Stuffed Peppers

Tofu-Feta Watermelon Salad

Oh, summer. And sadly it is coming to a close. But there is still time for this delicious summer salad.

So floating all over the internets this summer (I think it's funnier when internet is plural, don't you? Like monies), were pictures and recipes for watermelon feta salad. I love watermelon, and I really wanted to try the salad. But feta -- as a dairy product -- is a total no-go for me. And I don't get upset about that, I just move on.

Until I found Kathy's recipe for Tofu-Feta Watermelon Salad. Tofu marinated to be feta-ish! (I made up that word and it sounds a little wrong. But go with me).

Tofu-Feta Watermelon Salad
My changes to the ingredients
I left out the cayenne pepper and the nutritional yeast (I haven't started buying nutritional yeast, even though I hear it talked about in so many vegan recipes).
And in the marinade I used used rice vinegar.


Marinating the Tofu


Special Ingredient -- I had to ask for help finding this. It was in the refrigerator section.


Prepping the Salad -- Ready with the Watermelon and Basil


The Finished Product


I will definitely be making this again. And now that I've found it, miso will be a regular player in my house too.

Tomato Soup

If you've taken a look around my blog, you might notice my deep and abiding love for soup. And muffins. Sadly, the way I eat these days, I don't make muffins the way I used to. (I do still make Mug Muffins once a week). But soup is still there for me.

Except that it is 105 degrees. Is it that hot where you are? From what I see on the national weather, it is that hot everywhere, and has been for a while. I'm not going to complain about the weather, but it sure makes soup sound unappetizing.

Unless it's this soup -- which is served cold or room temperature. Genius!



This soup comes from Marcus Samuelsson's website. I don't follow a lot of "real" or restaurant chefs, because in looking at some of their blogs, the food is seriously complicated. Not a bad thing, just not great for my everyday life. But I loved Marcus Samuelsson on Top Chef, so when I saw this simple soup, I pinned it to try later.

And I'm glad I did.

Now, as I look at the site, I have no idea who came up with this recipe, and it totally doesn't matter. Because good food is just good food.



Five Minute Tomato Basil Soup
From Marcus Samuelsson

My changes to the ingredients:
I left out the celery -- inadvertently. I thought I had more in the fridge than I did, so I didn't buy more at the store. Oops.
I blended up this soup and ate the first bowl. It was delicious, but I was curious about adding some heat. So I tossed half a jalapeno in the second half and blended it up. It was lovely without being really hot.

Chickpea "Quizza"

This might be starting to feel like an unending quest for breakfast. Maybe I should say it feels a little like that for me, but I hope you are excited about new recipes and new possibilities.

In my initial search for breakfast options, I pinned a bunch of possibilities. -- As a total side-note, can I say that I love how technology can help with so many things? I love looking at other people's recipes and having a board to pin them on.

This is the second time I have made this "Chickpea 'Quizza'" by Diet, Dessert and Dogs. I made a couple modifications this time, and it turned out even better. It makes a great breakfast full of protein (yay!), a little good fat (yay!) and vegetables -- and who couldn't use more of that.



Chickpea "Quizza"
From Diet, Dessert and Dogs

My changes to the ingredients:
I used cherry tomatoes -- not oven roasted or dried -- just chopped in quarters. I also added a few sundried tomatoes (the dark strips you can see in the picture).
For the pepper, the first time I made this I just chopped up a green bell pepper and then I felt the entire dish was too ... this sounds weird, but onion-y. And I decided that was really the pepper. For this second try I chopped up two hot peppers (a jalapeno and one of undetermined variety) really really really small, and added them. I can't taste them at all.
I added more salt -- at least a 1/2 tsp.

My changes to the directions:
The first time I made it I followed the directions of putting the base in the blender. This time I bypassed that and did it with the whisk attachment in my KitchenAid. The blender is less messy.
I also baked this in a glass pyrex dish. (I don't own a cast-iron pan). This time I used a 9x13 dish, and I like it much better than the smaller size I used last time. You can see in the picture how thick it is and I find that much easier to eat.

Happy eating everyone.

Home-grown Veggies

Oh summer produce, how do I love thee?

This is probably not the right response, but I love thee lots and lots and lots.



A friend brought me produce from his garden.

The tomatoes were so delicious, I just sliced them and sprinkled them with fleur de sel sea salt.



I had no idea what to do with okra. So I grilled it.



