Salsa Juice

One of my experiments yesterday was a salsa juice. With Cinco de Mayo coming up, I want to be prepared!

 

 

Of course, I started by looking at proper salsa recipes. Turns out, a lot of salsa is made with cooked tomatoes. Something I should have known (duh! obviously if it’s sold in a far it’s cooked!) but for some reason did not. So, I altered my search for “fresh” salsa recipes. First I tried to just juice a whole recipe. Not such a great plan. Water content matters…

But I ended up with a pretty decent juice that is very salsa like in flavor.

 

Salsa Juice:

makes 2 – 16oz servings

Juice together

• 24 oz Tomatoes (I used the ones on the vine, because they were on sale)
• 1/2 small Red Onion or medium Vidalia
• 1 Jalapeño Pepper
• 1 Lime (peeled)
• 1 bunch Cilantro
• 1 clove Garlic
• 8oz Sweet Pepper (I used those cute little ones, but a big Red Pepper would also work)

Then stir in:

• 1 Tbs Vinegar (I used Balsamic)
• 1 tsp Ground Cumin
• 1 tsp Dried Oregano (or, if you’re feeling really spendy, buy fresh and juice it)
• Sprinkle of Salt (my sprinkle was more like 1/8 tsp)
• 1 tsp Frank’s Red Hot (I added in addition to the jalapeño, but not everyone likes spicy the way I do…)

Yumm-o

 

If you are averse to any of the add-in’s then by all means, leave them out. The juice is tasty on it’s own. But the extras make it stellar.

The Juice Fast: I think we’re alone now

and by “we” I mean me and the food. Yes, I have the house to myself (for all practical purposes, the baby is asleep…) and this has been the biggest tempation I’ve felt so far. When I laid the baby down, I was starving and the juicer is loud. I considered *gasp* just calling out for pizza. Quiet, and nobody has to know about it. But… the scale would know. And I would know. And honestly, it really didn’t sound THAT great (don’t get me wrong it sounded good, just not THAT good). So, I thought, just eat a salad. Eat what you would have juiced.  No one would know… the scale probably wouldn’t even know.

Then, I smacked myself ’round the head, reminded myself that the baby would either 1) sleep through the noise or 2) go back to sleep because he was totally spent and DUH!!! juice fast means “don’t eat, bitch!” But, the pizza bug has been growing, so I did make pizza juice for dinner.

But, that was dinner. First I had to go to the market, because we were out of juiceable goodness. While shopping I went ahead and had a bottled carrot juice. It was OK, but I was glad to get home and make my salad.

Romaine is a leafy green...

My liquid salad…

You've heard of a black & tan... this is my green and pink!

My hubs’ big ol’ chunky salad was a great inspiration for a new recipe! I didn’t get it quite right, but it’s close 🙂 Here’s what I did today:

Chunky Lunch Salad

• Half a head of romaine
• 2 Roma Tomatoes
• 1/2 Giant Cucumber
• 1/4 Red Onion
• 1 clove Garlic

Juice together the above then stir in:

• 1 tsp Balsamic Vinegar
• 1 tsp EVOO
• Salt & Pepper to taste

This was good. It even tasted a bit like a salad. But, I intend to tweak it a bit. It was a little heavy on cucumber, light on onion and the garlic was entirely unnessecary. FYI… when we’re talking solid food, you will seldom hear me say “and the garlic was entirely unnessecary.”

The pizza juice was less successful. I was good, too. It even tasted faintly pizza-y. But… there’s no getting that roasted tomato taste from raw tomatoes. Of course, there’s no getting that “pepperoni” taste in a juice at all. But, all in all, you can get a tomato-y, italian-y, almost pizza-y juice substitute.

Pizza in the making

It was too much bell pepper, and not enough basil, but a good start.

 

Of course, pizza is best warmDrinking pizza was a new experience...A big ol' mug of pizza?

 

Here what I did today, but it will be tweaked further:

Pizza Juice

• Handful of fresh Basil
• 5 Roma Tomatoes
• 1 Green Bell Pepper
• 1/2 Red Onion
• 1 clove Garlic

Juice together the above then stir in:

• 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
• 1 tsp EVOO
• Salt & Pepper to taste

I had planned a lot more juice today. But, honestly… water has been sounding better today.

 

Data of a statistical nature:
Weight: 309
Change from Yesterday: -2
Total Change: -16
Mood: Really good
RA Symptoms: Left ankle hurtin’ a bit less… The bottoms of my feet were still very tender, though.