Green Juicing

Local readers: you still have time to enter the giveaway for tickets for the Girlnetic Fitness Expo on January 26th! There aren’t many entries so you have a good chance to win!

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On Wednesday, I finally stepped into the world of juicing! I had been wanting a juicer for a while, but I had no clue where to start. I decided to treat myself to a Christmas present and finally bought one! I found the Dash juicer on sale at Macy’s–and had a gift card, so I got an expensive juicer for relatively cheap. ..I only paid $50 for a $140 juicer.

I started with something simple. I washed all the parts and read the instructions. It wasn’t at all hard to figure out, but it looks extremely intimidating and takes up a lot of counter space. But…it was so much fun! Juicing  is a great way to jump start healthy habits for 2013.

Green Juice for Beginners

Ingredients

1 apple, cored and sliced

10 fresh strawberries, hulled

2  large slices of fresh mango (I buy the Trader Joe’s mango slices in the produce section)

1/2 bag of fresh spinach

large handful of fresh kale

1/2 bag of baby carrots

Instructions

Turn on juicer and throw in fruit and vegetables and juice away.

Make sure to CLEAN the juicer immediately after juicing.

These ingredients made enough for about a cup of juice. I used a small glass. It was delicious. The mango really added a nice sweetness. I know I’d need a lot more veggies, or use more watery fruits like pineapples or melon next time if I wanted a full pint of juice. I would use cucumber but I hate it so much I probably would have to choke it down. 😉

Now, since this juicer takes the juice from the fruit and veggies, it left a lot of vegetable pulp where all the healthy fiber resides. Instead of just throwing it away, I decided to make these Juice Pulp Crackers. They tasted great fresh out of the oven, but I didn’t bake them long enough so they didn’t get crunchy and ended up tasting weird the next day.

You can also compost the pulp, freeze it for use in the future, make stock with it, or just mix it into soup.

I can’t wait to try some new types of juices in the next few weeks!