Vitamin C Cocktails.

It’s been really cold since this new year started. Reee-aaaa-lllll-yyyy cold. So in lieu of banana ice creams, smoothies and other cold things, I’ve been making juices.

I used to have a juicer, a Jack Lalane one, and while it was great at making juices, I wasn’t crazy about the pulp and the clean up. The pulp was always fairly wet and cleaning it was a royal pain. I felt like I was wasting so much food!

A great alternative to using a centrifugal juicer (the type of juicer that you push the fruit/veg down a chute, against a blade spinning at a high speed) is to use your blender and a hemp bag. Hemp bags are usually advertised for making nut milks or for sprouting and cost around $10 dollars.

I blended a 2 inch chunk of peeled ginger, 2 peeled blood oranges and 1 beet (without the greens, saved those for dinner 🙂 ). I kept my oranges in the fridge so my juice would be cool and not room temp.

I added 1/2 cup of cold water to facilitate the blending.

If I had had some turmeric root, I would have added that too! I love raw turmeric in my juices.

When the ingredients were fairly smooth, about 1 minute of blending, I poured the mixture into my hemp bag while holding it over a pyrex measuring container with a spout. Any old bowl will do the job, but having the spout eradicates chances of a splattering mess.

Get ready to get your hands messy and stained for this part.

Squeeze the juice out of the bag, slowly and carefully. It will take some coaxing but it will come through.

With a centrifugal juicer (not sure about the other types, as I’ve only ever had a centrifugal) you get a good amount of wet pulp. You’ll notice by using the hemp bag, the pulp is pretty dry. I throw the pulp to my hens anyway but it’s nice to know that I got the most juice I could.

Enjoy!