PECAN JUICE!!!

OK....well not really pecan juice but i had to tie it in with my blog somehow right? :)  Well i know its a bit late for Thanksgiving but i wanted to post my pecan pie recipe so those that have asked me about it can make it themselves.  I've been making these for YEARS and i've added and changed a few things to make it what it is today...those that have tried it know how frickin' awesome it is...lol.  The recipe itself is pretty basic but its the extra steps i take that kinda set it off.  So here are the ingredients you'll need.  This recipe will make enough for two pies since pie crusts come in two's.  I haven't tried making my own crust yet but that's on my to do list.  Go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 degrees while you get everything ready...

Ingredients:
1 cup Karo Light Corn Syrup
1 cup Karo Dark Corn Syrup
7 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups pecan halves
2 deep dish pie crusts

Go ahead and mix up everything except for the pecan halves...it should look like this:

 

Now what you need to do is STIR the pecans in, dont MIX them in or you'll chop them all up...it should now look like this:

Ok so now go ahead and get some foil and cut it into strips like this...about 2 to 3 inches wide...you'll need about 4 strips...
 

What you're going to do is fold the strips in half and then line the edge of your pie crust with the foil...just pinch it onto the crust as you go around in a circle...usually takes about two strips to cover each pie.
 

Here's a close up of what the crust will look like with the foil on it.  What this does is prevent your crust from burning.  It will still brown just fine, but it wont burn on you...trust me i've made this a thousand times and it works!!!
 

Now give your filling another stir and then SCOOP it into your pies...if you pour it then you'll get more liquid than pecans in the pie...scooping makes sure you get the same amount of each into your pies, this is what it should look like...
 

Here's a closeup of how much to put in your pie...do NOT put too much or else it'll spill over as it cooks...the filling expands and even balloons up but will go back down when the pie cools.  Try not to get any filling on the foil if you can because it can cause problems later...i'll explain in a bit.
 

Now put both of your pies on a cookie sheet in the middle of the oven...again by putting a cookie sheet on the bottom you will keep the bottom of the crust from burning and allow it to cook evenly.

Now here's the KICKER!!!  The pies will be in there for at least 50 minutes...when it gets close, check on the COLOR of the pecans on top...when they get to a shade just lighter than how you want it to look in the end, place a sheet of foil OVER the pies in the picture...do not fold them down just place it on top.  What this will do is keep the top of the pie from burning while still allowing the pie to cook.
 

Go ahead and stick a toothpick into the middle of the pies towards the end and when it comes out clean you're done.  It doesn't have to be completely clean, if it comes out with the filling stuck to the toothpick that looks like a gel or jelly then you're good, it'll stiffen up as it cools, what you don't want is for it to still be liquid.  Once the toothpick comes out clean go ahead and take your pies out to let them cool.  Now here's one last important tip...take the foil off of the crust BEFORE it cools.  If you accidentally got filling on the foil and you end up letting it cool, the foil will stick to the crust, and that's no fun, trust me...but if you take the foil off right as soon as you take it out of the oven, you wont have any problems with it whatsover.  If ya followed my recipe to a "T", your pie will come out looking like this:

See how the crust is not the least bit burnt, yet is still browned and crispy...same goes for the top of the pie, nice golden brown without any black pecans on top...and YES that is my pie, i promise you its not store bought!!!
 

Now you might ask yourself what's the difference between my way and other ways?  With my way your pie wont come out looking like this:
 

 

Pie all burnt and dried up...who wants to serve that at their table...not me!!!  So there you go...there's "Big Los' World Famous Pecan Pie" recipe..., it took me a while to convince myself to post it because its been my little secret for years...but feel free to try it out and let me know what you think!!!

Banana What!?!?