(This is pre-grilling). It turned out really tasty.

Some of the peppers are pretty spicy. So I grilled these ones too.



I'm so thankful for people who can actually grow food.

Juicy Monday: Tips

I am visiting my family in North Carolina. I love coming home, but it means that I am cooking a little differently than I do in my own kitchen. So there are fewer new recipes and pictures to share. But I am still juicing, and as I have been doing this juicing thing for about two months now -- Total sidenote: Do you ever calculate the time for things and just think "Whoa! How did that happen?"

Sorry, back to the point -- I've been doing the juicing thing for a while and I thought it was time to share a few tips for good juice.



Tips for Good Juice:

1. Keep it simple
My favorite juice recipe is the Carrot juice which has three ingredients -- carrots, an apple, and ginger. Don't put too many ingredients in the juicer. When you use too many ingredients, two things happen. First it looks like mud... or worse, and second it doesn't taste very good.

2. If the juice doesn't taste good -- add fruit
Sometimes if you do a lot of vegetables in your juice (which is good for you), the juice can be hard to drink. I will totally confess that I have really had to choke some things down. If you haven't completely cleaned up your juicer and put it away before you have a sip of juice, you can add more fruit. See the previous tip though. My usual recourse is to add another quarter or half of the apple that is already in the juice.

3. If the juice doesn't taste good -- dilute it
Another option if your juice doesn't taste good, you can dilute it with water. Sometimes this cuts down on the concentrated flavor just enough to help you out.

4. If the juice doesn't taste good -- dilute it with sparkling water

This is my favorite option for beet juice. (The nutritionist swears that beet juice is good for me, but I have a really hard time with the flavor). When I lived in Italy, I got used to drinking water "frizzante." It has no sugar, it is just carbonated water. I found a six-pack of liter sized bottles at Whole Foods for about seven dollars. I thought that was a great deal, so I bought it and when I was trying to drink the beet juice, I added some fizzy water in. It made it so much better.

Pasta Salad -- Update

In the summertime, I love doing outside things. When I lived in Boone, we would go hiking in the mountains, I worked outside in the summers and there were tons of opportunities for hanging out outside. On all those hiking trips, we would bring a picnic with us. Whenever my sister came to visit, the picnic would include pasta salad.

I made this pasta salad twice this week. Once to feed some friends dinner and once to take on a picnic.

Because I made it over and over, I looked back at the blog and realized I have the recipe -- an older version -- but no picture. How unPinnable!

So I determined it was absolutely necessary to give you an update for the pasta salad.




Heather's Pasta Salad

Ingredients:
8 oz package rice pasta (I still like DeBole's rice pasta the best)
1 box cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 can black olives, sliced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup champagne vinegar

Optional: 1 box crumbled feta cheese

Directions:
Cook the pasta, then shock it in cold water. Add the pasta to the chopped veggies. Pour the olive oil and vinegars over everything and mix well. Serve immediately or let it sit and marinate. The flavors develop nicely overnight, but the pasta is better at room temperature. So let it warm up as you go for a long hike.

Tacos in a Lettuce Leaf

When I was growing up, we would have taco night regularly. I loved taco night. I would always stuff the taco shell as full of the various toppings as possible. And then I'd tilt my head to the side, open my mouth as far as possible, and take a bite. Of course all my fantastic toppings burst out the backside of the taco shell and the juice from the ground beef and salsa would start to run down the back of my hand and down my arm.

Delicious.

I saw this recipe for Lettuce Wraps with Quinoa and Black Beans, and it sounded a whole lot like tacos, so I knew I had to try it.



I mixed everything up in a bowl before I put it in the lettuce leaves.



Tacos in a Lettuce Leaf
by Keep Your Diet Real

My Changes:
No hot sauce.
I did add salsa (from a jar) after I took this photo.
I used Red Swiss Chard leaves instead of the Bibb lettuce suggested in the original recipe. With the chard, just cut out the thick part of the stem.

This was delicious and took me back to those days of having an overstuffed taco shell that dripped down my arm.

Kale and Cabbage Slaw

This summer is the season of color. Colorful jeans, colorful shirts, color in everything.

Even Target says so:


So why not color in food?



