Vacation Juicing

It's nice to have relatives who live in a touristy area, because it makes for a cheap vacation!  This week I'm blogging from Amish Country, Ohio and will be using my mom's Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer.

It's a much quieter juicer than my Breville and has only one setting for juicing (as opposed to 5 different power settings on my own).  I feel that examining the pulp is a good judgement of a juicer's efficiency, and the pulp from the Jack LaLanne Juicer looked exactly the same as the Breville pulp (comparable amount and wetness for the fruits and veggies I usually use).

Now on to our hammock-layin', cloud-gazin', sun-bathin', pool-chillin', veggie-juicin' vacation!

Chillin' like Magellan:
3 cups spinach
1 head romaine lettuce
3 stalks celery
1 tomato
1 english cucumber
2 oranges
1 apple

My four year old LOVES to help.

Spinach juice.

A Tall Cold One.

And Now For Something Completely Different

 Yesterday I discovered a practical use for my juicer.  This is not to say that drinking vitamin packed juices isn't beneficial, but I really view it as a nutritional supplement at this point.  So, we had friends over last night and planned on serving Margaritas.  I had purchased a bag of limes and instead of hand-squeezing them as I usually do, I peeled the limes and juiced them in my Breville.

I wanted to investigate the pulp and re-juice it if it seemed really wet.  I discovered to my delight that the citrus pulp was very dry.

Since I had the juicer out and running, I went ahead and made a delicious afternoon energy juice.  It just feels really good to drink a green juice.

Friggin' Heathy Juice:
2 c. spinach
2 c. turnip greens
1 cucumber
1 c. bok choy
3 oranges
1 apple

Tricking the Children

Imitating a college professor who served coffee during final exams, I used to serve coffee to my 8th grade students for a big test when I was a History Teacher.  What the 8th graders didn't know was that it was decaffinated coffee.  Who was I to tell them the truth that they weren't actually experiencing a caffeine buzz?  It was too much fun to watch them pretend to be jittery.

Tonight I made "Pulp Muffins" with this afternoon's juice pulp.  The muffins turned out to be quite green so I called them "St. Patrick's Day Muffins".  I thought it would be more appealing than Spinach-Lettuce-Celery Muffins.  They were none the wiser.

Vegetable Juice:
1 cucumber
1 c. spinach
1/2 head romaine lettuce
2 stalks of celery
8 strawberries
1 orange

This juice smelled like strawberry heaven, but tasted like vegetables.

The juice made about 3/4 cup of damp pulp.

Tricky Muffins

Re-Juicing Pulp

I watched a youtube tutorial recently demonstrating how to get more juice from your pulp.  I have seen several sources refer to re-juicing pulp, particularly if you find your pulp is wet, or even just damp.  I find that when I juice carrots or beets the pulp is dry like sawdust.  But when it comes to other veggies (like squash or cucumbers, for example) or any fruits at all, the pulp is much more wet.

Today I followed the exact method from the video, with interesting results.  After juicing the first go around, I made 20 oz of juice and there was a significant amount of pulp.

This pulp had pieces of apple and beet stem in it.

With the machine off, I packed together little balls of pulp and put them in the chute.  Covering the top of hopper with the food pusher, I turned the juicer on the lowest setting.  The juice was dark brown and only amounted to 1 oz.

I went ahead and did the same thing again with the already once re-juiced pulp and it produced one more ounce.  The pulp (after being re-juiced twice) had reduced to 1/3 of it's original amount, and was now much more dry.

All in all, I am glad that I tried this experiment, but I think my juicer is just very efficient.  The woman from the tutorial was able to extract almost 8 additional ounces from her pulp.  Since it is so much work, (and messy work, at that!) I won't be re-juicing my pulp again.

Sweet Beet Juice:
1 beet (stalk and all)
2 celery stalks
1 peeled cucumber
1 apple
2 pears

Tropical Tang

As it turns out, celery may be my favorite juice ingredient for many reasons:

• it's flavor is subtle and works with almost any other veggie and fruit
• celery is very juicy, leaving very little pulp
• it's inexpensive
• it's extremely healthy
• frankly, celery is fun to send down the hopper, watching the greens lower bit by bit to their juicy fate

Here's a great juice that has a heavenly, light foamy body and yet it's not super sweet: almost sour, in fact. 

Sensible Drinking:
5 stalks of celery
1/2 pineapple
1 grapefruit (peeled)
1 head of romaine lettuce
1 stalk of kale

A guy walks into the doctor's office. A banana stuck in one of his ears, a celery stalk in the other ear,
and a carrot stuck in one nostril. The man says, "Doc, this is terrible. What's wrong with me?" 

The doctor says, "Well, first of all, you need to eat more sensibly."

It IS Easy Being Green

My favorite time of the day is over and I wish there was another glass to drink.  But I'll feel the benefits from my juice for the next couple hours!

Yesterday's maiden voyage into romaine lettuce juice was successful, and this veggie is nearly pure juice.  Romaine lettuce leaves behind almost no pulp, it's amazing.

But when I make this recipe again I'll double the romaine lettuce and add a cucumber and celery.  There just can't be enough green ingredients.  No offense to Kermit the Frog, Yoda, and other green creatures but when it comes to juicing, it IS easy being green.

Liquid Salad:
3 c. romaine lettuce leaves
1 1/2 c. raw spinach
1/4 c. parsley sprigs
1 tomato
3 apples
1 pear

Color Therapy

One of my favorite elements of juicing is watching the layers of pure hue stack in the juice pitcher as I feed in each different ingredient.  After I finish, I stir all the colors together and enjoy seeing what color the juice ends up being.

Today I did part beet and part kale thinking that green plus red equals brown...but red won out.  Even my nine year old commented spontaneously, "Wow, the red really dominates the green!"

Full Spectrum:
1/2 beet
2 c. raw kale
2 stalks of celery
2 apples
2 pears

p.s.  Tomorrow my family will eat a loaf of quick bread I made from the pulp of today's recipe...I followed a zucchini bread recipe, but substituted today's very green pulp for shredded zucchini.

Eating the Pulp

From the manual that came with the juicer, down to blog after blog, even in juicing how-to videos, everyone recommends eating the pulp that is left over after juicing.  The pulp that is caught by centrifugal juicers is not very appetizing-looking, though.

Tonight I gave it a whirl with this afternoon's juice pulp.  I added nothing to the pulp, but shaped it into patties.  Coated in bread crumbs, I cooked them in a tablespoon of olive oil until golden brown.  After that, I imitated a typical eggplant parmesan recipe.

The result?  It tasted a lot like eggplant.  Crispy on the outside, moist and non-offensive on the inside.  But it wasn't eggplant.  It was a whole variety of bits of fibrous goodness that would have otherwise been thrown away.   

This Juice Makes Good Pulp:
2 apples
1 pear
3 carrots
1/2 cucumber (peeled)
1 1/2 c. raw spinach
3 radishes

Making Juice for Friends

Today three good friends came with their children. Trying juice was not the purpose of their visit, but I couldn't resist offering some to them!

They watched the Breville work and some of the children enjoyed the demonstration. We all had a small serving and discussed the flavor. Some of the kids tried it, too!

I showed my friends the pulp produced by today's recipe. I find that kale makes more pulp than any other fruit or vegetable that I've used.

What we drank:

3 pears
3 carrots
2 celery stalks
3 c. raw kale
1 tomato