Watermelon- what an obvious fruit to make juice from! It’s naturally “watery” and the subtle flavor is extraordinarily refreshing. Paired with lemon? Of course. It reminds me of being a kid in the summertime, specifically because I used to frequent a shop called Gina’s Italian Ice and I would most often order a lemon watermelon ice mix; it was my favorite blend and so delicious!

Watermelon & lemons make a great couple; last time I remember drinking them together was years ago at Wishbone and I just loved it!  It might have taken a few years but finally I tried to recreate it on my own — it couldn’t be difficult to make this combination taste good. I know it will quickly become a regular summer drink at our house. It doesn’t have to be an exact science but here is how I did it…

lemons, watermelon, simple syrup

For this batch I used 1/2 of a medium sized “seedless” watermelon to yield 3 cups of pure juice.  I chopped the watermelon up in to cubes, it turned out to be about 8 cups of watermelon chunks.  A seemingly easier idea was to blend the watermelon and pour it through a mesh sieve to separate the juice from the fiber.  Once I loaded up the blender I turned it on only to find that it wasn’t going to blend quite the way I imagined. I would have to add water to get it going and I didn’t want to do that; I wanted pure juice to start!  Plus, I used a “seedless” watermelon, but, if I had a regular watermelon I wouldn’t want to blend it up with all of it’s seeds. With or without seeds I feared that the meat would blend too much creating a mealy texture instead of liquid.

Change of plans and back to my first method idea- potato masher! Perfect!  It worked just as I imagined and was fun to do.  It would be ideal for a regular Seedy Watermelon as well ;) I used a huge measuring cup as my mashing bowl, it had a flat bottom and a pouring spout which was especially helpful when I was collecting all of the juice.

I did a few rounds of mashing. Once a bit of liquid began to pool at the bottom of the container, I poured it through a sieve into a holding vessel.  Repeat the mash and pour until you are satisfied with the amount of juice you have gained. Set pulp aside — we didn’t end up using the pulp, so if you have any inventive ideas on how to use it or incorporate it (Italian ice?) let us know!

Cut your lemons in half and juice!  We used 4 lemons to get us about 1 cup of juice.  You could use a little less if you prefer it to be less sour.  I wanted a full cup to increase the volume of my drink.  This would give me 4 full cups of pure fresh juice!

Pour the watermelon juice into some sort of pitcher and add your lemon juice — give it a taste. I added 2/3 cup of cold water to mellow the lemon a bit as well as 2-3 tablespoons of simple syrup.  Stir up and serve over ice or chill it in the refrigerator until drinking time!

This is a great summer afternoon juice and easily can be converted into an adult beverage by adding a few ounces of rum (that’s what we did)!

Side note :: why buy simple syrup when you can make it yourself?  To make your own simple syrup, boil one part water and lower heat, slowly pour in 2 parts sugar continuously mixing until sugar is completely dissolved. Let it cool off and pour into a container to keep.

Over winter Joe and I fell in love with kale.  Because it is more of a cooler climate crop it was easy to find and very inexpensive in the fall/winter months.  Kale has become a little harder for us to find as spring has been approaching, meaning it’s not always at our local produce markets.  So what we have been doing is grabbing several bunches of it every time it’s available and freezing whatever we can’t use fresh.  We cut and prepare the kale in pieces (remove the stem), blanch it for a minute or two, cool it down quickly with cold water and/or ice cubes and let it air dry. Shove it in a baggy to freeze.  It becomes surprisingly condensed as well when you squeeze air our of the bag. The first time we did this I was worried that it would all stick together and be difficult to use later, but that wasn’t a problem at all.  All of the pieces pulled apart without struggle.  Using it once frozen is practically like using it fresh, except all of the work of cutting it up has already been done!  Yesss! Do it!

One of our favorite things to do with it is to make kale smoothies.  I know it’s not unheard of, but people who have not tried it before might scoff at it thinking it would taste gross.  It’s actually extremely delicious and anything but gross.   To start, the color of it is an amazing and bright green, & who doesn’t like ingesting beautifully healthy food?

We make the basic kale smoothie with a few simple ingredients :: kale, banana, orange juice, & flax seed.

We use about 2 cups of kale, 1 cup of orange juice, a tablespoon of flax seeds, and 1 banana per smoothie.  Add a bit of honey for sweetness and a heaping teaspoon of nutritional yeast for an extra boost of nutrients.  Adding nutritional yeast to the smoothie does give it a bit of the flavor which I don’t mind, but it doesn’t necessarily make it taste better. (I think Joe would prefer to leave it out ;)

Instructions :: blend all of the ingredients together. Add more orange juice if you like it thinner. We use our Magic Bullet which was an awesome gift given to me by my buddy Dave a few years ago — thanks Dave!  Still using it regularly, it’s a great little tool for smoothies and sauces, but a regular old blender would do the trick just fine ;)  I don’t think the Magic Bullet airs infomercials anymore, but I’m sure many of you remember them — “it’s as easy as ooooone, twooooo, threeee” as if it has magically made your meal. Extend the twooo about another hundred oo’s.  Also, it suggests you can make a lovely diced pico de gallo; not true. This thing pulverizes everything and dices nothing, which is fine with me because I don’t know how to pulverize with a knife!  Plus I love to dice my own vegetables. It’s perfect and extremely convenient for smoothies, dips, and sauces.  It’s super easy to use and clean — I love it and use it often!

