Purple Cow

When JiMele came to my place to make cupcakes she brought supplies to make drinks! But these were not just any drinks, these were supplies to make a concoction called a Purple Cow!

This is JiMele, hi!  I should say that I have never had a purple cow, and only found out what it actually was around Thanksgiving.  I thought it sounded as intriguing as it did gross.  I bet you really want one now!  Don't judge until you have finished reading...better yet, until you have made one of these for yourself!  
It's fun!

I give the floor back to Ash:
We started with a splash of a sweet, grapey red wine from an Indiana winery (concord grape Juice would make a perfect non-alcoholic substitute). Next, a dollop of vanilla ice cream went in the glass and it all got topped off with bubbly. It came out much like an alcoholic ice cream soda with the flavor of a dreamsicle, if dreamcicles were flavored with grape rather than orange.

An old-fashioned-soda-shop Purple Cow is made by putting a few tablespoons concord grape syrup in a tall glass, filling with vanilla ice cream and topping with soda water.  The thing I had to get past was the soda water and ice cream combo...


but the concord grape syrup gave me an idea!  There is a winery near by (you may have heard of Oliver Winery) that has a wine called Sweet Red.  This is a very sweet concord grape wine.  Basically grape juice with a kick!  


I thought we better skip the club soda and use dry bubbles.  An inexpensive bottle of brut bubbly, like cava will do the trick nicely.  I do not suggest a sweeter alternative like prosecco or moscato because it's sweet enough with ice cream and the sweet red wine.

It looks kinda like a science experiment, but it tastes SOOO much better!

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Pink Cow 
(for those lucky enough to have at least 21 years of life experience)
Fill about 1/3 of your glass with Concord grape wine, like Oliver Soft Red
Put as much ice cream as you can fit (or stand) in the glass
Carefully top with brut bubbles, cava


Enjoy with a spoon or straw, and don't give this one to the kids-o's!

(ok, go make one, then you can judge.  Let us know what you think!)


Linked up with 33 Shades of Green

Juice

Remember when your parent's wouldn't let you leave the table until you ate all your veggies?  Not to one-up you or anything, but I had to drink my veggies once in a while.  The thing you don't know is that I actually LOVED carrot juice!  I thought it was the most amazing, sweet, unfortunately staining drink I could want.

My mom got a Champion juicer when I was young.  Boy, was it versatile! It could turn fruits and veggies into juice, garbanzo (years later I found out these are also chickpeas) beans into hummus, and peanuts into peanut butter.

One of my cousins and brother remember an evening of juice sampling, though our moms don't seem to share the memory in quite the same way.  My brother and I thought we were going to play with our cousin.  As it turned out, we were also destined to be juice guinea pigs.  I do not remember specific combinations, but I am pretty sure about a third of the produce department was involved.  There were some that we could barely force down, but there were some that we kinda liked, just a little bit!


Time travel a few years into the future:


When I was in college, I decided to get a better grip on conscious eating.  I was pretty good, but who can't do better?  I decided that I needed a Champion juicer, just like my mom.  Part of this decision came after frying the motor on a blender trying to make hummus one day.  Ooops.  Guess garbanzo beans don't have quite enough liquid for a blender.

beets and cranberries

There are all kinds of theories about how the benefits of fruits and veggies are absorbed.  There are the raw foodist's that think that too many nutrients are lost in cooking, so they will not eat anything that has been cooked.  I am not making this up.  Then on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who pretty much only eat canned produce.  They just don't like the taste or texture of fresh produce.  This is harder for me to believe, but I have met a few in my life.

Top: carrot, lemon, ginger juice
Bottom: carrot, lemon, ginger pulp

When it comes to juicing, I was always a bit suspicious about the fiber end of things.  When juicing, you are basically separating the liquid from the solids.  Aren't the solids holding the fiber? what a waste right?  The more I thought about it, it's not.  There are tons of nutrients in the juice still, and I am not substituting juice for all my fruit and vegetable consumption.  I now think of it more like a tasty supplement.  It's like real Vitamin Water!  Besides, the solids don't have to be trashed.  The carrot pulp you see in the picture above will be added to some bread, now doesn't carrot bread sound yummy?

A few months ago, I watched a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  Got your attention?  This show really got mine.  I am not going to go into a movie review here, but this is the skinny: Joe Cross documents his life-changing experiment to get healthy.  I will say this is something I think people need to watch, and don't just think that it is a snooze fest because it is labeled a documentary :~)  Joe keeps things entertaining.
This show encouraged me to get the juicer out more often, and get braver about the things I juice.

So, Cheers to my mom and aunt for making me, my brother and cousin juice guinea pigs for an evening and making me drink my veggies from time to time.  Does't that carrot juice look beautiful!?
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Some of my favorite combos:


Carrot, beet
Carrot, Granny Smith apple, celery, ginger
Celery, Granny Smith apple, ginger
Carrot, ginger


Super vitamin-C cocktail
In a blender:
1/2 cup cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2-1 cup orange juice
ginger powder to taste (a sprinkle)
Blend for about 1-2 minutes, serves 1


Cheers!