This is the juice I make again and again and again. Most mornings, in fact. I grab the ingredients on autopilot out of the fridge, stick them through Oscar The Juicer, pour it into a jar and head off to work.
Good stuff in this juice:
Apples hit you up with potassium, phosphorus, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron and zinc (and makes all the green stuff in the juice more palatable).
Celery is alkalizing and provides vitamins A and K. It also contains a heap of sodium which is what makes it taste kind of salty. The good news is that natural plant sodium is soluble and organic and is essential for your body. Organic, or live salt lets your body use the other nutrients you’re consuming. It works like this: all the cells in our body are constantly bathed in a salt solution. If this gets out of balance, we get dehydrated. So celery juice is a winner in summer for staying hydrated. Nature’s sports drink, minus the bright blue colouring.
Lemon juice is full of vitamin C and boosts your immunity.
Kale looks after your blood and bones – it delivers masses of vitamins K, A and C.
Mint is sweet and cooling and provides a little vitamin A and manganese.
DAILY GREEN JUICE
2 GREEN APPLES 1/2 LEMON, PEELED 2 LEAVES KALE, WITH STALKS 2 STALKS CELERY, WITH LEAVES
2-3 SPRINGS OF FRESH MINT
Run all ingredients through a juicer, stir or shake before drinking. It’s good on ice, too.
Make it into something else: If you blend this juice with 1/2 an avocado, it makes a yummy raw soup for a light summer meal or snack.
Fresh fennel is a veggie that you can eat from base to leaves, or perhaps I should say: from bulb to fronds. In this salad, I’ve used the bulb very thinly sliced with crisp green apple and celery and then the fronds combined with mint to intensify the licorice-ish flavour. Raw fennel has hardly any calories (hooray) and delivers you a large hit of potassium (more than milk or broccoli) and also calcium. This salad is best made just before you’re wanting to eat it, and the ingredients should be refrigerated first, if possible, so that it is crisp and crunchy.
APPLE, FENNEL & WALNUT SALAD
2 CUPS VERY THINLY SLICED FENNEL (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 2 STALKS CELERY, VERY THINLY SLICED (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 1 CRISP GREEN APPLE, VERY THINLY SLICED (USE A MANDOLIN OR A FOOD PROCESSOR) 1/2 CUP WALNUTS 1 TABLESPOON FRESH MINT LEAVES
1 TABLESPOON FRESH FENNEL FRONTS
DRESSING
1 TABLESPOON EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL 2 TEASPOONS FRESH LEMON JUICE
SMALL PINCH OF FLAKED SEA SALT
Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix gently to combine. To make the dressing, shake or stir ingredients together and pour over the salad just before serving.
This feels like eating a dessert for breakfast (and it works as a dessert, too); it’s reminiscent of bircher muesli mixed with a fruit compote, except this raspberry and apple combination is free from refined sugar. The tiny pieces of chopped date are toffee-sweet surprises amongst the creamy chia pudding. The raspberries are full of vitamin C and Manganese and the chia seeds give you complete protein, a good dose of fibre and slow down the conversion of carbs to sugars, so a good start for your morning 🙂 They’re also high in Omega-3s. By eating chia rather than fish oil, you’ll be reducing the pressure on diminishing fish stocks in the world, and it’s a nice change from flaxseed oil.
I make this recipe in recycled jars for easy transport to work on the mornings I run out of time for breakfast. They’ll last a day in the fridge but are best eaten soon after making as chia seeds absorb up to nine times their weight in water (so drink lots)! Makes two.
RASPBERRY COMPOTE
3/4 CUP RASPBERRIES (I USED FROZEN ONES) 1 APPLE, PEELED AND CHOPPED 1 TEASPOON CINNAMON 4 DRIED DATES, CHOPPED INTO TINY PIECES
1/4 CUP WATER
CHIA BANANA PUDDING
1 BANANA, PEELED 3 TABLESPOONS WHITE CHIA SEEDS 1/2 CUP FRESH ORANGE JUICE 1 TABLESPOON LEMON JUICE
1/2 CUP ALMONDS
TOPPING
1 DESSERTSPOON CHOPPED PISTACHIOS
1 TEASPOON CURRANTS
For the raspberry compote, pulse all ingredients in a food processor until combined but still a little chunky. The dates won’t blend into the mixture, but this is a very good thing, trust me.
For the chia pudding, blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. The chia seeds will begin to thicken into a gel within the mixture creating the pudding-like texture.
In two glasses or jars, alternatively layer the chia pudding and the raspberry compote on top of each other. Sprinkle the top with chopped pistachios and currants. Good morning!