V-5 Veggie Fusion & other Detox Fun!

Calli Cinnamon Detox

Still detoxing. It's fun. Once you get past the first two days. I eat all day, so it's hard for me not to be able to snack. Once I'm past that, I can see how some people fast forever (like 92 days.. like Angela Stokes). Okay, maaybe not. The longest I've ever detoxed (or juice feasted/fasted) is 2 weeks, The last 4 days I remember I was sick of juice. Here, I don't think I could afford to keep enough produce around to go even that long, so I've been supplementing with other liquids, Calli Tea and homemade Kombucha. The Calli tea I have is Cinnamon and it is palatable, but definitely tastes like tonic. I like to add oranges to it (which IS a little pulpy/solids..but good enough for me). I've been really going through my ready Kombucha (and I have 15 Scobys!). I have a couple different blends and 'flavors' right now. My favorite is Raspberry Green Tea. Just green tea with dried raspberries. Although I do a secondary fermentation before bottling my kombucha, I think the raspberries give the culture a little boost of sugar to digest. They also make the tea a beautiful bright pink.

Raspberry Kombucha

 After grocery shopping, it's been really hard to resist snacking on all our yummy fruit! And, I thinned a bajillion beet green yesterday and I just want to eat them! I'm going to break my fast tonight or tomorrow morning so I can protein carb load.

Rainbow of Health!

Here is a recipe for my favorite way to drink a V-8 kind of juice (without the salt and that cold veggie soup thing):

V-5 Veggie Fusion
3 Tomatoes
2 Carrots
1 Celery Rib
1 Handful Parsley (no need to pick off leaves-whole thing)
1 Clove Garlic
1 1-inch piece Jalepeno (mine are frozen, works fine)
1 Handful Spinach or mixed greens

Juice (or blend on high speed, then strain with mesh/fine colander). I put this on ice usually because I forget to refrigerate the tomatoes beforehand. I like this drink cold. So one trick is to refrigerate all the ingredients beforehand. Trust me on the garlic and jalepeno. SO good! I always want to make more! I can't wait until our tomatoes are ready! Then I won't feel so gluttonous using 3 on one drink!

Ferry in WA 2010

 Our little town has been recently blessed with the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry service. Well, it is a blessing at times. On ferry days it's definitely a bit noisier than usual. We see cars and people we don't recognize and no one waves back at you. For a few months a year, the ferry will be coming twice a week! Leaving on Monday afternoon, coming back Wednesday afternoon. We shop all day on the Tuesday in between. The deal with the ferry is you can bring your vehicle, load it up in Juneau, then bring it back, with absolutely no charge on freight (as long as your car dimensions do not change, ie. lumber longer than your vehicle. On the small aircraft that service our town, you get 70lbs of freight, every lb thereafter is $0.40 per pound and you have to be able to fit it into plane (no furniture etc). Until this last year, the only way to get anything here was by plane or lightweight (a sloooow cargo service heavily used to get mail, Uhauls, etc. to Alaska).

Not all boxes are as they seem....

As nice and inexpensive (well-less expensive) as using the ferry is, I found myself wondering why in the world we put ourselves through this. It's madness, it's tiring, it drains your account. A 25lb bag of duck feed for example is $26. We pay .40 cents a lb just to get it here. When you are ordering 10 bags, plus dog food, it really adds up. And that is just for the animals. It's only $15 for a 50 lb bag of the same feed in the lower 48 (according to my research). Yes, back to wondering why we live like this... oh yeah, it's Alaska! Imagine what the first Alaskans had to do to survive! Groceries are a luxury! (and so is Alaskan Beer!-says the hubs).

Any Funny Caption Ideas?