Juice

We've had a juicer for many years, but I pretty much forgot about it until Armando said he was thinking of doing a juicing cleanse several weeks ago. I loved the idea, not just for him, but to add some delicious raw juices to the kids' and my daily intake as well. Armando went a little over 3 weeks with juice as his only meals and is just now getting back into eating 'solid foods'. I think he's even lost like 30 pounds or something (wow, that's like the size of Esperanza). The rest of us are of course not cleansing, but we drink it like it's part of our meals each day. Fresh juice is amazing! AMAZING!!

We don't always have everything I want to juice but we typically have most of it. i end up making a few different combinations since Ezra doesn't get citrus fruits yet and Armando gets things like cucumber which I don't like. Esperanza and I drink the same. So, for Ezra, I add beets, carrots, apple and some greens (kale or spinach usually). Esperanza always asks for orange, pineapple, grapefruit and apple, not wanting any veggies. We rarely if ever have all of those fruits. What she doesn't know though is the flavor of what she thinks is her original requested juice, really has some combination of greens, beets and carrots, some citrus and apple. On rare occasions we'll do some tropical fruits like pineapple and maybe even some berries if I feel like giving up some of my frozen stash. Whatever I end up making, Esperanza loves it but would die if she knew the true ingredients. I add a ton of other things to Armando's since it truly was the only thing he was 'eating'. Cucumbers, celery, collards, spinach, beets, cabbage, beet leaves, carrots, dandelion leaves, bell peppers, apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemon, lime, etc. There was a time or two I even added a hot pepper, broccoli and green beans to his juice.

We juice every single day, with a few exceptions. That juicer has not left the counter top and will never collect dust again, unless ~ heaven forbid ~ it dies. It's such a tastier and healthier alternative to the grocery store juices recently found to be tainted with poisons and toxins anyways.

Ezra's, Esperanza's and Mama's (Daddy's gets a large mason jar - his 'meal' for the day)

My sister keeps encouraging me to use the 'pulp/fiber' the juicer spits out as a filler in muffins or breads. I haven't yet, but hope to and will share a recipe if and when I do. Until then, it all gets added to my worm and compost bins. I'm gonna have some amazing compost and vermicompost this Spring/Summer!