Green Juicing: Growing & Recipes Ideas

Anyone else here like to juice their veggies? Do you have a favorite recipe to share? How about something you use in your drinks from your garden that others might not think about using? What juicer do you use?

I started juicing last summer and planted my own veggies for juicing starting this winter. My Kale is doing fabulously, but because of our warm winter my Swiss Chard is trying to bolt on me as is my Chinese Cabbage. Oh well... I could be looking at another 16 inches of snow this weekend like my sister and brother-in-law in Minneapolis so I won't whine, LOL!

I have an Omega Slow Juicer. I started with a centrifugal style juicer and hated the mess and clean up. Since I like the green juices the most, I got the Omega. It's amazing how much juice it can wring out of a leaf! Clean up takes about 2 minutes so I don't mind pulling it out and using it.

What has your experience been?

I have an Omega Juicer as well. (VRT350)

My daily juice recipe is:
Kale (handful)
Spinach (handful)
Celery (2 stalks)
Carrots (3 or 4 large)
Cucumber (1 small)
Apple (1 small)

Makes about 22 oz.

Jeff

Jeff:  I have the Omega horizontal juicer that's the equivalent of the 350.  It does pasta and since I'm allergic to wheat it allows me to make fresh pasta whenever I get the craving.

Marie:  Juicing remains are FAB for the compost pile (the worms love them too!)  

My current favorite recipe is something like this:

Kale
Cabbage leaves (or what ever greens I have excess of)
cucumber
1 lemon including rind (you can eliminate that if you don't like the bite)
Large handful of mint
Large handful of Lemon Balm
1 XLarge green apple or 2 small apples

I add 8 drops of liquid stevia to each mug of juice I make.

Sometimes I add a touch of ginger root as well.

The lemon balm and mint cut through the greens taste quite a bit.

Another favorite is Sweet Potato Pie Juice

Carrots
Large Sweet Potato
Red apple
Cinnamon

Stevia to taste

Boy have I come a long way since last summer.  The first time I tasted Kale I wanted to spit it out, LOL!  Now I have some beautiful specimens in my yard!  

How much of what do you plant for juicing?  

Last summer I had Armenian Cucumbers and they were great as a base for lots of drinks.  They don't have too much of their own flavor and added a lot of moisture content.  Anything else you like to use as a base?

my wife and I love juicing. We focus a large part of our SFG on different types of greens, so that we have plenty of leaves to cut from and give the plants time to grow their leaves back. We like beet greens, turnip greens, swiss chard, kohlrabi, kale, mustard, spinach and lettuce. I like kale, my wife don't. The lettuce and mustard greens don't last long because they bolt as things begin heating up here in texas, but the others do well if I put shade cloth over them.

 I like green smoothie- 1-2 frozen bananas, 1 cup of water , frozen Mixed fruit, a handful of any greens. sometimes I add almond milk

here's my mustard, collards bed below coming up

I read in a magazine last night that pumpkin leaves and stems are edible. So I decided to look into all squash and found this great information:
http://m.voices.yahoo.com/eating-squash-leaves-other-useful-plant-bits-11225624.html

I'm so excited to have new greens for smoothies. And I'm wondering if juicing will eliminate the squash prickles. The first one who tries it, please let us know? It will be a long time before I'll have any.

So juice on, fellow "crunchy granola heads"! (That's what my son used to call me:)
CC

AtlantaMarie wrote:Has55 - I'm guessing the white pvc is for critter cages, hoop house, etc.  Is the brown pipe for irrigation?

And what are the green and black things?

Thanks.  Marie

the inner white pvc pipes is my portable SFG grid.
 the outer white pvc ,on the borders was this winter low hoop green houses. I had 6 of on them and removed all but 3, which will happen next week. I going to try another technique for next winter that I described in this thread-. page 9 ( It's wordy), The Winter Journey and greenhouse plastic

the pipe is my underground drip irrigation on steroids watering system , I got from aquajet- AQUAJET IRRIGATION DELIVERY SYSTEM. I haven't turn it on yet because it been raining lately.

the green and black thing is my wide worm bin. It seem to be working. I started a thread on what i did here- SFG, the rain and a worm bin. It's at te bottom on page 1.

CapeCoddess, that was an excellent link. Thank you.

Wonderful resource - I always wonder about what is and isn't edible leaf-wise.  My squash are getting big, I'll try some the next time I juice and let you know!

