Sharing Saturday…? GREEN JUICE RECIPE!

Hello! I hope you are all having not only a happy and healthy day wherever you are in the world, but you’re having a happy, healthy, enjoyable, and relaxing weekend! Today I am throwing out this idea of “Sharing Saturday” which comes across as perhaps more “intense” than what I mean to convey! At least on some of these Saturdays, I would like to share some of my recipes with you – these are often recipes I have been asked for on other social networking sites so I thought I would start with some basics here!

Green Juice is an ABSOLUTE go-to in my world; the ingredients I use are helpful in their diuretic properties (this is important when you have been on steroids like I have, especially for as LONG as I have been on them!); other ingredients are natural antimicrobial agents which is helpful for anyone facing chronic illness – especially for those of us who have Primary (or Secondary!) Immune Deficiencies and for those of us who are on any kind of immunosuppressive medications (or any combination of these illnesses and meds!). My Green Juice recipe has gone through some changes over the years, but the one I will include below is the one that I find works the best for me personally in the least amount of time possible. I also like to prep and cut my veggies ahead of time so I can make at least two batches of green juice without having to wash and cut, &c., the veggies when I might not be feeling well enough to do so. I also used to use an actual JUICER to make this green juice – I have found, however, that a good blender works just as well, if not better, and without the terribly messy cleanup. You get to keep a lot of the fiber in your Green Juice that you would lose with most juicers. So with that “equipment advice,” here goes!

Ingredients (for 1 “batch” of Green Juice):

1/2 bunch celery; washed, strings REMOVED*, cut into halves and then into “sticks”

1/2 large cucumber, either seedless or seeds removed (I do this personally because the GI involvement I experience with my illnesses does not take kindly to cucumber seeds!), peeled (again, that one is up to you – if you get organic cucumber that is well washed, you can use the skin if you like it!); quartered and cut into “sticks”

about 25-30 leaves of FRESH spinach, washed and dried (see below as well)

Parsley – this one is tricky; my favorite “find” for this ingredient is the frozen parsley cubes I have found in the freezer section of most supermarkets (there is some oil in these cubes, but I am a firm advocate of maintaining a HEALTHY amount of HEALTHY fats in your diet) – I use about 6-8 of these cubes (to taste) in my Green Juice; if you are using FRESH PARSLEY, use Italian flat-leaf parsley – clean well, dry well, and pick off the leaves from about 1/3 of a standard size “bunch” of parsley (if you grow your own parsley that would probably be the best! Before I found the aforementioned parsley cubes, I would actually boil the fresh spinach and fresh parsley together, drain the mix, and place in ice water until ready to use – this was more because of my immune deficiency than anything else so do and use whatever you’re comfortable with!)

the juice of 1 lemon; seeds removed (you can also substitute pre-squeezed lemon juice here, but I would recommend only using the “organic” kind that is sold in glass bottles – use between 1/8-1/4 of a cup, depending on your tastes!)

1/8-1/4 teaspon of Stevia (if desired)

Water

Ice

*There are a number of ways to “de-string” celergy; I prefer to break the piece of celery in half and pull one half down – a bunch of the strings will follow and you can pull them out easily! Repeat with the other side and halve the halves if you find they are still stringy! If you still have strings in your celery and you don’t just want to blend them out, you can look at the piece of celery as a “cross-section” and where you see the round areas at the “arc” area, you can see where the remaining strings are located (the parts of the celery where the strings have come out will appear like “holes” – you know those areas don’t have strings – at least not the BIG strings! – left!*

Place the stringless celery, spinach leaves (or spinach and parsley mix if you are using cooked and cooled leaves), and cucumber sticks in a blender with enough FRESH water to cover the veggies; blend on high for about 30 seconds. Add the parsley cubes and repeat, adding water as necessary to keep the consistency of the liquid “thick juice-like” (I add more water at the end). Add the lemon juice and Stevia at the very end; blend until all ingredients are completely blended – you are likely to get a layer of “foam” at the top – you can either strain the liquid or remove the “foam” with a spoon, or you can drink it as is! I prefer to remove MOST of it (it is more or less impossible to remove all of it because the longer the juice sits, the more “foam” develops just from the natural separation of the juice). Add an amount of FRESH water (I prefer distilled water but I know that isn’t for everyone!) equal to the amount of juice you have in the blender, blend for just a few seconds and re-strain if you feel so inclined. Pour over ice and enjoy!!

This is honestly one of my most highly requested recipes so I wanted to put it down for you here! It is also interesting that my body actually CRAVES this juice when I don’t drink it regularly; I also attribute much of the fact that I have not developed any sort of diabetes from the steroids to the fact that I drink this Green Juice, drink LOTS of water, and walk A LOT. It sounds simple, but it’s amazing to me how many people seem to be unable to follow a healthy lifestyle plan like this. If you are one of those people, start with something easy like this! All you need are some good veggies, a knife, and a blender! Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

As always, thank you very much for taking the time to read this post! I hope you are all having wonderful days and nights and happy and healthy days and nights wherever you are in the world!

❤ Always, Beth