A cleansing juice with celery, peppers, ginger and tomatoes |
In the meantime, if there is anything that makes me sad, it is seeing good vegetables end up in trash. If I have been overenthusiastic in buying produce in the farmer’s market or we end up not eating at home for more than a couple of days that week, then I typically make a stew of any unused vegetables with beans (chickpeas, blackeyed peas, black beans, whatever I have) and freeze it for later use.
This time, as I was cleaning out the fridge in preparation for our trip, I found a bunch of celery and some red and yellow peppers, and there were a couple of tomatoes on the countertop. (As an aside, always store tomatoes on the counter and never in the refrigerator, as they will start to taste mealy.)
So, I decided to juice. We have a Juiceman Juicer at home as we used to juice regularly a while back: carrots, celery, ginger and apples were the standard ingredients, but then we started reading studies on how juicing could be bad as all the fiber is thrown away and just the sugars remain. So we do it rarely now. In any case, I brought the juicer out yesterday and threw in all the vegetables I had. The red and yellow peppers dominated the color!
A cleansing juice with celery, peppers, ginger and tomatoes |
Recipe for a Scavenger Juice with Celery, Peppers and Tomatoes with Ginger and a Dash of Black Salt
[Printable Recipe]
Yields 3-4 glasses
Ingredients:
- 1 bunch celery broken into individual stems
- 10-12 mini peppers – yellow and red (sliced if it won’t fit in whole in to your juicer. Use 1 red bell pepper and 1 yellow bell pepper, sliced, if you do not have mini peppers.)
- 1 inch piece ginger
- 2 tomatoes, sliced in to wedges
- 2 serrano peppers (optional, if you want the additional kick of spice)
- A generous pinch of Himalayan Black Salt (called “kaala namak” in Hindi and can be found in ethnic Indian grocery stores)
- Half a lime or lemon
- You need a juicer to make this
- Put all the ingredients through the juicer using the harder vegetables like celery to push the softer ones like tomatoes and bell pepper in
- Pour into glasses, add a dash of black salt and a squeeze of lemon to taste and stir
- Serve immediately
A cleansing juice with Celery, Peppers, Ginger and Tomatoes |
It felt like the perfect way to use up the vegetables in the refrigerator, whatever the studies show about juicing. Also, I imagine this would be great for a fasting day. If you have any thoughts on juicing, do pipe up!