It's been a long haul since September. I started back to work full-time and have had a tough time finding a balance between full-time work, daycare and being a mom. Not to mention, being an absent blog partner:( I was still nursing my daughter into December and finally said goodbye to breastfeeding. It was a bittersweet farewell, but I nursed her until she was 19 months and she was a tough one. Up every night for many hours and the pain she seemed to inflict was just not pleasant. This means that I get to start working on me. I found a great cleanse in my Whole Living magazine, that focuses on eating items that I already love to eat or am willing/wanting to try.
I started the cleanse on the 1st, just because it is a Sunday and we were out for New Year's Eve. I shopped on Friday and could not easily find one of the ingredients, 100% pomegranate juice. So, our New Year's Eve involved my husband making squash pies and me making pomegranate juice and vegetarian meatballs for our party. Amongst the cooking chaos, my 1 year old daughter fell and bloodied her nose and I whipped off to the thrift store after receiving a phone call from Free Range Mama about a great stoneware muffin pan that I had been looking for. Just a regular day at Healthy Green Mama's house.
When I purchased the pomegranate fruit, I saw a little posting in the store that made getting the seeds so easy. The method was much like this post. I also read that pomegranates are selected for their weight and not their colour. This selection method has worked well for me. But how much juice can one get from a pomegranate? Each little, tiny seed is so precious. My Antioxidant Smoothie recipe called for 1 cup of juice and I would probably drink twice this amount during the week, so 2 cups was my goal.
 |
| First, I quartered the fruit and attempted to harvest each precious seed. |
 |
| I tore the membrane, removed the seeds in the water and skimmed the pieces of floating membrane with a slotted spoon. I wasn't too fussy, because I was going to juice my pomegranate seeds with a steam juicer. |
 |
| The bottom basin is filled 3/4 full with water |
 |
The catch basin collects the juice that is strained and a tube deposits it into the container. |
 | |
| The seeds in the top straining pan are equivalent to 5 pomegranate fruits. |
The water in the juicer is boiled on the stove and the steam comes up though the centre, heating the seeds, until they burst and the juice falls down the holes to the catch basin, where the tube collects the juice for dispensing in a separate container. The whole process is lengthy, taking 1-3 hours to totally juice a fruit. This is dependent on the amount of fruit, type of fruit and whether you help it along by mashing the fruit. The mashing will cause some pulp to come out with the juice. I left this juicing project with my husband, went shopping for 45 minutes and the process was still continuing when I returned:)
 |
| These are the spent seeds. I mashed a bit of juice from them at the very end. |
So, after a day in the kitchen of messy pomegranate fruit, juice leaking on the floor, kids afoot and a tower of dishes I ended up with some fresh pomegranate juice. How much did I get and was it worth it?
 |
| 5 pomegranates yielded about 4.5 cups of juice. |
Was it all worth it? You betch ya! I ended up with enough juice to make 8 smoothies:) The smoothies were a bit tart, but edible and when it is the only item you are eating for breakfast, you can't be too fussy!
 |
| Pomegranate and Frozen Berries Smoothie |
No comments:
Post a Comment