Easter food and Omega Juicer

Easter is usually the occasion to have a giant roast dinner for all the family; the first big get together since Christmas. However, we're not really geared up for a big family 'do' with our tiny kitchen. Fortunately, a daughter came to the rescue with the venue for a buffet meal, with everyone to make a contribution. We volunteered an Easter Simnel cake and a loaf of bread. The food was yum and we had a good catchup and a giggle.

As the title of this post suggests we bought a juicer last week. We always have a juice drink whenever we go to Wagamama's for a meal and always enjoy it, so when we went for a meal before Easter we decided to take the plunge and get a juicer. After much googling and playing of youtube videos I decided on the Omega 8006 which is a masticating juicer which grinds the fruit and vegetables at a slow speed rather than whizzing them up in a blender. This is supposedly better at preserving the enzymes and vitamins, but one of it's really big benefits is that it is good for making nut butters. I love eating nuts and the thought of making healthy, fresh nut butter was a temptation too far. So far I've made cashew nut butter and hazelnut butter. The cashew butter was creamier than the hazelnut, but the main reason for hazelnut butter was to make a version of nutella and mmmmmm is this heavenly. I followed the recipe from Ella Woodwards book "Deliciously Ella" and it is absolutely delicious with frozen bananas that have been modged up in the juicer. Not a great description, but it made a delicious (and quick and healthy) dessert. Sorry, but it didn't last long enough for a photo! Well of course we have also made loads of juices this week. Being on holiday there has been more time for experimentation and have been following some of the recipes in Rosemary Fergusons "juice" book. We have juiced apples, carrots, celery, blueberries, redcurrants, pears, bananas, cabbage, ginger, oranges, lemons, watermelon and pineapple. I haven't yet tried the coconut, mango and sweet potato. I can confirm that it has cost an absolute fortune but it has tasted (mostly) really nice. The first juice I made I just guessed a recipe and put in far too much cabbage and ginger. It certainly tasted as if it ought to be good for you. It did prompt the purchase of the afore mentioned books and in the main, the recipes we have tried have tasted nice as well as being good for you. We had to cut back on 3 juices a day though,  because not to be too indelicate, it was having a bit of a disastrous effect on the digestion! 

Just a little footnote. The weather has been glorious this week. I've been gardening and wallpaper scraping (helping out in  a child's home) and generally busy, busy, but the best thing about the lovely weather has been the chance to dry some washing in the sun. Strange, I know. In our pokey little flat there is nowhere to hang washing outside so on a gardening day at the barns, I took the washing and HUNG it out in the sun. Whoopdedoo, fresh smelling bedding. It's the little pleasures in life......