Kale and Coleslaw Salad
From FoodieCrush

My Changes:
Instead of using a coleslaw mix, I just bought a whole head of red cabbage and sliced up and used half of it.
I used my box grater to grate the carrots.
Instead of Marcona almonds, I just bought a bag of slivered almonds.
I used olive oil instead of canola oil.
I left out the sugar/agave entirely.
I also left out the caraway seed -- inadvertently. I thought I had some in the pantry, but I didn't.

This salad is delicious. It is definitely better the second day after the flavors have had a while to chill. The kale and cabbage will get a little bit softer, but even after spending three days in the fridge, it never got mushy or gross.

Curry Granola

I am always interested in granola recipes. Really granola for breakfast seems like such a good idea. Generally granola has nuts, so it's good protein and fat. That fits my requirements. Then I found a granola recipe that was grain free, so it was a great way to also eliminate the oatmeal.

The original recipe is by The Urban Poser.



And it made a whole lot.

Unfortunately, this granola would not stay as a bar. The original recipe suggested keeping it cold, but even that hasn't helped. So I either eat it with a spoon, or I dump it on top of oatmeal... yeah, about that whole oatmeal thing...






Changes to the Recipe:
I used raisins.
I used dates instead of honey.
I added a tablespoon of ground flax seed.

Juicy Monday -- Green-ish Juice

Happy Juicy Monday!

Sometimes vegetable juices don't turn out with the most appealing colors. Today's juice is one of those days. It would be a vibrant green color, but I used red swiss chard. So what I got was this.



And it also turned out to be a really foamy juice. I don't have an explanation for that.



Green-ish Juice
3 kale leaves
3 swiss chard leaves
2 celery
1 cucumber
1/2 green apple

As always, wash everything and run it through the juicer. Drink immediately.

Sesame Noodle Bowl

There are so many ways to find inspiration these days. I love being able to find recipes on Pinterest. I also love Tastespotting. People are so creative with their recipes and so talented with their pictures. Hopefully I will be able to get better.

Today's recipe comes through Pinterest and is from the blog A House in the Hills. It is a Sesame Noodle Bowl. 

This looked beautiful, sounded filling, and (most appealing some days) had a short ingredient list. So I tried it.



My Changes:
1. I couldn't find completely buckwheat soba noodles. Even the ones that said 100% buckwheat had regular wheat flour in them. Lesson: Read labels carefully. So I used rice noodles instead.

2. I used regular white sesame seeds. It's what I had.

3. Instead of soy sauce I used Bragg's Liquid Aminos. And inadvertently used a scant tablespoon instead of a teaspoon and a half. If you use too much liquid aminos, I would suggest less salt. It wasn't horribly salty, but it was a little salty.

4. I started trying to use a peeler on my carrots, and then I decided it would be easier to grate them, so I did.

The Verdict:
Delicious! I served it at room temperature and thought it was a perfect light, summery dish for this perfect summer time.

I tried a few more "posed" pictures.



Is it funny that I have purple chopsticks?



And these are the chopsticks that I bought in Tokyo.

Juicy Monday -- Carrot Juice

Time for another Juicy Monday. I hope that juicing makes you feel as good as it makes me feel. Although sometimes it is a struggle for me to think about juicing and I don't love cleaning out the juicer, I do love the juice.



I hope that you can see that vibrant orange color, even in my travel mug. I juiced this up, poured it in my travel mug, and headed off to the gym. It's just long enough of a drive for me to drink the whole thing by the time I get there. I should rephrase that, it's a drive with enough stoplights for me to have time to drink the whole thing by the time I get there.

Carrot Juice
5 carrots
1/2 or 1 whole green apple
1 slice of ginger root

A flavor note: the ginger root will add quite a punch. You do not need much and it can get quite overwhelming if you use too much. Start small -- less than a half-inch piece of ginger. You don't need to peel the ginger at all, just let the juicer do the work.

As always, wash the produce and run it through the juicer. Drink it immediately.

Cinnamon Roll Bars

As you can probably tell by now, I love to look at everyone else's food blogs. I have just a few that I read every day, but when I have some free time, I go scroll through several others.

One that I have mentioned here before is Chocolate-Covered Katie. Katie writes her blog about healthy desserts and I am always amazed at the ingredients she includes. I mentioned that I made her chocolate chip cookie dough dip here.

In my quest for new breakfast ideas (I mentioned the search here), I came across Katie's Deep-Dish Cinnamon Roll Pie, and thought that with a couple tweaks, it would be perfect for breakfast.

