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avocados

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7 fruits and vegetables you should never juice

The beauty of juicing is that it can save you from the abundance of fruits and vegetables. (It’s a good problem to have, but a problem that needs a solution none-the-less.)  Juicing means you’ll still get the nutrients, but you won’t have to nosh of raw produce for days, or come up with recipes for obscure ingredients like kohlrabi. Still there are a few fruits and vegetables that are better left whole. If you find you got carried away at the farmer’s market, or your summertime CSA overloaded you on any of these fruit and veggies, you would have a hard time turning them into juice. For this crop, the blender going to be best. Here’s a list of unjuiceables: Avocados Avocados are great in smoothies, salads — and just about anything else. They’re loaded with healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals, so you definitely don’t want to let them go…

10 things you should never store in the refrigerator

The fridge is a great place for most fresh ingredients, but there are a few foods that will fare better if left at room temperature on your countertop or in a pantry. The average family of four in America throws out about $1,600 worth of food every year — often because the food wasn’t stored properly for maximum life span. Check out this list to learn how to make the most of some of the most common groceries. 1. Coffee beans If you’re shelling out serious cash on the best coffee beans, you better know how to store them. The National Coffee Association recommends storing beans in an opaque, air-tight container at room temperature. Air, moisture, heat and light are all enemies to your beans, so store in a dark and cool location, but never the fridge. Coffee is soft and porous and likes to absorb other flavors around it — in the…

Strawberries top list of produce with most pesticides, avocados have the least

If you pass on the organic produce in order to save a few bucks, perhaps you should at least consider the organic strawberries, new research suggests. For the third year in a row, strawberries rank the worst on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of fruits and vegetables. The annual list looks at which of our grocery store produce is harboring the highest number of harmful pesticide residues. This year, more than 98 percent of samples of fruits like strawberries, peaches, cherries and apples tested positive for at least one pesticide residue on the skin. About a third of all strawberry samples had at least 10 pesticides present, the study reported. One sample had an “astounding” 22 pesticide residues. Behind strawberries on the Dirty Dozen list landed spinach. About 97 percent of spinach samples showed pesticide residues were present. Nectarines, apples and grapes rounded out the top five. The report is based…

Creamy avocado pesto sauce with veggie noodles

Pasta never gets old. Just change the sauce and the veggies and you have an entirely different meal. This pasta and sauce combo puts a California twist on an old favorite — pesto. Avocado is so versatile. If you’ve only been using it as a breakfast food or burrito topping, you’ve been missing out. Its unbelievably creamy texture adds tons of flavor and it coats almost any type of noodle really well — Angel hair, farfalle, whole wheat rigatoni. Add in a few handfuls of basil and some nuts for texture, and you’ll have a seriously satisfying sauce and spread. I chose veggie noodles (sometimes called zoodles because of the zucchini) as my base to give this dish a truly West Coast kind of feel. You can make them with lots of different vegetables by using a spiralizer or by carefully and thinly slicing each vegetable with a knife. As a time saver, or if…

Grapefruit, avocado, capers, a flavorful salad for all seasons

Discounts can lead you to make some questionable choices. In one of those “I’m totally saving money” moments, I purchased an enormous jar of capers for two bucks at the market a few months ago. (It was 150 servings!) My love of the little briny flower buds is strong, but how many cups of capers can one person honestly eat? Since my excessive purchase, I’ve let them be my muse. You’d think a recipe like the one below would have started with the citrus at its center. But actually, it was the salty capers that lead me in. But no matter where you start in a recipe, it’s the final product that matters most. This recipe works all year round. Make it in the winter when citrus is in peak season. Or whip it up in summer when we have an endless appetite for all things fruity. The sour to semi-sweet grapefruit pairs perfectly with the smooth,…