March 8th, 2010

Fresh Juice Recipe: Super Greens Juice

Another juice recipe for you. If you tried the Beet, Car­rot, Apple Gin­ger Juice, I would love to know what you thought.

Today I tried a Super Greens Juice. If you are con­fused about what “Greens” are, here’s a tip: veg­gies and fruit that are green in color. Think kale, cel­ery, spinach, col­lard greens, beet greens, broc­coli, cucum­bers, alfalfa sprouts, wheat­grass sprouts, onion sprouts and so many more. Greens Juice is great for cleans­ing your body and jump star­ing any weight loss pro­gram. Own­ing Pink does a great job of explain­ing the amaz­ing­ness of Green Juice so go there and read about it.

This Super Greens Juice recipe comes from Goop again but I encour­age you all to try dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions. I have adjusted the recipe to make three 12 oz glasses.

• 2 cups of Kale (use everything)
• 1 whole Lemon
• 2 inches of Ginger
• 8 stalks of Celery
• 3 whole Pears

Run every­thing through the juicer. Remem­ber that leafy veg­gies are a pain so to make sure that they juice com­pletely, I wrapped the kale around the cel­ery sticks. Made life A LOT eas­ier. Also, make sure you stir your juice very well.

March 6th, 2010

Fresh Juice Recipe: Beet, Carrot, Apple and Ginger

In an effort to cleanse my body of tox­ins (also called “yuck­ies” by my 3.5 year old daugh­ter), I have been embarked on a detox jour­ney using a menu plan writ­ten by Gwyneth Pal­trow with her doc­tor, Dr. Ale­jan­dro Junger author of the book “Clean”. I know a lot of peo­ple hate Gwyneth Pal­trow, but I absolute love her site Goop as it has good tips for health.

At any rate, my hus­band and I bought a juicer two years ago and we were using it almost every day. Then for some rea­son, we just stopped. Detox­ing has given me the oppor­tu­nity to bring it out again and include fresh juice into my diet. Here is a tip: if you have a juicer, keep it out on the counter or you will never use it. I know that it’s big, but you know the say­ing, “out of sight, out of mind,” right? It’s true. So keep it out and then you can incor­po­rate that into your daily menus.

On to the Beet, Car­rot, Apple Gin­ger Juice. It’s a beau­ti­ful color, isn’t it? Before I decided to make this juice I looked up the ben­e­fits of beets in your diet. Beets have been shown to low blood pres­sure (not for peo­ple with hyper­ten­sion) and are a pow­er­ful blood and sys­tem cleanser.   It is also believed that beets can increase sta­mina and pro­vide numer­ous heart-healthy ben­e­fits.  It is being called a super juice and while I know that there is no one cure for all that ails, I am will­ing to add more healthy things into my diet.

The recipe fol­lows but I want to share my thoughts on this juice. It actu­ally tastes good despite the fact that I really don’t like beets. I did notice that my stom­ach began cramp­ing while drink­ing my ver­sion which leads me to believe that I used too much beet juice in pro­por­tion to the other ingre­di­ents. Beets are a nat­ural lax­a­tive and work rather quickly. Stick as close to the recipe as pos­si­ble. The recipe below comes directly from the Goop site.

SERVES: 1
TIME: 5 minutes

• 1 large or 2 medium beets, cut into wedges (My Note: I’m not sure this includes the greens. I did not as I used them for another recipe. Also, I’m not sure if beets are sup­posed to be peeled or not. I juiced every­thing but the greens.)
• 1/2 lemon, zest and pith removed
• 2 large carrots
• 1 large apple, cut into wedges
• 1″ piece of ginger

Juice every­thing into a glass, give it a stir and enjoy.

February 26th, 2010

Happy Birthday Nicola

In Lov­ing Mem­ory of Nicola Diana Kennedy

You would have been 37 today and for rea­sons still unknown you were taken from us just 9 days after you turned 36. Life has been so hard since then. I tried to be strong– to keep Jaida and Kayla together to ease the pain that they were feel­ing. I have endured crit­i­cism from many– both to my face and behind my back– for things that were beyond my con­trol and even now I am sure that peo­ple are whis­per­ing about how I am not doing what I should to make sure that every­one is OK. But, and it has taken most of the year for me to real­ize this, none of that mat­ters because when it comes right down to it, no one can ever truly under­stand the bond between sisters.

You and Car­o­line are the first friends I ever knew. You were my pro­tec­tors when life was scary and our bond was so much stronger than the future argu­ments that would tear us all apart for so many years. We are sur­vivors. Fos­ter par­ents, orphan­ages, adop­tion, daddy’s death.… Hell, we sur­vived Momma Kennedy and her strict par­ent­ing! We were always there for eachother even if that meant not being there at all.

No one can ever truly under­stand that bond and no one can take that away.

I miss you. I miss the times that we shared– our dance rou­tines, hair and makeup lessons, sneak­ing out to Skate Key and the Fever and your advice on how to deal with our mother. I miss your smile and your will­ing­ness to help every­one– even those who did noth­ing but take advan­tage of you. I miss your pas­sion to live and your hot tem­per. I miss the phone calls and our talks about sex and all the things that we were told were naughty. I long so much for the days of Clear Pool Camp, dou­ble dutch at Grandma’s, and you braid­ing my hair so tightly that I would cry just from mom telling you to do my hair.

I wish that I could have pro­tected you from all of the chaos, but you wouldn’t let me. You never let me for­get that you were my big sis­ter. I wish that I could tell you that I love you and hear you tell me again. I wish that you and Car­o­line could have said the things that you both really wanted to say to each other. I wish that we could have all just hugged each other one last time.

Nicola, I miss you so very much. I have let go of all of anger and the hurt. Car­o­line and I under­stand now. We will honor our sis­ter­hood because we learned from you just how short life is and how much regret weighs.

I am eter­nally grate­ful for the time we shared. I was blessed to have you and to have known the real you. We will for­ever be the Kennedy Girls and I will love you always. Happy Birthday.

Your baby sis­ter,
Kristina