This was a more involved recipe than I realized on an initial read-through. Katie said "Blend all ingredients very, very well in a food processor."



My food processor is too small to handle a can of beans, let alone two and all the other ingredients.

So my modification was to blend each thing separately. I started with the oats, then dumped those in the bowl of my KitchenAid. Then I blended the beans, etc.

My Changes:
1. I used beans that I cooked and soaked myself. I used a cup and a half of garbanzo beans and a cup and a half of cannellini beans, for the grand total of three cups.

2. No sugar. I used 6 dates that I pulsed in the food processor. My dates were pretty hard (I might never buy that particular brand again), so I soaked them in water before I ground them up.

The Process:
As I said, I ground everything up individually in the food processor. Then I used my KitchenAid mixer to mix the ingredients together. I wasn't sure what kind of texture I was going for, so after I had everything mixed, I ran small batches through the food processor again until it was smooth.

The "batter" is really stiff and thick.



I actually had to press it into the pan to get it to spread out.



After I baked it, I let it sit in the pan for fifteen minutes, and then turned it out to finish cooling.



I sliced the 8x8 pan into 8 bars. Perfect breakfast size.

Watermelon

I love summer. I love the sunshine, the warmth, the vacation time, flip flops, and how everything is just a little more relaxed.

And I love the produce! Oh, don't get me started on the beauty and bounty of the farmers' market. The colors, the flavors -- yes, a tomato that tastes like a tomato. I wait all year long for it. A cucumber with a smell.

So much of summer is about the simple things. Just a simple walk outside. The beauty of the sun.

And a big bowl of watermelon.



This is dessert tonight. (It might have also been second breakfast).

Juicy Monday -- Beet Red Juice

I wish you a Juicy Monday. Yeah, that title sounds a little inappropriate, but I'm having too much fun with it.

I am trying to have some good variety in my juices, so I have another one for you today. I must admit that I think last week's Salsa Juice is my favorite, but this one is also good.



I poured this juice into the turquoise travel mug, so I took a picture before I poured it in so you could actually see the color. This juice has beets in it, so it is a great vibrant red color. Beautiful colors are so healthy.

Beet Red Juice
1 beet with leaves (I had two teeny tiny beets, so I used both of them)
1 carrot
1 celery
5 dandelion leaves
1 bunch parsley
1/2 or whole green apple (Usually I just use a half of a green apple, but today's apple was a little small, so I used the whole thing)

Just a note: If you are new to juicing and eating a big variety of vegetables, use a whole green apple. It cuts the beet flavor of this juice and makes it much more palatable.

As always, the directions are to wash the vegetables and run them through the juicer. Drink immediately (this way you'll get the most nutrients.)

Grilled Romaine Lettuce

I'm loving a few things in my kitchen these days. Not because they are new, just because I am rediscovering how fabulous they are. 

Today, it's my George Foreman Grill. 

You might be thinking, what does a non-meat eater do with a George Foreman? The whole point is to drain the fat from the meat. 

Really, this little George Foreman is perfect for me, because it is a small size and it requires no preparation to be able to toss something on and grill it. Just plug it in, toss the food on, and enjoy. 

So what am I grilling?

Romaine Lettuce.

I saw a recipe pinned on Pinterest (are you on Pinterest? You can follow me) for grilled romaine lettuce. I looked at the recipe, but it had cheese and bread crumbs. I didn't even repin it, because that made it a no-go for me. 

And yet, I kept thinking about it. So I grilled some romaine lettuce, and it was delicious. 

Grilled Romaine Lettuce

1 heart of romaine, cut in half lengthwise

1/2 - 1 whole Tbs extra virgin olive oil

salt

Wash the romaine lettuce and dry it really well. Cut it in half lengthwise, and drizzle it with the olive oil. I was able to coat both halves pretty well with just 1/2 tablespoon, but if you want or need more oil, go for it. Sprinkle with salt. 

Put the romaine on the grill until it gets nice grill marks. Because of the size of my George Foreman, I had to grill just one half at a time. 

Then I sliced up the romaine and put it in a bowl. It was light and summery, grilled, and delicious. 

Tomato Millet Salad

I went to lunch with a friend of mine recently. We went to a new restaurant in town that is vegetarian/vegan and a little hippie. Which was perfect for us!

