What's For Breakfast: Juice!

It's official. I've become one of those people that juice. I blame all the blog posts I read in early January as everyone jumped onto the healthy New Year resolutions bandwagon. I admit I was swayed by all the bright green juices and endless options that come with juicing a bounty of fresh fruit and vegetables. 

I tried to get D to jump on the bandwagon with me, but he decried our lack of kitchen storage space. Then we watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, a documentary about an Australian named Joe Cross who (spoiler alert!) turned around his health with a (medically-supervised) 60-day juice diet. Though Joe's story was interesting, the truly inspiring story was that of Phil Staples, an overweight truck driver who ("coincidentally") shared the same immune system disorder that Joe had. Long story short, Phil decides to give juicing a try, and over the course of 60 days, he loses a significant amount of weight, and more importantly, is able to become more active and achieve a positive outlook on life. In the end, Phil gives up his sedentary truck driver job for a position at the local Y and teaches community classes about the benefits of juicing.

The documentary totally sucked us into the world of juicing. About five seconds after it was over, we were on Amazon checking out our juicer options. In the end, we decided to pool together some gift cards from Crate & Barrel (thanks, Chrashley!) and go for the Breville Compact Juice Extractor (which is the highest-rated juicer on Amazon). Thanks to super-fast shipping from Chicago, our new juicer arrived on our doorstep just two days later. (Hooray!) That afternoon I headed to Golden Harvest to pick up some fresh fruits and vegetables to juice, and we were off.

While neither D nor I have significant amounts of weight to lose, we are always looking for more ways to introduce nutrient-packed fruits and vegetables into our diet. And, with my New Year resolution to find ways to waste less food, I figured juicing might be a good answer to that problem, as instead of letting those leaves of kale wilt in the refrigerator, I could instead use them to make a healthy juice. 

I have to admit though, I am kind of intrigued by Joe's idea of "rebooting." I think it would be interesting -- if not challenging -- to give a short-term all-juice diet a whirl. (We're talking three days, nothing crazy.) Thus far D and I have just been replacing a meal with a juice or supplementing our daily meals with a juice. And I have to say, of all the juices we've experimented with thus far, none have been bad. I like that there is an endless variety in juicing -- there's no reason to drink the same juice twice, unless you really want to. 

Purple Juice (aka Spinach, Carrot, Beet, Cucumber, Lemon, Apple and Ginger Juice)
(printer-friendly version)
makes about 1 1/2 servings

large handful of spinach leaves
3 carrots
1 beet
half large cucumber (or 1 small cucumber)
1/2 lemon (with peel on)
1/2 apple
1" ginger

Juice the spinach, carrots, cucumber, lemon, beet, apple, and ginger. Serve in large glass (over ice, if you prefer). 

What's Baking: Wildberry Coffee Cake

Apparently Saturday marked National Coffee Cake Day (who knew?!), and Whole Foods tweeted out a link to a delicious-sounding coffee cake recipe. On Sunday, after determining that I had all the ingredients on hand, I set to making the cake to have with our breakfast. I opted to use a mixed berry blend with raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries rather than just blueberries, since that's what I had in my freezer. Other than that, I didn't stray too far from the original recipe. The resulting coffee cake was moist and full of sweet berry flavor.

Wildberry Coffee Cake (printer-friendly version)
makes 12 servings

2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, divided
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups frozen, thawed and drained berries, divided into one-cup portions (alternately, use fresh berries)
1/3 cup sliced almonds


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray and set aside.
3. Combine the two tablespoons of flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom. Use a fork to incorporate the chunks of butter. The resulting streusel should have pebble-sized clumps. Set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, sift together the remaining flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the yogurt, vanilla extract, and eggs until just combined.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
7. Gently fold in half the berries.
8. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pan. Cover with the streusel. Add the remaining berries over top the streusel.
9. Sprinkle the sliced almonds over top the berries.
10. Bake in the oven 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
11. Let cool on a wire rack until ready to eat.

 (adapted from this Whole Foods recipe)