OK so I'm trying to use up the last of my fresh fruit that I stockpiled when I went with my sister to Costco.  So I put together this juice that starts with my base vegetables I tend to use and then mixed up the fruits to get the taste I want.  I got lazy yesterday and didn't feel like making juice so I bought a 32 ounce bottle of some off brand juice to try it out...it tasted the same as the Naked Juice but was about $2 less...which is pretty good.  Theirs had a bit of a banana taste to it so I decided to go with that.  The color of the drink may not look too appetizing but I promise you its really good.  I could have thrown 1/4 beet in there to change it to a reddish color but i decided to leave it as is.  Here's what this one has in it:

9 red apples
3 oranges
3 carrots
3 cups spinach
8 cups of red grapes
4 cups crushed ice
2 bananas

After juicing everything I ran it through a strainer to take out any extra pulp that was in there, I'm not too crazy about pulp myself.  After you strain it, add your crushed ice and stir till its almost gone...and boy lemme tell you!!!  You can taste the hint of apple and grapes but has a predominantly banana taste to it...bananas carry a lot of flavor, but its not overpowering, just right I'd say.  This yielded about 130 ounces of juice or almost 9 servings...so it should last me and my wife about 3 days.  If you are really interested in juicing I strongly recommend you try the recipes I've posted on here.  If you've never juiced before and you just start throwing stuff in there you're not gonna be please with the taste and might possibly give up on juicing all together, which i don't want anyone to do.  I post these recipes because i want others to have a positive experience with juicing.  and if your juice doesn't taste good, you're not gonna keep doing it...you have to like the taste to be able to get you through the 10+ days you may be doing!

On a side note, this is the container I'm using now for my juice..its air tight, dishwasher safe so its super easy to clean and holds 32 ounces with is two servings for me, enough to get me through my work day.  I got it at Academy for like $10 which I think it is well worth it.  It may look like a squirt bottle but its pretty hard so you don't have to worry about crushing it if you throw it in your bag.  Hope yall liked the blog...lemme know if you try this one and what you think of it!!!

Frozen WHAT!!!???

Ok well i've heard and read that frozen vegetables and fruits may actually be better than fresh...which to me was totally the opposite of what I thought.  Better in that they pack more nutrient-packed than "fresh" produce that has been sitting on shelves and because frozen is typically going to be cheaper...which for some people can mean the difference between juicing and just trying something else.  So I started googling around and read quite a few articles on it and the consensus does say frozen can be better...here is a little blurb I got from one of the articles...I chopped out all the extra stuff to give yall the Cliff Notes version...

  While canned vegetables tend to lose a lot of nutrients during the preservation process, frozen vegetables may be even more healthful than some of the fresh produce sold in supermarkets.  Fruits and vegetables chosen for freezing tend to be processed at their peak ripeness, a time when—as a general rule—they are most nutrient-packed.

  While the first step of freezing vegetables—blanching them in hot water or steam to kill bacteria and arrest the action of food-degrading enzymes—causes some water-soluble nutrients like vitamin C and the B vitamins to break down or leach out, the subsequent flash-freeze locks the vegetables in a relatively nutrient-rich state.
 
  On the other hand, fruits and vegetables destined to be shipped to the fresh-produce aisles around the country typically are picked before they are ripe, which gives them less time to develop a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals. Outward signs of ripening may still occur, but these vegetables will never have the same nutritive value as if they had been allowed to fully ripen on the vine. In addition, during the long haul from farm to fork, fresh fruits and vegetables are exposed to lots of heat and light, which degrade some nutrients, especially delicate vitamins like C and the B vitamin thiamin.

So now I am going to start looking for places to buy frozen produce in bulk.  This SHOULD drastically cut down on how much it costs to make these juices and allow me to stock up on more of them so I have more of them available to experiment around with if I'm feeling a little bit brave.  I'll do some shopping around and let yall know what I find!!!  Thanks for stopping by!!!

JUICE THIS!!!

Allright this juice is a variation of the Summer Punch recipe I posted the other day.  I'm trying to get to the point where I can do all my juicing on one day and have enough to last me the week.  This took me about one hour to do from the very beginning, taking everything out of the fridge, to the very end, everything all cleaned up and put away.  When you think abou tit, its actually pretty good because i don't have to worry about making any meals (for myself of course) for the entire week, its super quick, easy, and really good for you...what else can you ask for.  Oh and for those that can't believe it, these juices ARE very filling...believe it or not. 

