The Early Rising Challenge has begun!
Last night I was in bed over 1 hour earlier than usual (around 11pm instead of after midnight), however I didn’t end up falling asleep until 12:30am. My body is very much on a consistent schedule, so it is going to take me a while to adjust.
Some good did come of it. I got up just after 6:30am this morning, despite getting just 6 hours of sleep. I know I am going to be dragging today, but I think the only way I will be able to get my body on a new schedule is to have a few sleep deprived days. Everything will even out. :) My reward was Baked Breakfast Cake. Mmmmmm. So worth it. Plus, I just made a huge pot of Japanese Sencha and I am going to workout + WMM2, so I think that will have me feeling energized for a long baking day!
A Kitchen Appliance Confessional
My name is Angela and I am scared of new kitchen appliances.
Cooking? Baking? Whipping up crazy recipes? I’m down. You know I thrive on that stuff.
Figuring out a new kitchen appliance that has the potential to chew my finger off? I’d rather clean my closet than open the box. [Yes, I actually cleaned out the closet when I was supposed to be unpacking the juicer! Classic Avoidance Syndrome.]
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
So here I am, coming clean to you guys today.
Remember this beautiful food processor that Eric bought me for my birthday in 2009? Well, I broke it within the first 2 minutes (trying to process soft dates). I somehow managed to convince Kitchen Aid to send me a new food processor and embarrassingly, the new processor has been sitting in the box ever since.
I have been using my old half-broken processor all this time while a new one sits in the box! Typing it out sounds absurd, actually!
However, I stand sit here before you vowing to overcome my fear. I am determined, not only to become a food processing whiz, but to master my juicer, in every way, shape, and form.
I will start with the juicer. I channeled my inner fabulous goddess, Kris Carr from Crazy, Sexy, Life. [For Kris’s thoughts on juicing read the interview I did with her here! She talks about the benefits of juicing and her favourite superfoods and juice recipe.]
Behold the Breville Juice Fountain Plus:
As you can see, I was able to figure it out! It was actually really easy.
Look OSGMOM, 10 fingers! :D
I created my very first juice!
Rainbow Sorbet Juice
Ingredients:
- 1 large field cucumber, not peeled
- 1 organic apple, cut into thirds, not peeled, stem removed
- 1 lemon, peeled
- 1 cup organic baby carrots (grocery store was out of whole organic carrots)
Directions: Juice, stir, and serve immediately! I juiced the lemon on low and the rest on high.
Tip: Put a grocery bag in the pulp container so clean up is easy.
It created this beautiful juice that looked exactly like rainbow sorbet (albeit melted) that I used to eat so much as a child!
The order I juiced was: 1) Lemon, 2) Apple, 3) Cuke, 4) Carrots
Seriously fun.
I read you are supposed to toss the big pulp pieces before baking with it. Rather than throw any pulp out, I would rather process it all in the food processor to thin it out and make it even. Or you could just throw all of it directly into a soup! I like big chunks in my soup. :)
I have big plans for this pulp, don’t you worry!
I will let you know what I make with this. Eric and I tasted some pulp and we were so surprised at how tasteless it was! The juice has ALL the taste!
The juice really is the LIFE of the produce.
It made about three of these wine glasses!
[Sorry for the bad lighting, it is dark outside and flash batteries are dead.]
I was DYING to try it. I poured the glass and took a sip…
I was instantly floored by the taste. My taste buds were literally dancing!
The apple and lemon paired so well together, however the juice was not too sweet nor too sour. Just perfect. The cucumber and carrot were lovely as well, although not as pronounced. Just perfect background flavours, if you will.
Eric even liked it himself and drank his glass. I drank two full glasses and could have drank more but my belly was about to burst.
If I could describe it in one word it would be FRESH.
It was the purest tasting juice I have ever had by far. It was fun picturing the healthy nutrients being absorbed into my blood. But maybe I am just a nerd like that!? ;)
However, no review would be complete without a couple cons:
1) The cleanup was sort of a pain. Several of the parts are dishwasher safe, but my dishwasher typically doesn’t have much room in it due to all of the dishes I use in a day! I did it by hand and then put them on a towel to air dry. No biggie.
2) It is expensive. Eric and I figured that the juice we made was at least $3-4 worth of produce. Ouch! I can’t see myself juicing every day, but I can see myself doing it 3 times per week, alternating with Green Monsters. I think if I can use the pulp in my cooking, I can justify it a little more since I am not throwing anything away. This will just get my creative wheels a spinning.
Have you ever had fresh juice before? What is your favourite recipe?
I’m so excited to experiment with all kinds of fruits and veggies. Please share your fav. combos below! I bought some beets, organic celery, and fresh ginger too. I wonder if they go together?
