Tag Archives: farmers’ market

I’ve Got Juice Brain

Posted by ljb in Juicing, Organic, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian and tagged with , , , , , ,

Juice brain is what JJ and I lovingly use as an excuse for our momentary lapse in judgement or forgetful moments while we are on cleanses. And I definitely had one yesterday. Monday was Day 2 of our juice fast. It was also my first day at work doing a full on fast, so I had to make about 4 juices in the morning to take with me for the day. In the hustle and bustle of the morning craziness, I forgot to take pictures so I have no awesome visuals for you today. I also forgot to write down a majority of the ingredients that I used in each juice.

Whoops. Total juice brain. My sincerest apologies.

I do have this awesome Google image of a juicer

juicing

It is just me or are Google images getting worse? Ohwell.

What I can tell you is yesterday evening I had two juices and they were both super delish. One contained:

  • Kale
  • Spinach
  • Swiss chard (yes, you can juice just about anything)
  • Cucumber
  • Pear
  • Lemons
  • Blueberries

The other juice was:

  • Pineapple
  • Orange
  • Ginger
  • Spinach
  • Kale

Two random, but surprisingly good juices that really kept me full for the rest of the evening.

So let’s talk about how my day went. Well, the morning was super tough. I was still grouchy and super hungry. But as the day went on and the more water I drank, I felt surprisingly good. The roughest part of the day was once I got home from work and watched the Hubs consume beautiful pasta with marinara sauce from the farmers’ market. But I held my ground. Andy was actually pretty sweet about my grumpiness. He took it well and even talked me into drinking a juice to take my mind off of eating. He also told me I was “glowing”. He has said this before when I have done a cleanse so at this point, I don’t think it is just lip-service. I think he actually feels like I am glowing. Or he is trying to tame my crabbiness. I drank the full 96oz of juice that you are supposed to have during a typical day of a cleanse, and that actually made me feel quite full! Overall, on a scale from 1 to 10, I felt at about a 5 1/2 which is a huge improvement from my -3 on Sunday.

After I finish this, I am planning on writing up a summary for those of you who are interested in doing your own cleanse. I’ll let you know my thoughts on it and tips I may have for someone just starting out. As always, please do your research and make sure doing a juicing fast is right for you.

If you want more information on juicing and its benefits, here are a few other articles you might be interested in:

Juice away lil’ chickadees,

A Nice Little Weekend For This Lady

Posted by ljb in Around the House, Juicing, Organic, Out and About, Vegan-Friendly Restaurants, Weekends and tagged with , , ,

What? It’s Monday already, huh? Well shoot. Here goes another week….

But, before I plunge into whatever great things might be ahead, let’s chat about the weekend. It was a gorgeous one here in Southern CT. Friday, I had a hot date consisting of Whole Foods and grocery shopping. Side note: a big thanks to John for sending my husband home early and telling him a few times to “go spend time with your wife”. You are the best! Anyway, Mr. B had never been to Whole Foods (gasp) so I told him that he was allowed to sit and eat while I gathered up the groceries. He was like a kid in a candy store. Did he want pizza? How about a sandwich? He could get both. And they have beer! Heaven. He opted for pizza, by the way. I left him mid-bite to go off on my grocery shopping adventure.

I have lots of great recipes coming up this week that I am super pumped to tell you about!

Saturday was “the best, day, evvvvv, eerrr” (that was me singing). I got up bright and early, made my greenish smoothie that I posted about and headed off to yoga. This time, I decided to try slow flow, a practice I had never done before. It was such a different experience from Vinyasa yoga, which is quicker and a little more intense I thought. Some of you may be reading this and thinking “I didn’t understand that last sentence.” Fear not! I have a post in the queue to tell you all about yoga and my experiences with it since I am fairly new to the practice. So look forward to that soon. (Hurray!)

Back to my story, so after an awesome yoga session at Fresh Yoga, I headed off down the street to my new favorite little coffee and tea shop in the area, green well Organic Tea and Coffee. A recent addition to the area, it is so close to my yoga studio that it was fate. Amazing teas, great juices and awesome owners who I found out were not only from the Chicago area, but actually lived in the same town and fairly close to me! What are the odds? Fate right? Duh. Oh, and one of the owners had a Cubs hat on. How could I pass up a “Go Cubbies”!? I plan on doing a dedicated post on green well just so I can fully explain how much I am in love with this place. Anyway, I grabbed an apple, ginger and rhubarb juice. Having never experienced rhubarb in juice form, I was a little anxious to be honest. But as assumed, I fell in love.

I was still in the mood to enjoy the day so I walked down to the Wooster Square Farmers’ Market which is part of CitySeed. CitySeed is an organization whose mission is “to engage the community in growing an equitable, local food system that promotes economic development, community development and sustainable agriculture.” Rock on. Being a farmer’s daughter in all sense of the word (or words I guess?), I fully support farmers’ markets and always love to try to buy local. I have a passion and large respect for those that work the land to feed us. And, I love my dad so I am doing my part in supporting his occupation even though I am 900 miles away from the home land.

The cool thing about CitySeed, besides running markets all over the area, is that they are nice to those of us who rarely carry cash. So, I never have cash on me. It worries my husband sometimes. But if I have it, I spend it. I don’t know what it is. I walked down to the market unexpectedly so I didn’t even think about having some readily available. Luckily for me, they have “coins” you can purchase with a credit card. Since most, if not all, vendors at this market don’t accept credit cards, these coins acted as my cash, that the vendors then turn in to CitySeed for their share of sales. Pretty neat idea if you ask me.

I came home with delish whole wheat sourdough bread, rhubard (because I love it now), some homemade pasta sauces and some little vegan baked goods. Successful trip yeah? Um, yes.

Saturday night we spent at the casino with some amazing friends. We lost a total of $16. All my fault. Don’t gamble, Lauren. Just don’t.

Sunday was an amazing day consisting of a morning yoga class, church, outdoor conversations on our neighbors new patio and some yard work. It also involved an amazing grilled “cheese” sandwich made from the fresh sourdough bread I picked up at the market. It. Was. To. Die. For. I had been craving a grilled cheese of sorts for weeks now and I finally got my fix. Hallelujah. And to top it all off, my friend J convinced me to do some mini-hiking up East Rock, right by my house. Now, I use the term “mini” very loosely, because when you haven’t hiked for over a year, mini-hikes seem like climbing Mt. Everest. But it was accomplished and was followed by a nice downhill walk and some great conversation. Good for the soul, I tell ya.

I live for weekends like these. Weeks filled with love and just being content. No big plans, but lots of simple, little ones that together make up a life worth living.

Enjoy your amazing week!