Adventures in Juicing

As newbie juicers, things don't always go as planned.  

Exhibit A:

Galangal.

Not to be confused with ginger.

Galangal is NOT ginger, even though they look quite similar.

It doesn't help that vegetables in Dubai sometimes have weird names.  For instance, green pepper is "capsium" and arugula is "rocket".

Juicing blunder #3 started when Jamie, juicing guru of Collegiate American School, told me to take a shot of ginger/apple juice in the morning to wake me up.  It's not always easy to find everything you need in Dubai, so when I stumbled upon galangal in the veggie aisle, I assumed it was ginger.  Even my friends thought it was ginger. 

I was overly excited to wake up the next morning to surprise Casey with my "ginger" and apple morning shot.  I threw a huge hunk in the juicer with a green apple, poured it in two espresso cups and told Casey I had a surprise for him.  He was skeptical but I told him to just take it like a shot.  I let him go first, of course, because I'm polite like that.

He only drank about half of the shot and immediately knew something was wrong.  It burned all the way down and he ran to the bathroom ready to puke.  I took a small sip of mine and it didn't seem right so we googled galangal... Yep, turns out it's not ginger; it's a relative of ginger like jalapenos are relatives of green peppers.  It's described as having a sharp pungent flavor similar to a combination of black pepper and ginger and is often used to make curry.  Maybe I should have looked into it a little more before poisoning my husband.

Besides that amazing experiment, juicing is still rocking our lives.  It's EXPENSIVE, but I feel so happy and healthy in the mornings, and my students love asking me what's in my juice.  Casey had the brilliant idea for me to bring the juicer to school so they can try it out.  We're doing that Pinterest "Countdown to Summer" balloon thing, so that'll definitely be one of the fun activities I stick in a balloon.  I think the parents will appreciate it more than an ice cream party, too :)

Here are a few pictures from our Friday morning juice.

The glorious machine.

Juice deliciousness.  Don't worry, we scoop the foam out with a mini pool net before we drink it.

The leftover pieces of the fruits and veggies.  According to Casey, it tastes like "nothing".

Matching juices with kissing straws.

My favorite juicing buddy.

And because I know you're dying to see them, here are our new plants - yay!

 Our glorious Peace Lily.  It's poisonous to cats so it's on a stool.

Mini plants in our window.

In other awesome news, I'm having my first oil pulling experience right now.  I ventured out of my comfort zone and bought bright pink lipstick, which looks cool but makes your teeth look dull.  So I was looking for a natural way to whiten my teeth and found oil pulling.  You basically stick a spoonful of coconut oil in your mouth, swish it around and rub it on your teeth and gums for 15ish minutes.  Right now I've had it in for about one minute and it's pretty weird.  My friend mentioned it last week and everything I've read about it pretty much says the same thing.  It brightens your smile, whitens your teeth, improves oral hygiene by pulling out harmful toxins and can even do things like improve your skin and relieve your sinuses.  I'll let you know how it goes.  I think the idea is to do it while you're doing something else, like taking a shower, so you don't think about the weirdness happening in your mouth.  And I think that's what I shall do right now.

Happy Friday, friends!