Funday Sunday with the Family

September 2 was another Funday Sunday where in the Tree House. Zoe Bug and her Momma where here all day long. Momma and I sneaked away to go birthday shopping for The Bug's 1st birthday next weekend. We visited a Whole Foods first to get a fresh made juice... I had a BEET IT (orange, beets, carrots and lemons) and Keelee had a Good Morning Juice (orange, carrots and apples.) The perfect start for our 4 store shopping spree. Whole Foods and Sprouts for our good healthy foods and soaps and Dollar Tree and Target for party supplies and birthday clothing. Even picked up Zoe's 1st Christmas gift from Fisher Price (of course). Got some fun snapshots of the baby playing with the citrus and apples here at the house. Lots of fun now time to sleep so I can finish her 1st Birthday doll and whip up some doll blankets and pillow for her buggy.

Til tomorrow
Stay juicing and healthy!
Sandi

It's a New Juicing Month!

September is here and with it a new challenge... Work out 3 days a week at the gym and get the weight lowered some more. It has been 5 1/2 months since I started my journey to better health. So far I have lowered by weight from 259 pounds to 204 pounds. At the present my weight is up a little from that but part of that is from some unexplained swelling in my legs. Even so I am very happy and feel so much better than I did when I started 2012.

 My goal this month is to hit the 200 mark. To keep me honest and on point I commit to sharing with  You my friends, my daily steps.

Stepping I did this morning with my Beet It Juice and an hour walk around the Apt Complex. Not to bad heat wise at 7:30am and Chico my hearing ear dog loved it.

Lunch was created with some extra zip from my plums that were getting soft. YUMMM.
One thing I know I need to do is lower my fruits and raise my greens and veggies in my juices. So hard when it is hot outside and I just want ice cream SO BAD. But I just might have reached the perfect combo for my lunch juice. I have some freezing for a quick whip in the blender tonight for an "Ice Dessert".

My lunch juice was

6 plums ( smaller)
1 Cup of Fresh Cherries
3 Slices of Fresh Pineapple

1 Beet
2 Oranges
12 Carrots
1 Organic Cucumber

Juice in the order listed... The reason being that the harder produce will wash out the residue left from the softer produce... Nothing is wasted.

So now I am off to make Mean Green and do some sewing for my grand daughter's 1st Birthday.
Til Later
Sandi

Recipes 4 Shweet Living Has New Additions

Pop over to our Recipe Blog, Recipes 4 Shweet Living and check out some of the newest additions for your juicing pleasure.
We added our newest favorite Sandi's Beet It Juice Recipe today.
If you like Mangoes come by and check out Mango Madness.
From Breakfast Juices to Chips and Salsa Juice... Lunch to creations to make from your pulps we have created some fun and funky new ideas that we are sharing with all of you.
Juice On... Stay Healthy....Live Long!
Shweet Sandi

Anatomy of A Great Juice

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know I love to mix up the fruits and veggies and the more the merrier can really bring you bright burst of flavor. My niece has been coming over a couple days a week and she likes to make up juice the minute she walks in the door each morning. We talked about how to make up juices so that they are healthy for us and still taste good. Then I noticed that Olivia always grabs a handful of my kale as her first ingredient in her morning juice and works from there. So that is what we are going to do too. Start with the kale and build our juice from there. You need to work with 80 to 20 ratio veggie to fruits but in the mornings when I have my morning medicines I like to have more fruits than the rest of the day. So, when picking your recipes see what makes you happy. Juice those things together and taste often of the mix.

Add more or additional produce to the mix and make sure you take notes because when you hit on that perfect glass of juice you want to be able to make it again.

This is Olivia's Breakfast Juice
2 cup fresh bing cherries (pitted)
2 cup green grapes ( you can use red or black)
8 leaves of kale
2 granny smith apples
1 pear
2 large peaches
5 clementine oranges (peeled)
1 large naval orange (Peeled)
2 lemons (peeled)
1 lime (peeled)
4 carrots
2 Large Cucumbers

Juice everything in the order listed. The reason being the softer fruit leave residue behind in the juicer and the harder fruit like the apples, carrots and cucumbers will wash all the yummy sludge or residue out and none will be wasted. This recipe makes a HUGE pitcher full of juice. I love this ice cold and also pour some of this into freezer molds and make Popsicle for the hot summer day. Perfect for after my daily walk around the block in our 107 degree heat!

The most important thing to remember when making your juice up is to pick one piece of produce and start from there. I try to start all my juices from kale now. I then build my juice around whether I want it to taste green and fresh or nice and fruity. Second thing to remember is to take notes... snap a picture or two (those iphones and instagrams are good for something now right). Third thing is the most important thing...DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY WITH YOUR JUICE!! YEP YOU HAVE THIS MOM'S PERMISSION TO PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

Til Tomorrow

Juice ON!
Sandi

Olivia's Blender Sorbet

My niece has been coming over and spending a few days a week with me.  While we enjoy making and drinking fresh juice at my place, I know she doesn't have a juicer at her house, so I want to teach her she can create healthy and tasty food with her blender. This is what she came up on her first try. Let me warn you this post is very PICTURE HEAVY!

