The Family that juices together..

What can I say about juicing? Okay, I was inspired to post about our juice adventures by Jen at Becoming a Foodie, because she had written about a not-so-good first experience with juicers. (Plus, she made a comment about people who juice to feel superior, and I just knew that wasn't at all why we juice). Last time I checked though, she had tried again, with help and better results.

But here's what I have to say. First of all, I'm thrilled that even though I was the one to buy the juicer (used), my HUSBAND has taken up the habit of buying the juice ingredients, and gets all excited about vegetable what he'll juice next. This from a man who tries to avoid vegetables as much as possible. Oh, he'll eat salad, but only so my sister stops teasing him about it. So the juicer has been good to get vegetables into him, even if he's missing the fibre.

Secondly, not only is my husband juicing, but he gets my 3 year old involved too, by letting him plunge the ingredients into the juicer and watching them get shredded. What more could a three year old boy who loves machines ask for? And this is great because we have 1) found a way to get veggies into him (because he's starting to get picky) and 2) given him another positive experience in the kitchen (in addition to baking cakes and cookies with me).

Finally, juicing has opened my eyes to other possible creations. The juicer we have is a Breville, and though it makes great juice, I have a peeve about the amount of liquidy pulp leftover (maybe if we bought a higher end juicer, there would be more juice in the juice, and less in the pulp, but I digress). In conversation with my sister about this (because juicing has become a conversation piece lately), she suggested making bread with the pulp. Or putting it in muffins. Which I thought was a great idea! I just have to learn how to do it. Muffins shouldn't be too hard, because I make them all the time and I think I have a good enough feel for how they need to turn out (famous last words), but bread, and successful bread using juice pulp, eludes me. Fortunately, my sister knows exactly what to do and has volunteered to come over and show me - as soon as she can find the time between her schoolwork and obsessive need to make sure her daughter goes down for her nap no later than 12:36 pm everyday.

And so, I leave you with two more images of juice at our house.