Off to workout my big strong heart then a full day of baking + shipping…zing, zing, zing!!! Have a great day everyone!
I haven’t used my juicer in ages. Alas.
I did enjoy a simple combination: apple, carrot, celery, and a little beet (to give it a gorgeous ruby color). Enjoy. It is hard to go back to any other kind of juice once you’ve had fresh juice.
You could also investigate using frozen fruits. Some friends used to “juice” frozen bananas and strawberries and it was very similar to icecream/sorbet (just whole, natural fruit). Not sure if that will work with all juicers.
I always threw the left-over pulp into cooked brown rice, or added it to tomato sauce. Waste not, want not.
I am the same way with new appliances. They sort of scare me. I’m glad this one worked out so well. It looks delish!
I love the celery, carrot, and ginger combo. If you buy juiced drinks at smoothie bars, then they are usually $3-4, so the home juicer is a bargain compaired to store-purchased drinks. For the carrot pulp, I use this with raisins for spiced oatmeal carrot raisin muffins. Enjoy!
I’ve always thought it would be super expensive too, in order to get enough juice from the fruit. But I’d love to get a juicer and give it a try. In fact I could go for some fresh squeezed juice right about now! Good job on getting up early! I used to be a night own and had a hard time getting up early. When my husband and I met things changed. At first I HATED it. We actually got in a disagreement about bed time because I was so annoyed that he went to bed early and got up so early…i didn’t know if I could handle that my entire life. Things changed, but it took a long time. Now i’m an early riser and love it. I don’t love the fact that i’m tired and its early, but I get so much done. We do go to bed early and sometimes that sucks, but we make up for it by staying up late on the weekends. Getting up early changed so much for me! I think its an awesome challenge.
Ahh, I have wanted a juicer so badly! It looks amazing!!
This morning I made a cabbage, kale, carrot, apple and lime combo – it didn’t look pretty, but it tasted great!
I find that I get very little juice out of the kale (1tbsp per 2 leaves). I wouldn’t expect to get a lot out of it, but I’m just wondering if my juicer should be producing more. Anyone have thoughts on this?
That looks like so much fun! I would love to have a juicer. I like beet, ginger, apple and carrot juice…yum!
See? I told you! So easy! I just kinda power through clean up right then, rinsing the plastic parts and scrubbing the screen with a scrub brush – then everything dries in the drainer. I’m not sure how much I pay for a 5 lb bag of carrots but I think that juice comes out cheaper.
I’d never thought to use the pulp in soup – genius!
I have never made my own juice before but I hope to someday. I like the ones I’ve tried out at places, even just carrot juice :)
I am exactly the same…it just seems so overwhelming having to learn about a new appliance and the manuals are so big! I usually just end up waiting a while until I absolutely need to use the new appliance and then break it out!
I haven’t juiced before but I’d love to try it! Maybe I’ll start small by ordering some when I’m out. It’s a big investment so I better be sure I like it :). Yours sounds delish!
It helps to make the base of the juice a fairly cheap vegetable (like celery or carrot or whatever is on sale) and then throw in whatever fruit are looking a little sad in the fruit bowl. I find that fruit that doesn’t ripen properly at home (from having been picked too early, I think) so isn’t as tasty to eat still makes great juice – so I end up throwing a lot less away. Also, whenever the grocery store has 2-for-1 offers or deals on fruit in bulk, I pick it up and put it straight into the juicer. Hope you have a citrus part to your juicer, so you can make fresh squeezed orange juice in the mornings!
ive never juiced before but my mom juices alot of fresh produce from her garden in the summer. looks pretty good!
Very happy to hear that you still have your ten fingers! I am guilty of often not reading instructions fully when I get a new kitchen appliance. The juice looks delicious & I would love to try a glass if I was closer!
i’ve never juiced before, but i would definitely use carrots, apples, maybe some berries, and spinach :)
thanks for the review, new appliances are definitely scary sometimes!
why yes I have, and I actually have some in my lunch for breakfast (cranberry/orange)
I make and drink many a green lemonade but my LOVE is Carrot Apple Ginger Cranberry.
absolutely hands down the best drink on planet earth!
I have been juicing for the past month and I love it! This is my all time favorite – Apple Beet Carrot Strawberry then put into Vitamix with a banana, flax meal and ice. I love the red color!
My mom used to squeeze oranges to give us fresh juice. That’s about as close as I’ve gotten!
I make the same combination when I juice! My husband actually makes it for me because I am scared of the juicer too. We have been using the pulp as a compost/natural fertilizer for our organic garden. I have seen people make crackers out of it too, so there are lots of uses!
I love how you put a trash bag in the disposal container. It makes total sense! Easy Clean-up. Great idea! I never would have thought of it.