No Longer a Juice Virgin!

Well, as the title says, I'm not longer a juice virgin! lol. Today when I came home from school (first day of new semester!) my new juicer was waiting for me at my door step. I was so excited. After reading the manual cover to cover, I gathered up a few "safe" choices for vegges and fired up the juicer. I choose carrots, apples and celery. This was a recipe from the manual. It called for:



4 celery stalks
4 apples
4 medium carrots

I only had the small 1 lb bags of mini carrots so I used the whole bag, figuring it would be about equal. I also used 5 stalks of celery because I had only 5 and didn't want to leave just one in the frig. You can't do much with just one.

I juiced them all on the top speed (5) because that's what the manual said to do. I am a little confused though because the juicer has it's own setting for apples (4) and that contradicts what the manual said to do. It made a lot of juice, way more than I could drink. If you have 2 or 3 people drinking it though it would be fine. It filled the juice container to the Max line but didn't even get half way in the debris container. I was surprised at how much juice just the carrots made. I had to cut up my apples, even though they say you don't have to. They were a tad too big. Watch out for baby carrots too. Some would "jump" out of the juicer before I had time to put the pusher thing in.




















The pulp was pretty dry. None of it stuck to my fingers. There were a few chunks of apple or celery but for the most part it was shredded. I think one time I'll juice just carrots because that pulp looked perfect for carrot cake. There was a handful of slightly wetter pulp stuck to the top, inside of the juicer where the pulp goes into the container. It felt kind of like playdoh.



Although I had the apples and vegges in the frig, the juice wasn't that cold. It tasted not bad. There was a bit too much celery and maybe carrots but still not bad. It was very watery. It kind of surprised me, probably because I'm used to store bought juice and they add all kind of things to it. Maybe it was just too much celery. Celery does have lots of water in it.

Cleaning the juicer wasn't bad except for the mess filter. It's a major pain in the butt. I scrubbed it with the brush and even soaked it, like the manual said, and there's still a tony bit around the edge I can't get. The rest of it was just rinsing so it wasn't bad but I didn't realize how big the juicer would be. All the pieces I rinsed took up the entire dish rack and then some (the pulp container is huge). It have a small kitchen and almost no counter space so this thing looks massive in my tiny kitchen. I think I'll clear off the dining table and use that as my juicing spot from now on because there's just no room on my counter. I had to use the stove top as a counter!

Overall, I really enjoyed my first juicing experience. The juicer worked great and the juice wasn't bad. I think I'll really get into it once I find some recipes that work for me. Tomorrow I will be trying one with spinach.



(The juicer I'm using is the Breville BJE510XL. It's about $200 and available only online. If you find it in a store let me know.)