As usual we make a lot of variations of this smoothie, you can add just about any fruit to the mix. Frozen blueberries are one of our favorite fruits to include — it’s delicious but turns the beautiful green into a drab grayish purple….  mmmm purple!

Our never-ending quest for health has brought us to the young coconut. For the past six months, we have been doing Kundalini Yoga via DVD with Ana Brett and Ravi Singh. After falling in love with Kundalini and Ana and Ravi’s teachings, we wanted to further explore how these two yogis live their dietary lives. As it turns out, they eat a vegetarian and raw food diet including daily young coconut smoothies (no word as of yet on their opinions of onions). We’ve got the vegetarian thing down, but we’re trying to become better raw foodies. So we figured the young coconut was a perfect place to begin our foray into the raw world.

A young coconut smoothie is simple to make and it tastes absolutely delicious. Added bonus, this thing is great for your health. Young coconuts contain the good kind of fats, are pretty low in calories, and are cholesterol-free. The water in young coconuts is a natural isotonic beverage with electrolytes, and in addition to being completely sterile inside the nut, it’s of similar make-up as human plasma. During the Pacific War, both sides used young coconut water in blood transfusions for wounded soldiers. This stuff is incredibly good for you. It’s a natural energy drink!

However, there is some “green” controversy with young coconuts. Many of the young coconuts you might find at your grocery store aren’t organic and come from Thailand. Pesticides are used in their farming and usually the young coconuts are given a fungicide dip before exporting. This is to ward off bacteria during shipment. And then there’s the shipment. Young coconuts are relatively heavy and think about how much energy it takes to ship them to your grocery store; ultimately, if you’re concerned deeply with sustainability you might want to do further research into the brand of young coconuts you use and decide if they’re right for you. You can get organic young coconuts, but at a higher price.

So what do you need for the smoothie? Here are the ingredients to make two coconut-banana smoothies:

1 young coconut
2 bananas

Pretty straightforward. But maybe you’re looking at your young coconut and thinking to yourself, “How the heck do I get this thing open?” We’re here to help.

We’re going to assume you’re right-handed but for all you southpaws out there just reverse the directions (you’re probably used to this by now). Hold the coconut on its side with the top pointing to the right on your cutting board. Use a large kitchen knife to begin shaving off the white fibrous “wood;” go all around the coconut and shave it down until you begin to see the brown shell underneath.

Once you see the shell, position the coconut upright on your cutting board.  See the sharp, square edge at the bottom of your knife closest to the handle? You’re going to use this to puncture the shell. It’s really not as hard as you think. You’ll have to do this swiftly and with some force if you want to crack the nut. It may take you a couple of times initially to figure out the force, but once you figure it out it will become easy. Give the coconut three or four punctures, providing a slit big enough to ease your knife into. You’ll probably splash a little coconut water on yourself during this step.

Be careful with this step. Hold the coconut closer to the bottom of its shell so you don’t injure yourself. Slide the knife into the slit you made and carefully slice the coconut’s top off in a circle pattern. We find it best to slide the knife toward your body to get better leverage, but you really need to take this slowly.

Once you’ve got the top off you’ll notice the coconut is filled with water. It may have some shell chips in it so you’ll need to strain it. We find it easiest to put a wire colander over a bowl and strain it that way; do whatever seems easiest to you. Try not to spill any water – it’s too delicious to waste.

Next you’ll want to scoop all the white meat out from the inside. We find it best to use a mellon baller. Make sure to get all the meat out and don’t be lazy about it. You paid $2-$3 for this young coconut and you’ll want to get your money’s worth. Also, don’t forget the meat from the top of the coconut that you cut off. When scooping the meat out, you may get shell bits on the meat; remove all these fibrous particles or else you’ll be picking them out of your teeth later.

Now that you’ve got the water and the meat all removed, put these ingredients into your blender. Next, peel two bananas and cut them up into smaller parts for easier blending. Put the top on and blend! Depending on the quality of the coconut meat, blending time may fluctuate. You’re looking to achieve a well-blended, frothy mixture. Sometimes, depending on the coconut, the consistency will be thicker or thinner. Sometimes you may have coconut meat chunks that just won’t blend. Just keep making these smoothies and you’ll figure out your own method for making the perfect coconut-banana smoothie.

Once you’ve got the frothy mixture in your blender, pour into two glasses and serve. We try to drink these everyday for breakfast. They’re a great way to start your day. Enjoy!