As we sat and chatted, my friend remarked that she is working on going completely vegetarian. I was surprised by the comment. Not because she is a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl, but because she isn't. I figured she was close enough to vegetarian that she wouldn't be making a shift to completely vegetarian. But of course, I was completely supportive.

And she mentioned that she found a new blog that had some really good recipes that she was trying and loving. Of course I had to check it out. Emily Malone is a vegetarian chef who writes Daily Garnish and focuses on recipes and healthy living.

I surfed through the site for a little while and came across this post for Roasted Tomato Millet Salad. It sounded perfect, so I made it myself.



My changes:
1. No sugar. Obviously, I don't know what sugar would have added to the dish, but I didn't need it.

2. I didn't roast the tomatoes! I know, it's in the title. But it is 105 degrees here (and based on the news... it's probably 105 where you are). And I have a programmable thermostat that the electric company can override if there is too much power being used... and they chose to override my thermostat the day that I was making this dish. I'm sure that roasting the tomatoes would add delicious flavor to this dish, but I thought it was good anyway. And I added a few sundried tomatoes to substitute for the roasted flavor.

3. I soaked the millet. This is another change that my nutritionist advised. Soaking grains makes them more digestible. I soak the grain in a bowl of water with a tablespoon of lemon juice (apple cider vinegar will work too) for at least eight hours. Then I cook the grain in my rice cooker. I discovered (after a bit of trial-and-error) that if I measure two cups of grain, I just need to fill the rice cooker to the two cups water mark. The grain expands with soaking, but doesn't need extra water.

My verdict:
Delicious. I will definitely make this again. It also would be very good served over greens (lettuce, spinach, etc).

Juicy Monday -- Salsa Juice

I've decided that Mondays should be Juice days. Wouldn't it be cute if I came up with some kind of name for it the way everyone has a "Meatless Monday" or "Taco Tuesday"? Well, it's not alliterative, but let's call it Juicy Monday. Juicy Monday sounds so much more exciting than a Manic Monday.

And this is the perfect kind of juice to make it a Juicy Monday. This juice has all the flavors of salsa and is so bright and lively that it's a big wake up.



I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but this is a thick juice and it will settle fairly quickly. Just give it a quick stir.

Salsa Juice
5 Roma tomatoes
1 big handful cilantro
1 lime (peel the lime before you put it in the juicer. I use a paring knife and just cut off the peel)
1 cucumber

Just make sure everything is well washed and run it through the juicer.



It was delicious!

Mug Muffins -- Update

For this summer semester, I am not teaching classes on Fridays (because there aren't any classes offered on Fridays at all). And I like to have a little treat for the weekends. But don't worry, these are so easy that you can make them on any busy day. 

I've posted about Mug Muffins before. I still love them.

I mentioned in that post that Ashley at the Edible Perspective was the amazing creator of the Buckwheat Bakes. She mentioned (a while ago) that she had stopped using the flax egg, so I decided to try the Mug Muffin that way. 

The Ingredients:

1/2 banana, mashed

1 Tbs ground flax seed

1 tsp chia seed

1/4 cup buckwheat flour

1 Tbs carob powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 Tbs water (or slightly more)

I use the huge mug you can see on the left in the picture above. First I mash the banana in the mug, then I add in all the dry ingredients and start to stir. Then I add the water and stir. The batter should be thick, but not dry. If it is too dry, I add a little more water. 

Then I put the mug in the microwave, cover it with a paper towel, and microwave it for 1 min 45 sec. When it is cooked, I dump it out of the mug and let it cool. 

Optional Add-ins:

Raisins

Nuts

You could trade the spices for other spices

For breakfast, I cut it into slices and topped it with almond butter. 

Edamame and Bean Salad

It is full-on summer now, and from what I hear, it is hot everywhere. I love summer, but I don't really want to heat up the whole oven and bake stuff. So with my menu plan this week, I focused on salads and light and refreshing meals. 

Including this Edamame and Bean Salad that I found at Cooking Light. Ok, they gave it the longest name ever, but it really isn't as pretentious as they made it sound. And it is pretty perfect for a summer meal. 

My changes:

I cooked my own cannellini beans. This is another of the dietary changes I am making. If I cook my own beans, I can use organic and still afford it. 

I left out the jalapeno. 

For next time, I will steam the edamame a little longer. I was worried about cooking them too long, but they are still a little crunchy. 