Olivia's Blender Sorbet
1/2 Musk Melon (What we call a Cantaloupe in the USA)
2 Cups Strawberries
1 pint Blueberries
1 Lime
1 Orange
1/2 Cup bottled water

Step By Step Directions:
Make sure to have all your produce washed and cut before you start blending. We used a Hamilton Beach Personal Blender. It is safe and easy to use. Let's begin to make our base to Olivia's Sorbet.

Place a handful of musk melon and 2 inches of bottled water into your blender and pulse until it is a liquid. Add more musk melon (cantaloupe) and pulse. As it reaches the fill line remove some into a large bowl, keeping some of the liquid in the blender and continue to process the musk melon.

Follow the Musk Melon with your Strawberries. Process them in the same method as you have your musk melon. Add a small amount of strawberries to your liquid and pulse until it is a liquid. MAKE SURE THE BLADES ARE OFF AND YOU DO NOT PLACE YOUR FINGERS TO FAR DOWN INTO THE BOWL!

Next Olivia said to use the hand held juicer to juice the lime.

Instead of juicing it in half's cut off  a little bit off of one end and place it in the juicer.

Squeeze the juicer and tip it to the side allowing the juice to flow into the bowl of the blender. Flip the the lime over and squeeze this again. Now fold the lime in half place it in the press and squeeze it one more time. NOW you have all the juice out of the lime. WOW Olivia! It really works!

Now on to more fruit for this Sorbet. Now that you have your lime juice in your strawberry liquid add some of your blueberries and blend.

Now you can blend all your blueberries in the same method as you have all your other fruit. Remember to remove it to your bowl as it gets to be to much.

The last thing you need to do is to add the orange juice to your mixture. 

One of the easiest ways to do this is to cut your orange into 8 pieces, insert it into your lemon squeezer and go to town. Simple, easy and super fast.

Now Stir your mix together and pour it into a glass to drink ( yes it makes a great Smoothie)

Or Place in a Freezable Container and place in your freezer for about 4-6 hours.

 Once it is nice an frozen remove from your freezer. Allow to stand out for 15-25 minutes until you can scrap it with a fork.Then do just that. Scrap the surface of the sorbet with a fork and mix it up. Using a spoon or ice cream scoop loosely scoop your sorbet into a glass or bowl. Enjoy.

(You can do this with fresh juice as well. )

Re-Inventing the Shweet Potato Juice Recipe That Is

I am a Southern girl and what Southern girl doesn't lover her Shweet Potatoes. I know I am on  Juice Cleanse but I can still enjoy my favorite desserts ... but as my dinners now. The really cool thing is I am not knocking myself out with all the high sugar or calories.

This is my NEW Shweet Potato N Fruits Juice Recipe

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen shweet dark cherries 

2 cups black grapes

2 granny smith apples

1 large shweet potato

1 lime peeled 

Juice everything together in the order shown. A very easy way to juice frozen fruits is to add them to your juicer's food shoot while it is off. Place the plunger in the top and turn it on. Juice that bunch and do the next.It only took me 3 times to get all my berries, cherries and grapes juiced. THEN you follow with your apples,lime and shweet potato. The hard fruit and veggies will wash out the sludge of the frozen fruit and grapes.  The lime juice cuts the starchy taste of the shweet potato and makes this a wonderful thick yet refreshing 

summertime drink.

 A great way to re-invent the Shweet Potato...Juice that is.

Til tomorrow

Stay Juicy and Healthy My Friends

~Sandi

Oops I did it Again... I Ate!

Yep you read that right I ate something. When I first started my juice cleanse I set a goal for 10 days. After about 3 days I knew I would go 30. Half way into that 30 I set my goal for 60 and then I set it for 90. I ended up on a total juice cleanse for 98 days before I had my first piece of fruit.

Success!!  I lost a total of 47 pounds and 8 inches on my waist. I went from a size 24 to size 18. I started this journey unable to walk from my Tree House Apt to the mail box and now I am able to walk a mile and a half. I think one of the best side effects of the juice cleanse is it has helped my body heal and in healing it has allowed me to remove several of my many medicines.
1.No more depression meds... I am so happy and feel better than I have in more years than I can remember. 2.No more migraine medicine. Two weeks into my juice cleanse my 12+ year long, constant, NEVER ending migraine finally just disappeared. Went to bed with it one day and the next morning I woke up and it was not there. Poof !Gone!
3. When beginning this cleanse my cholesterol level was 285 now it is back in normal range. that was at 60 days. So no more cholesterol medicines needed.
4. Ulcer medicines are GONE! Yep I was taking a 1200.00 a month ulcer medicine called AciHex. It is the only medicine that I have ever taken that allowed me to sleep laying down.  By adding cabbage and other veggies in the cabbage family like bok choy to my juices once a day I am healing my stomach and intestines and it has allowed me to get off of that pill as well.

Amazing!!! I feel better than i can ever remember. YES I ate something but i was fruit or veggie and still very healthy. So as of now I am back on the Juice Cleanse so I am praying to be 100 pounds lighter this time next year. Well off to make some Juice and free some for sorbet later.
|~Til tomorrow
~Sandi