I went to the Fiesta grocery store over in south side to check it out today.  I usually go to El Rio Grande off of I-35 and Berry because they have the best fruit and cheapest prices, but i have been going to new stores looking for the bigger and better deal...well i found it today.  Fiesta, I would have to say, has the BEST fruit at the cheapest prices I have seen so far...I bought all kinds of stuff, and not only did I spend less than do when I shop at Albertsons and Walmart, I actually spent less than when I go to El Rio Grande.  People say that juicing is expensive and so thats why they dont do it, but here are the numbers that I see when i do MY shopping.  I'll use Albertsons as my baseline since that's where I started shopping first...when I went there I would spend about $160-$180 a week on groceries...change that to Walmart and my bill drops down to about $120-130 a week, NOW to El Rio Grande and my grocery bill dramatically dropped to $100-110 a week.  Well today I was expecting my bill to be around $100 because I went crazy on the fruits/vegs because of all the sales they had going on, well when the lady told me my total I was shocked...$86!!!  Now THATS awesome!!!  

So I brought all my stuff home and wanted to put together another juice that had about a 50/50 mix of fruits and vegs...and dont just assume that just because it has fruit in it, that its not good for you...a lot of these fruits have benefits of their own, other than making the juice sweeter and visually more appealing...so here's what this juice had in it:

6 large carrots
2 LARGE broccoli crowns
3 cucumbers
1/2 head of cabbage
1 medium beet
1 1/2 pineapple
6 large red apples
30 strawberries
3 cups red grapes
3 cups black grapes
6 cups crushed ice

Well believe it or not this was enough to make a little over 2 1/3 gallons of juice...so lets do the math.  2.3 gallons of juice is roughly 294 ounces.  Say you are drinking 16 ounces per serving, which is how much I drink...and that gives you around 18 servings.  Depending on how much juice your body needs a day you will more than likely need between 3 and 5 servings per day...I would say in the beginning your body will be soaking it up while its detoxing so say 5.  Right now I'm drinking about 3 a day...so this would be enough juice for 6 days...not too shabby ay?  Well this is what the juice looks like when I'm all done with it...

I want to try another one so if anyone has any suggestions as far as main fruit combinations let me know and I'll add the vegs that it needs and tweak it until I feel its just right...thanks again for stopping by and make sure to share this blog with your friends!!!  See yall later!!!

Juice or Smoothies???

Which one to pick???
Ok well a friend of mine asked me why would I pick juicing over smoothies...because with juicing you are throwing away quite a bit of pulp...and instead of putting a really long post on FB I thought it would be better to post it here...here is my OPINION as to why juicing is better than drinking smoothies...

"I say they are two different animals all together.  The one big difference being the smoothies are filled with pulp/fiber which will make you feel fuller a lot quicker than a juice...and because of the amount of pulp in a smoothie, it takes a lot longer for all of the "good stuff" to get into your system because your body has to digest the smoothie before it can extract whatever it needs. Also you will feel fuller, longer with a smoothie for that same reason, you body takes longer to digest it.  With juice its already in a liquid form so your body more quickly absorbs everything, which is why with a juice, you'll have to "go", 20 or 30 minutes after you drink it...the body grabs what it needs and then passes the excess water through your system.