I use an champion juicer. It's old but solid. This is my second year doing sfg. Last year I didn't plant enough to generate a decent yield. This year I planted a LOT more plants and I have a bunch more seeds starting to sprout. I also have a new box that I'm starting to build.  I planted a bunch of chard, kale & cukes seeds with the hope of being able to juice. 

My general impression is you must have to grow a lot to be able to juice every day...or do you think you can just pick leaves and they will grow back? 

I was doing a detox juice diet last year. I'll see if I can find the recipes and post them.

It does take a lot to juice every day, but many plants can be picked once a week or so and keep on producing, like Kale, Swiss Chard, spinach and the like.  Just leave enough leaves for them to keep growing and they'll produce like little champs!

I have mint planted in two large patio planters.  I find it's great for cutting the green taste and grows "like a weed" as we all know.  I just cut a few stems and add it to most juices.  

Sweet potato leaves are also edible and they produce more than you can eat as the summer progresses.

I have a Breville compact going on 8 years. I juice mostly greens,cartots , apples. Ginger, tumeric are great additions too. Oh and love adding parsley. I need to upgrade soon- not sure if I'll go with a masticating or another centrifical. Any advice or suggesting ?

thanks audrey for the advice on mint. I will try it.

What about the leaves of the cucumbers?  Are they edible?
And watermelon or cantaloupe leaves?

My DDIL loves smoothies and since I grow our garden for the whole family, I'd not want to waste leaves that are good for her smoothies.
Thanks for the info everyone.

Any more recipes?

Quick search yielded this article:
http://www.gardensablaze.com/GardenQA/Edibles.htm

Thanks audrey, that answers my questions.  I've made out my list of the good things so I won't forget.  Thanks again.

I'm currently reading a fantastic book called "Rawlicious: Delicious raw recipes for radiant health". It has lots of great juice and smoothie recipes among other things. I got it from our library. Oodles of ideas for all our SFG bounty!
  
CC

MASFG wrote:I have a Breville compact going on 8 years. I juice mostly greens,cartots , apples. Ginger, tumeric are great additions too. Oh and love adding parsley. I need to upgrade soon- not sure if I'll go with a masticating or another centrifical. Any advice or suggesting ?

Sorry, I missed your post somehow!

Here's what I love about my Omega slow juicer:

1.  It cleans up in literally 2 minutes so I don't mind using it frequently.  It is very clean to use, where as my centrifugal juicer spread juice on the cabinets, counter and floor.

2.  It is very efficient and produces much less wasted food.  The waste is perfect for my worms or my compost depending on what needs to be fed more :-)

3.  The flavor is much better with the slow juicer.  It doesn't produce the heat that the friction of the centrifugal does so that the juice has a noticeably better flavor.

4.  It doesn't mix as much oxygen in when producing juice so the juice produced will stay fresh for about 3 days in the fridge.

5.  There is nothing better for getting the most out of greens than a slow juicer.  I will have a sink full of greens and will have 2 cups of remains for compost and a massive amount of juice in comparison.

6.  Once I have learned how to use the machine I never have jams.  I had jams all the time on my old machine.

7. It produces a little thicker, full body juice. You can screen it but I like the thicker texture. If you don't you might not want to go through the hassle of screening the juice.

TRADE OFFS:
1.  It has a very narrow chute to prevent over loading so food needs to be cut more.  I don't find this a big deal at all.  I chop an apple into thirds, then slice those into  about one inch strips.  It takes a few minutes more prep time which is balance out by the fast clean up time.

2.  You have to push the food through.  Again, a little slower process.

3.  Not super good for juicing fruit.  Anything hard or dry juices fabulously, the wetter the more challenging.  Alternating wet with hard stalk type items helps and going slowly helps as well.  Working too fast works against you.

WHEN YOU'RE READY
go to youtube and look for juicer comparison videos by John of "growing your greens"  He compares models against one another and lets you know their properties.  There is no PERFECT juicer, it all depends on what you want to do with it the most.

Audrey, What model is your Omega juicer? Thanks

Got left over juice pulp and feeling a bit guilty about tossing it all into the compost pile?
Check out these recipes:

61 Clever Juice Pulp Recipes: The Ultimate Guide to Use Up Juice Pulp
http://justjuice.org/juice-pulp-recipes/