Detox juice and fiber fritters

That’s it, I am done. I have been eating way too much sugar. I woke up this morning with a resolution…to cut out sugar for a month, or at least till I am not craving it so badly. This momma needs a detox juice. The timing is right, the air is feeling warm and my mood as well. No need to wallow in bad TV and Belgium chocolate bars the size of my head (thank you Trader Joes). I will be posting my juices and salads from this point on, hoping that someone out there in the eathers will appreciate and feel inspired by the food that is not only gorgeous to look at, but will increase energy, and kill some bad parasites along the way.

Black plum, Walnuts, celery, organic coconut oil, cucumber, spinach, blueberries, almond milk with cinnamon

Basically, I dove into the fridge, freezer, and pantry to mix together some food that would not only compliment each other, but give me some protein. I always keep almond milk in the fridge and it has a ton of protein, including the walnuts and coconut oil. I also have issues with blood sugar levels, and nuts are great for that. They sustain you and maintain your glucose levels. Blueberries are full of antioxidants, and I keep a massive bag of them in the freezer that has survived me all winter. The cinnamon (also natural insulin) helped blend these flavors together and I can assure you with the help of this versatile spice, I did not miss any sugar.

Here is my lovely. The cool thing is, it replaced my afternoon snacking and lunch and I did not feel hungry. There is a lot of fiber in this drink, but the texture did not bother me.

I made a juice again later in the day with some fresh collard greens, spinach, honey crisp apple, frozen raspberries, carrot, cucumber, celery, blueberry juice, walnuts, almond milk and cinnamon. Yes, quite a combination, but it was good. What made it even better was straining the juice prior to adding nuts and raspberries and putting the fiber mixture aside for later. For dinner, I mashed up some left over black eyed peas from my squash recipe, added some toasted sesame seeds and made fritters.

I saw a program the other day about food waste. One of the things that was mentioned in this program was the amount of fruits and vegetable throw away that restaurants produce from prepping. We compost our left over non-meat items, but sometimes have thrown away scraps of veggies and fruits that may not be appealing in a salad. If you have a solid blender (which I do), these parts can be pureed. Here, I have added non-glutinous rice flour, toasted sesame seeds, a shake of cayenne for metabolism and a couple of pinches of cumin.

The mixture is separated into small ( and I mean soup spoon sized) patties, and fried in a combination of vegetable and sesame seed oils.

The cooked left over fritters are garnished with a cucumber and marinated artichoke salad and yogurt blended with some fresh lemon juice.

This majestic white cow watched me drive past on my way into town. Lots of little black calves spotting the hills.

Apple Beet Ginger Juice

Beet juice at 6:30am

Beet juice with wildflowers

Marian Drew, ‘Lorikeet with green cloth’ 2006

Marian Drew, ‘Wombat with Watermelon’ 2005

These days I get up around 6 am and often make an apple, beet and ginger juice. This juice is a delicate combination of flavors, sweet, tangy, spicy and earthy that I want to take advantage of while the apples and beets are fresh in the garden. The deep red color is bodily and jewel like. The consistency, velvety and smooth, goes down easy, giving my stomach a warming and thirst quenching euphoric feeling. It is the perfect still life for these wooded mists and dewy hills.

I am reminded of an Australian photographer who I became enamored with with last year during a studio residency in Virginia. Marian Drew stages sublimely beautiful photographs Alla Dutch still life painting. Instead of using Dutch favored fowl and fauna as her subjects, she inserts the native creatures of her home region – some collected road kill. They are complexly beautiful table settings – like landscapes – they combine the decay and decadence of a long-loved aesthetic.

Good Morning Juice

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I’ve been juicing since the start of the month after getting a juicer for my birthday. It is a good way of getting extra vegetables into your diet and kicking off your metabolism in the morning; packed with nutrition it gives you energy. No cooking required, although it is a bit messy.

This mornings juice was a combination of 3 carrots, 1 beet, 1 apple, stem of arugula and a slice of ginger. These hard vegetables hold up well in the fridge. I sprinkled a little cinnamon into it as well and liked it.

Your fritter cakes inspired me to make vegetable pulp fritters with a little basil and cinnamon seasoning. They tasted like sweet potato or pumpkin. Really not my favorite, but it was worth a try.