The other advantage of juicing over smoothies, in my opinion, is that is serves more as a "reset" button for your body.  What I mean by that is once your body realizes that its not going to get more solid food, or "quick energy" it starts to metabolize its stored energy, or the fat, that you have for what it needs.  This is another reason why you'll feel more tired in the beginning, your body has to work harder to burn up the fat, to use as energy...whereas before, you were just providing it to your body, albeit not very GOOD energy, but energy none the less.  With juicing you're not starving your body, you're not forcing your body to do anything.  Your body is going to do what it was meant to do...which is store "energy" in the way of fat when you have an excess of it, and burn it up when your body needs it.  You are still pumping your body full of nutrients with the juice, so its getting essential vitamins that it needs...but has to go to its "reserves" for everything else.  Whereas with smoothies, you're still getting a lot of fiber and other nutrients in the form of pulp, which your body is having to digest to use it as energy.  If your body is having to process the food you're taking in, it isn't going to "need" to have to metabolize the stored energy in all those places we wanna get rid of.  This is the "reset" button that I am talking about.  

I think smoothies would be good at MAINTAINING your weight because you still get all the fruits/vegs you need as well as the fiber, all in a very natural way.  But as far as shocking your system and getting it to burn up what it has, i feel  you have to give it that kick in the pants it needs.  I'm not saying you cant lose weight with smoothies, but I think you will lose it quicker by juicing.  Now again this is just MY opinion...so take it for what its worth...hope that answers your question... :)

7-Day Juice Fast...

Ok so today I started day one of my 7-day juice fast.  This time I’m going to try a couple things different.  I’m going to mix up my juice so that I’m getting about a 50/50 mix of fruits and vegs instead of the green juice from before.  Also, the first time I cut out coffee straight up and man it made me super tired, so I brought coffee back in on the last two days and saw no negative results from it, so I’ll still be drinking coffee in the mornings and two to three servings of juice throughout the day.  I weighed myself on the scale we have at work and I’m starting this 7-day juice fast at 145.5lbs which is a lot less from when I started the first time (161lbs).  So I don’t expect to have any problems reaching my goal of 20lbs in the next week, and since my body is used to the juice I shouldn’t experience any of the side effects I did the last time, but if for some reason I do, I’ll make sure to let everyone know. 

The good thing about juicing is it is very forgiving, from what I can gather.  After I came off my original 10-day juice fast I have been eating regular dinners and lunches on occasion and I have been able to still lose weight, albeit not as much as before…but if all I have to is drink one juice for breakfast/lunch a day and still eat normal at night and not only NOT put on the weight but still lose it, WITHOUT having to exercise…shoot I’ll take it!  Heck I’ve been eating burgers and fries, pizza, shoot last night I had some wingstop with some of those awesome fries they have…MAN!!!  Ooo it was good!!!  Name another diet that lets you eat like that and still allow you to lose weight without having to exercise!  Well I’ll keep those of you updated on what kind of results I have…should be a very interesting week!!!  PEACE!!!

Summer Punch Baby...YEA!!!

Summer Punch...
Ok so Edwin, my co-worker that first introduced me to juicing, started a 10 day juice fast yesterday and now I'm thinking I wanna do it again to.  I weighed myself earlier and I'm down 15.5 lbs from when I started, and I KNOW my 20lb goal is very attainable but I wanna get there as quick as I can.  I'm starting to see the OUTLINE of six pack people and its inspiring me even more...yea crazy huh...not necessarily the outline of THE six pack...you cant see the 6 blocks, more like A six pack...i.e. one big block...but hey the outside is there, just have to work on the inside right?  :)  

Well being in a rush to watch the Chargers vs Chiefs, I hurried up and threw together a quick juice from my notes and added my base vegs to it.  It came out REALLY good, probably one of the top two juices I could drink all day long.  I liked it so much after I made it, I doubled everything which netted me about 90 ounces of juice (about a gallon and a half)...which if you're drinking 15.5 oz at a time, is about 5.8 servings.  Here's what it has in it:

4 large carrots
4 cups spinach
2 large broccoli crowns 
1/2 beet
40 small/medium strawberries
1 pineapple
6 cups of red grapes

As you can see its got a lot of vegs in it but I can promise you, you cant taste any of it in the drink.  I think this time around I am going to drink my fruit/veg juices instead of just straight veg juices like I did last time...it should net the same results just as long as the drinks aren't TOO sweet.  Hope yall try this one, definitely worth it!!!