation farm animal shows. I'll be going back another night when there is less going on and its later in the night so I can really set up how I want to.
Last week I heard mention of the tree lighting ceremony that takes place in downtown Burlington every year the day after Thanksgiving. I made a mental note (always futile) to go this time since I have never been. Fast forward through the unpleasantness of the illness, coupled with the overwhelming of the holiday and my distraction of watching every Black Friday iPhone video out there of something resembling large amounts of cattle being herded into a barn way too small and then fighting over the last bit of hay and, well, I forgot. Until 15 minutes before we should be there, that is.
We decided to go on a walk around town since it was 57 degrees out (with 40mph gusts of wind but whatev) and I had been laying in bed for far too long. Autumn just wanted Daddy to hold her.
Daddy tried to put her down...
Daddy said "No liefe you can walk a bit"
When we had just gotten back from a walk and had kind of settled into the couch it dawned on me. I jumped up, looked up the time for the lighting, and we jumped in the car (much to Autumn's dismay as she was watching Shawn the Sheep) and headed out. We found parking right off as the college students are all gone and I grabbed my big heavy tripod and pretended I had a bunch of self confidence as I marched with it through the huge crowd of screaming kids and parents. We got to the front of where the tree ceremony was and for some reason WPTZ thought it was a good idea to park their mobile news van with it's cherry picker on top smack dab in front of the right side of the pavilion. If they had backed up or moved it to the right, or better yet NOT PARKED THERE AT ALL there would have been a ton more space for PEOPLE to stand! I mean, what is the point of having a FAMILY festival if huge amounts of prime square footage are taken up by the news van? Is this festival really that newsworthy that you have to ruin it for the actual spectators so the people at home who didn't put effort into coming out can watch 10 seconds of footage or less about it and then forget it even happened? There was also this pavilion which was quite large and planted directly in front of the tree so you could really only see the top half of the tree itself. I would have stayed and watched the show, but between the news van thingy and the other obstacles that are posted around that part of Church Street, I said no way.
Around back of the tree where we ended up. The guy in the pic is I assume one of the news videographers.
We stood for about 30 minutes in the slanting rain and thankfully warmish winds waiting for 6:02pm SHARP for the tree to be lit. They did a countdown and on 2 I whipped my sweatshirt off of my camera and clicked. Unfortunately right at that moment I must have moved my camera forward too far and my initial shots came out slightly out of focus.
First shot as the tree lit up. I had Manual Focus on because it was so dark before the lights were turned on.
This one is a little better because I turned Auto Focus back on.
I wasn't satisfied so we crossed the street to the I think Unitarian (Episcopalian? Universalist? I have no idea) Church yard which is slightly elevated and I took these shots:
We went to the Lake Champlain Chocolate outlet store and got Peppermint Hot Cocoa and then went over to the mall to use the bathrooms and sit down to drink our treats.
Autumn was being really good, but did get a little antsy toward the end.
She was so tired though and was running on donut holes and Swedish Fish. Mom of the Year award goes to me again.
Sitting in Daddy's "nest"
Then because I've always wanted to get pics of Church Street Christmas lights at night when the street was wet and reflective I started going to different points and taking pictures.
My favorite pic
the news van behemoth
random kids noticing the tree
Not really as good an outcome as I had hoped because they were taking their sweet time taking everything down and the news van was still squatting in the street like a giant sheep. Yes I've been watching too much British claymation farm animal shows. I'll be going back another night when there is less going on and its later in the night so I can really set up how I want to.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Autumn's 3rd Birthday: Family Party Edition
Since Saturday was such a busy day for me we decided to wait until Sunday afternoon to have Autumn's actual birthday dinner/cake with family. Aunt Kimmy came over and so did my parents and we had Domino's (her second favorite dinner next to spaghetti, which was why she had an orange chin in Saturday's pictures) and I did my best to make a Hello Kitty cake with the limited resources I had. I was going to go buy a cake form and do the fancy decorator crap but I just didn't have the money or the time to do all that.
Sunday morning, playing with her new camera:
Getting the angle lol
My attempt at Hello Kitty:
The candles burned with pink flame!
Wearing the kitty earrings that G.G. sent her :)
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