So I decided I wanted to play with my Ninja Blender/Food Processor. So I happened across a “Weekend Juice Cleanse” with Joe Cross on the Dr. Oz Show. So I figured this is as good as any to play with.
One thing I did discover—you should use an actual juicer if you plan to follow these recipes as is. I have an actual juicer—but, since it’s still in the box and I haven’t read the instructions on it yet, it just seemed quicker to use the blender.
But a blender doesn’t quite work the same like I thought it would. After blending and crushing everything to mush, it still was not drinkable through a straw or anything. It just chopped everything up finely but it was still too thick. So I did have to add some type of liquid (apple juice, lemonade, whatever) to the blending for each drink until I thought it looked drinkable-er (possibly not a real word in the dictionary, but I’m not losing any sleep over it).
Juice #1—Carrot Apple Ginger Juice
This was actually very good. I absolutely loved this drink. It was perfectly sweet with the apple and I loved the taste of ginger in it. I had never used fresh ginger before and wasn’t sure how to ‘work’ that log-looking thing in the grocery store they told me was ginger. It was tree bark, for goodness sake. What do you do with tree bark?! So, naturally, I did some research on the Internet before I screwed the whole thing up. It wasn’t as scary or as hard as it looked. Real easy. Loved the taste it gave to the drink.
Juice #2—Gazpacho Juice
Ewww. Yuck. Good luck drinking this concoction! And I put in only 1/8 of a red onion—not 1/4—and could still taste too much of the onion. I felt like I was being punished for something and that I’ve never wanted to apologize so quickly before in my life.
Juice #3—Mean Green Juice
This was more of a drinkable crunchy. Kale always does that. I was able to muster this down with no problem. I’m convinced some of the apple juice I used helped with the taste. But, nonetheless, I drank my 8 kale leaves with no problem.
Juice #4—Citrus Inspired Green Juice
This was blech! The recipe calls for only 6 clementines—but I’ve never used so many clementines in my life! I ended up throwing in at least a good 12-13 clementines into it and some extra apple juice. It’s not hard to drink your veggies if you can get the drink to mostly taste like fruit. If it tastes sweet enough, I can scarf down 8 leaves of kale and 8 leaves of Swiss chard all day long. Needless to say, I had to concoct this one to my own liking or it wasn’t gonna happen.
Juice #5—Sunset Blend Juice
This was another drink that needed some extra fruit. You can really taste the raw red bell pepper. As long as you keep the vegetables in there, concoct it with fruit and juice to your own liking so you can down it with pleasant thoughts.
Recipes for—The Weekend Juice Cleanse
Now, there are some juice drinks that are straight vegetable that I have no problem drinking straight up—but they have to be made and blended with the right kind of vegetables that I like. Otherwise, as you read above, it will be doused with fruitiness.
So, if you have nothing else to do today, get a juicer and load your body up on nothing but fruits and vegetables and see if your body feels much better than it normally does.
And don’t for a minute think I did this juice thing as instructed—all 5 drinks each day for the 3-day weekend. Pahleese! I just couldn’t. I could only attempt 2 drinks a day at most. To make up for the ones I couldn’t drink, I just doubled-up on the ones that I could. But, I will say, they kept me pretty full most of the day.
Take-Away Life Lesson: If you want to try a juice cleanse, find one you can actually tolerate—otherwise, you’re not really following that particular juice regimen at all by the time you’re done with all your personal doctoring up of it all. But pushing all the different buttons on the blender is always fun.
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