Today has totally felt like a Saturday. Monday? Really?

My little juice prank went off without a hitch this morning you’ll be glad to know. He’s a good sport and shares my crazy sense of humor. He laughed at the lid on the juice and said that it was definitely one joke that could have gone horribly wrong, but he would have been more sad over lost juice than a messy fridge.

After juice jokes, I changed into bike riding gear and had a little kiwi for a snack before heading out.

Home again 56 minutes and 14.5 miles later I snacked on carrots and salsa as I made lunch for everyone.

Veggie sandwiches for me and the man. Who needs cheese and mayo when you’ve got avocado? Nature’s creamy goodness if you ask me!

Don’t pout little sprout, it’ll all work out.

And a little handful of raisins and almonds for dessert.

Notice there has not been much Green and Black dark chocolate love these days? After reading Thrive I’ve been inspired to go without it for a while. Coffee too. It’s been over a week since my last cup of coffee. I had one day of a mild headache but I’m feeling free of any caffeine addiction. Brendan Brazier talks about caffeine being a stimulating food and if you can cut stimulating foods out of your diet (other stimulating foods include refined grains, refined sugar, processed carbs) you can eliminate food cravings. I’m giving it the old college try because why not. So far I’m having good luck with it. I’ve by no means eaten my last piece of chocolate and am not swearing off coffee forever. I do enjoy a little experimenting though and right now I’m feeling motivated.

Later in the afternoon Zak took the girls to the playground and I headed off to buy groceries all by myself. I didn’t even know what to do with myself. Free to browse, read labels, go from one end of the store to the other and back again on a whim! No stops at the bathroom! Any check out lane I wanted! Wheeeee I stood on the back of the shopping cart and sailed down the aisles singing “She’s a Maniac” as I threw dried apples into my cart with reckless abandon.

Apparently I did a little too much browsing and savoring of my solitary shopping trip because I was positively starving by the time I got out of the store. I ripped open the bag of crispin apples as I was loading up groceries and chomped down on it standing right there in the parking lot!

This was not an organic apple and I did not wash it before eating it. I have no idea if this in my head or what but immediately after eating this apple my lips and the tip of my tongue felt slightly numb! Seriously. It’s been 3 or 4 hours now and I’m still feeling it even if I forget about it for a while. Am I nuts? Don’t answer that.  I can see the newspaper headline now:

Psychosomatic Lip and Tongue Numbness from Conventionally Grown Apples Sends Woman to Loony Bin

That’s one story I’m definitely gonna read.

The apple helped curb my hunger but I totally munched on (washed!) grape tomatoes as I unpacked groceries. I bought these from a farm stand on the way home and they are the best tomatoes I’ve had all season.

I was sort of late getting home and Zak had made some tofu veggie stir fry for for dinner.  I had a little of that while I was trying to figure out what I really in the mood for.

Talk about dinner randomness. Even after an apple, tomatoes and some stir fry I was still feeling like I needed something more and whipped up the White Bean Dip recipe I saw in Health magazine this month.

Steal This Dish? Don’t mind if I do.

The recipe called for fresh sage but I didn’t have any. I do however have rosemary growing in the garden and used a sprig of that.

I warmed a little extra virgin olive oil in a pan and added some minced garlic and chopped rosemary.

After they sauteed together for a little while and everything had soften up I stirred it into some rinsed and mashed cannellini beans.

Mixed and smeared onto some toasted Ezekiel bread. I actually see a lot of possibility with this dish.  I need to use cannellini beans more often. I have to remember this one!  It was a tasty, fast and easy meal. Or part of a 4 course meal apparently.

I was definitely feeling full after the beans and toast. Intuitive Eating and a little reflection makes me think I didn’t eat enough for lunch today and therefore lead to feeling insatiable this evening. I’m feeling normal now though, especially after a cup of tea. My choices were healthy but I still feel like I over did it. Oh well, tomorrow is a new day.

That new day being Tuesday, right?

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Oh vegetable juice, how I’ve missed thee! It’s been two days!

Thanks to Heather I’ve been adding beets to my Green Lemonade lately, which turns the juice beet red (literally) and is now more appropriately called Magenta Juice.

Brendan Brazier recommends in Thrive adding beet greens to your salads. Well if it’s good in a salad then it’s gotta be just as good in juice!

Instead of just composting these beet greens like usual, today they were added to the mix. Into the juicer went beet greens, the beet at the end said greens, romaine, lemon, ginger and cucumber. I am out of apples so I threw in a couple of carrots for good measure.

Sometimes Zak will come home from work at the end of the day and will find evidence that I made green juice while he was gone, but there’s no juice for him to be found. Maybe he sees the juicer parts drying in the dish rack, the pulp in the compost bucket, or the stupid green juice grin on my face that I can’t wipe off for the life of me.

And my answer is always one of the same:

Oh, you wanted some?
It’s best to drink it when it’s FRESH!
OK, yeah, I drank it.

He’s swimming this morning and was therefore not here when I made juice.

Angel on my shoulder: Leave some for Zak. LEAVE SOME FOR ZAK.
Devil on other shoulder: Hide the evidence! HIDE THE EVIDENCE!

Alrighty, alright. He does go to work so I can buy the vegetables, I suppose I can leave him a little.

Hey man, I left you some! What’s the problem?!

So these little juice shenanigans were really just meant for a smart ass post this morning but I decided to share the juice joke love with Zak too. I left his little juice in plain site in the fridge for when he gets home and asks if I made juice for him. “ummm yeah, there’s a little left in the fridge for you…”

If you look carefully though, behind that white crate of nuts is his actual juice.

Notice that I put a lid on that jar? Yeah, it would be my beet juice luck that he either:

A. turns into the Incredible Hulk when sees his little juice and sends that jar of red dye flying when he picks up the refrigerator and throws it.

OR more likely:

B. doesn’t even see the little thing of juice, pushes the nut crate back when moving things around in the fridge to find the juice I said I left for him, knocks the glass over and douses the back of the refrigerator in beet juice. That lid is my karmic insurance policy.

Moving on.

When I left you on Friday, fruit cereal and I were just good friends. Now, we are lovers.

Seriously. I love. this. stuff. There are so many different ways you can make it.  This is only the tip of the fruit cereal ice burg. I ate this for breakfast all weekend. For this morning’s bowl I diced up a banana and a white peach. I tossed in a couple of raisins that I soaked in warm water this morning to soften up (I’m out of prunes!), coated the whole fruit mess in flax and shredded coconut. Topped with pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds and unsweetened vanilla hemp milk.  Raw, vegan, gluten free, delicious.

Now I’m just waiting for Zak to get home so I can go for a bike ride on this fine Labor Day morning, but not before I pretend nothing is out of the ordinary with a tiny glass of juice.

Hi, my name is Alison and I’m a fruit cereal lover and a serial jokester.

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