And for lunch today, I served this Bean Salad on a bed of dandelion greens. Just a note on that, dandelion greens are pretty bitter, so if you aren't used to things like that, eat this salad plain, or serve it on a bed of spinach or romaine lettuce. 

Sorry about the photo quality there. 

Breakfast -- Fail and Success

One of the things that is hardest for me is breakfast. Honestly, it doesn't matter how big my glasses are, green juice just does not fuel me for an entire morning -- or even 20 minutes.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it in the past, but I used to eat lima beans for breakfast. Every single morning. Weird, I know. My nutritionist pointed out to me that it isn't really a good idea to eat the exact same thing every day for years. I am now trying to have a variety of breakfast things to eat.

This is difficult because I have a large number of restrictions that basically eliminate all "normal" breakfast foods. And I know that my body works best when it gets some protein and fat in the morning. Here I am, sharing my quest for breakfast with you.

I love Ashley over at Edible Perspective and she loves breakfast. No better place to start the quest for breakfast.

She writes about popped (or puffed) amaranth. I am trying different grains (see above comment about all the same goods), so I thought that would be great.

 

Fail.

Seriously, follow the link and look at her picture of how this is supposed to look. Mine popped a few ... kernels? Grains? Seeds? But burned everything else in the pan. I tried twice, and then decided that this was not for me.


I decided to have this beautiful bowl for breakfast instead.



This is Buckwheat Creamy Hot Cereal with lots of toppings.



I found this brand at Wal-mart (forever ago) and bought it on a whim. But I've been a little scared to try it. So I finally took the plunge.

Buckwheat Cereal with Toppings
1/4 Buckwheat Hot Cereal
1 cup Water
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Carob
1/4 cup Hemp Milk (or soy, almond, whatever you like)
1 tsp Almond Butter
1 Banana, sliced
Pinch of Salt

Cook the buckwheat cereal according to package instructions. Add the cinnamon, carob, and salt and stir to combine. Add the hemp milk and stir. Top with the almond butter and banana.

A Return -- And Some Juice

I've taken a really long time away from this blog. Not really intentional, but I let other things happen instead. If you've been checking for updates, I'm sorry there haven't been any. The biggest reason for the time away is I have been in a total food rut. I believe that through the second half of the Fall semester and the entire Spring semester, I ate exactly the same thing for breakfast and lunch. And I all too often felt like frozen peas and a can of tuna fish were perfectly acceptable for dinner. Acceptable, but not blog-worthy.

I've been thinking for the past two weeks that I should get back to blogging here. I am once again changing up how I eat, and I am spending a lot of time on food. I'm searching for recipes and inspiration, I'm menu planning, I'm shopping, I'm preparing, and I'm cooking. And then my sister Carla commented that I should blog my food, and it seemed like a sign.

As I said, I am changing up how I eat. I've lived for an entire year and seven months on my "green diet." I recently saw a nutritionist and she made some suggestions for upping my nutrient intake and making sure my body can absorb everything it needs. Which leads to the question I am frequently asked when I eat with other people: What can you eat?

It's easiest to tackle big categories first: I'm gluten-free and have been for 7 years. I'm mostly vegan -- meaning no meat, no eggs, and no dairy, but every once in a while (when I'm eating out) I will eat fish. I eat any vegetable I want, any fruit I want, any bean I want, and any nut I want.

***

One of the big changes for me that my nutritionist recommended was to begin juicing -- at least three times a week. She gave me seven different recipes to start off with. 

There are a lot of reasons to juice. The biggest one is that people say you can get a whole bunch of vegetables in your system that you wouldn't eat otherwise. As I prepared this morning's juice, and shoved an entire romaine lettuce heart into my juicer, I thought, "Yeah, because really, who eats a whole head of romaine? ... Uh, wait. I do. I totally did last night." But I gamely pressed on with my juicing. 

There is also a huge debate about whether juicing or green smoothies are better. Medically-speaking, I have no idea. I'm just doing what was recommended for me. 

I have a Breville Juice Fountain. It works really well and has a lot of parts that you have to clean -- but that is how all juicers are. I got it a couple years ago, at Bed Bath and Beyond, because I always have a coupon for that store. 

Romaine Green Juice

1 Romaine Lettuce Heart

3 leaves Kale

2 giant leaves Red Chard

1 Cucumber

2 Celery Stalks

1/2 Green Apple

I use all-organic produce, especially for juice. Just wash everything and run it through the juicer, then drink up. 

All done! Yum.