Refreshing Summer Salad!

It's summer! That means temperatures of 120 degrees here in Phoenix! Today I cooled off with this delicious cucumber and carrot salad with a super simple homemade vinaigrette.

Vinaigrette!

For the vinaigrette, combine the following in a jar and shake it up. Alternatively, whisk it together in a bowl - not made of aluminum. Aluminum + vinegar = gross flavor...because of science.

Vinaigrette Ingredients:

1 cup olive oil
1/4 balsamic pomegranate vinegar
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
1/3 cup cherry juice
1 healthy squirt raw agave nectar
1 squirt vegan (check the ingredients for honey!) dijon mustard
1 dash salt (to taste)
1 dash white pepper (to taste)
1 dash paprika (you guessed it - to taste)
sprinkling of raw sesame seeds, raw sunflower seeds, and raw-ish slivered almonds*


Salad!

I use a veggie peeler instead of chopping my cucumbers and carrots to get nice long strips of them. Then I slivered up a little bit of onion and added that in, as well. As a German, I like onion at every single meal.

Salad ingredients:
1 carrot per person
1/2 cucumber per person
2 slivers of onion per person

*For information on the drama surrounding "raw" almonds, click here.

Adventures in Juicing: Apple-Cucumber After Dinner Drink

I decided to use up the rest of some of my produce to make a delicious, lighter juice. Not as much of a kick as the one I made a yesterday, but effin' delicious - and healthy! Because I had just eaten a full meal, I mixed the juice with some club soda (approx. 2 parts juice, 1 part soda)...

1 apple

1 stalk celery

1 cucumber

1 lemon

1.5" ginger

1 carrot

1 cup club soda (-ish - don't run club soda through your juicer, that's just silly.)

Garnish this delicious juice with mint, if you like - or muddle the shit out of your mint and add it in. 

Splitting it into three servings...

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 219 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  81 Calories from Fat  3

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  0.3g 1%

Trans Fat  0.0g

Cholesterol  0mg 0%

Sodium  21mg 1%

Total Carbohydrates  19.5g 7%

Dietary Fiber  3.4g 13%

Sugars  8.2g

Protein  1.5g

Vitamin A 73% • Vitamin C 36% Calcium 4% • Iron 6%

Nutrition Grade A

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

• Very low in saturated fat
• No cholesterol
• Low in sodium
• High in dietary fiber
• Very high in manganese
• High in potassium
• Very high in vitamin A
• Very high in vitamin C

Bad points

• Very high in sugar (but the "good" kind!")

Adventures in Juicing

I am exploring juicing, thanks to my new juicer! So far, so good - I'm one juice in. 

Here's what I threw together:

One big can of pineapple juice
Six apples
Four stalks of celery
Two cucumbers
Six limes
One lemon
One large carrot
Tons of ginger
Small bunch of mint

This turned out amazing! Super delicious, not too strong / not too weak, and just the perfect amount of spiciness that you can drink it with dinner!

Splitting this huge pitcher of juice into a generous 8 servings...

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 421 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  193 Calories from Fat  5

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  0.6g 1%

Trans Fat  0.0g

Cholesterol  0mg 0%

Sodium  20mg 1%

Total Carbohydrates  48.9g 16%

Dietary Fiber  6.3g 25%

Sugars  28.7g

Protein  2.0g

Vitamin A 37% • Vitamin C 68% Calcium 7% • Iron 11%

Nutrition Grade A

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

• Very low in saturated fat
• No cholesterol
• Very low in sodium
• High in dietary fiber
• Very high in manganese
• High in vitamin A
• Very high in vitamin C

Bad points

• Very high in sugar (though this is the "good" kind of sugar!)