pestosprouts

When I was a little girl my Mum and Dad had a fruit & veg shop. I remember everything about it. It was painted in an old-fashioned, quaint, greengrocer’s green and yellow. I loved it there. I used to bag up sweets I’d buy at the wholesalers and try to sell them (very clever – except, between my Dad giving them away for free and me eating them, I never made all that much cash). I used to try and stay off school sick so I could sit and watch my sister work.

 As well as all the fruit and veg you could shake a stick at, they used to sell fresh juices. At the time, it was an exciting, new thing and it was long before juicers were big. My favourite?? Apple and Pear. I used to turn my nose up at my Mum’s carrot and apple and laugh if anyone wanted to put anything other than the basic fruit in their juice. I tried to get them to name my apple and pear juice after me… you know …. like ‘Jess’ Juice’, but it never happened. Apparently no one would know what was in ‘Jess’ Juice’!

It’s been at least 10 years since the Juice Stop closed it’s doors and our kitchen was filled with left-over stock…….what seemed like an infinite amount of prawn cocktail crisps, diet coke and endless supply of beef Oxo cubes? But my love of fruit and veg has never gone (however my love of prawn cocktail crisps ended shortly after I ate my 100th bag) and I recently bought myself a juicer. I should tell you…. I am a bit of an obsessive buyer of things. Dave calls me the perfect customer. So when I bought my juicer, I also bought cute travel cups, and blender bottles, I think having them makes me by default, healthy. It doesn’t.

I was concerned though that I was just juicing fruit and, therefore, drinking sugar without any of the fibre. So I started adding vegtables….and you know what? They are really tasty.  I also now feel a little less guilty about producing so much waste (the mulch that doesn’t go into the juice).   Since I’ve got my juicer I haven’t once had ‘Jess’ Juice’.

This morning I made this treat for breakfast. It was tangy and sweet and if you are easily swayed like me, it almost feels like it is doing good things as you are drinking it. It sets you up for the day and when you have such a healthy start to the day you want to keep it up. Come on…. let’s be fair, you can’t help but feel like a healthy superior if your breakfast is a bright green juice.

So go on, make a juice, stick some veg in it and feel smug!

Jomba Juice - because now i’m a grown up and I can call my juice whaever I like!

Made two pretty good sized juices

My juicer takes whole fruit so I didn’t need to chop anything except my  pineapple and, even then, I only cut it into quarters. I used organic everything that didn’t get peeled. Infact, the only thing that wasn’t organic was the pineapple. I don’t imagine Organic oranges make much difference though because of the thick skin.

• 2 apples
• 3 Oranges
• 2 Celery sticks
• 1 whole pineapple
• 1 bag spinach

Peel pineapple and quater into peices that will fit into your juicer (I peeled mine the night before). Peel oranges. Put everything into your juicer, stir the juice and serve.

I plan to drink many more juices for breakfast, I’m all for feeling smug of a morning. Anything that keeps me away from the donuts and chocolate croissants of a morning is a welcome treat. I’ll keep you updated!

Anyone know of any morning-brightening juices?