Juicy Summer
Summer in San Francisco means fog, layers, and frequent escapes to warmer, sunnier microclimates. It means being proud of a sunburn and jealous of a tan. It means 65 degrees is shorts weather and dammnit if I won’t sit in a beer garden and drink all day, even if I’m low key shivering the whole time!
Luckily, we’ve got lots of ways to escape Karl the Fog, or at least convince ourselves that he’s totally not cramping our style. Whether it’s an escape to the Russian River or a trip to the farmers’ market, we’re not about to let a little fog cock block our love affair with summer.
Sweater weather or not, summer means there’s an abundance of juicy, sun-ripened fruits and veggies everywhere you look. It’s like the earth has been holding its breath all year long, and has finally given up. One second, you’re complaining about how sick of butternut squash and kale you are, and the next, you’re standing over your kitchen sink eating peach after peach after peach. Where did all this stuff come from, and what the heck are we supposed to do with it??
In an effort to keep up with the madness that shows up in my CSA box every week, I’ve dusted off my juicer and gotten to work.
Side note: We just got a new CSA! CSA stands for community supported agriculture, and is a program that allows anyone to buy into a farm’s crops. They’ll give you whatever’s ready for harvest that week and either ship it to your house or bring it somewhere close by. Our new CSA is from Greenhearts Family Farm, and it’s seriously the bees knees. For $36 I got all this, plus the warm fuzzies that I’m supporting the local farming community and eating organic. Win win win!
Greehearts Family Farm
Don’t have a juicer? What are you waiting for?! Mine was pretty inexpensive and is surprisingly easy to clean. It may take up some valuable real estate in your kitchen, but like my friend Marcel says, it’s worth it.
Here are 5 steps to get you on your juicing high horse:
Buy a juicer. Don’t make it complicated. Just get this one. If you become a juicing addict, you can upgrade later.
Get yer fruits and veggies! Sign up for a CSA, order local produce online, or pick your lazy butt up and go to the farmers’ market! Alemany is my SF favorite for cheap and delicious treats.
Prep, prep, prep! Most fruits and vegetables require very little prep in order to be juiced.
Apples: Cut away the core. Those seeds are bad news for the blades of the juicer.
Beets: Skin ‘em. I don’t think you actually have to do this, but beet skins are kinda gross, so use your best judgment.
Fruits with rinds: Peel them! Why would you want to drink rind juice? Ew.
Ginger: Get that skin offa’ there!
Fruits with pits: No pits allowed in the juicer. Except for Brad Pitt. He can do whatever he wants.
Juice away! The opportunities are endless! No parents’ no rules!
Drink up. This stuff degrades quickly, so drink your juice fresh. If you have to make it the night before, that’s cool. Just don’t tell anyone. Not even your mother.
These two concoctions are a couple of my recent faves. They’re fruit forward, for all you green-phobes, but also packed with lots of energy and health boosting vitamins.
Watermelon Fresca
Coupled with the recent SCOTUS ruling, the newly re-opened (and since destroyed) Dolores Park, and an unusual amount of sunshine, it was obviously a routy Pride weekend in SF. Before transitioning to strictly alcoholic beverages, we kicked the celebration off with this ultra-refreshing too-good-to-be-true watermelon juice.
Ingredients (juice for 2-3)
½ watermelon, cut into large pieces
1 cucumber, cut into large pieces
1 lime, peeled
Handful of mint, muddled and mixed in at the end
Sweet Greens
When your company outgrows its office, your lease expires, and everything keeps inexplicably breaking and/or exploding (see: toaster oven), it’s time to move. Chewse recently packed up and moved down the street to a wildly massive, super cool new warehouse space. With moving, comes a lot of throwing things away, but I wasn’t going to let our brand spankin’ new Fruit Guys delivery go to waste. No sir! So what did I do? I made this juice!
Ingredients (juice for 1)
2 apples, cores removed
1 Persian cucumber, cut into large pieces
1 kiwi, peeled
The OG
I don’t know about you, but when I think about juice, I think about this juice. It’s a punch in the face, and you may be afraid of your pee a couple hours later (it’s okay, you’re not dying…it’s just the beets), but it’s really really tasty and good for you in lots of ways I’m not going to research right now!
Ingredients
Beets, peeled
Carrots, cut into large pieces
Ginger, peeled
Green apples, cores removed