Post Juice Cleanse Healthy Muffins

As part of my New Year's Resolution I promised myself that I would exercise more and eat healthier this year.  Normally, my motivation for my resolution gets thrown out the window a few weeks after January 1st rolls around.  But, this year it's almost Summer and I'm still sticking to my plan!
I started my resolution by doing a 3 day juice fast from Healthy Blender Girl {the winter juice} and plan to do it every season {every 3 months.}  I know what you're thinking…that's impossible or that the results don't last. But let me tell you, it was definitely hard the first day.  I was starving and wanted to quit only a few hours in! But, by day 2 I was feeling better and actually felt satisfied with my juices and midday herbal teas.  

After successfully completing all 3 days of juicing, I weighed in.  I had lost 4 pounds!  While this may not seem a lot for some people, that was really all I wanted to lose.  
The next 3 days I needed to restrict my intake to raw veggies and fruits.  This part was easy because I had a ton of my juicing veggies and fruits left over.  The next 3 days I was able to introduce other meat/dairy items back into my diet.  
That is where this recipe comes in.  The muffin base is an adaptation to my Pumpkin Bread recipe.  Swap out the pumpkin puree with your leftover day 2 midday carrot/butternut squash pulp that you saved after straining it from your juice.  This pulp still has a lot of the vitamins left in it, and great flavor!

*PS notice my new carrot logo on my photos? From now on I am going to add this to my healthy posts!

What you will need:

1 cup flour
1 ¼ tsps. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
2 slightly beaten egg whites
½ cup leftover juice cleanse pulp½ cup sugar
¼ cup canola oil
Nonstick spray
2 muffin pans

In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together egg whites, juice pulp, sugar, and oil.

Stir flour mixture into juice pulp mixture until well incorporated.

Liberally spray your muffin pans with nonstick spray.
Spread batter into pans and bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Another variation I tried for these muffins was my day 2 evening juice of broccoli/romaine/cilantro pulp.

 Enjoy!

Any questions or comments about juicing just ask away!

Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop ~ Easy, Addictive Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

My first attempt at roasting pumpkin seeds, I burned them to a crisp!

I was heart-broken, as I didn't think it was worth all of the effort in the first place. All that de-stringing of pumpkin pulp, and rinsing and re-rinsing, not even one good one to keep my spirits up.

I was not going to let the first burnt batch let me give up! So I did some more research on how to roast the perfect seed and…Eureka!  I finally found my answer; the inner seeds cook way faster than its outer shell.  I roasted my first batch until it looked like my seeds were golden color, when they really shouldn't change color during the roasting process.

I am going to share my secret of making the perfect bunch of roasted pumpkin seeds.

What you will need:

Pumpkin Seeds

Water

Salt

Oil

Clean the seeds.  This step is the most grueling of the whole process, I promise!  You need to really get in and clean the seeds of their slimy pumpkin pulp.  I soak them in a bowl of cold water to loosen the pulp, and get my hands down and dirty into the bowl to loosen the pulp.  I then strain the seeds in my colander, and repeat the process until all remaining pulp is set free from my lovely seeds.

Boil the seeds for 10 minutes in salted water. 2 cups of water to every half of a cup of pumpkin seeds and 1 TBS of salt. Bring the pot of water, seeds, and salt to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.

Strain the seeds back into the colander and lightly pat dry with a tea towel, or a paper towel. 

Spread seeds onto a baking sheet and spray with olive oil until each seed is lightly coated. Add salt to the top {optional} or cinnamon sugar for the sweet tooth!

Time to roast! Roast at 350 degrees for 10-20 minutes.  I kept checking on mine every few minutes; I didn't want another burnt seedcatastrophy!  They should not really change in color on the outside, but the inner seed should have a slight golden color to them and the outer shell should be crunchy.

Enjoy!