I failed Intro to Juicing

There my juicer sits, on my counter, taunting me, making me feel guilty because I’m not reducing vast amounts of vegetables into highly concentrated nutrient rich juice – otherwise known as sludge.

The first time I used it, in true Chris style, I didn’t follow a recipe (mistake #1). I just threw in one or two of every vegetable I had in the fridge, including too many beets (mistake #2). The result was this thick red slime that resembled clotted blood, which I couldn’t bring myself to drink.

I was a bit more cautious with my second try, choosing a basic recipe with three ingredients from the juicer manual: carrot, apple and ginger. The color was better than my first try but I still had a problem with consistently. I ignored my gag reflexes and managed to drink the entire glass.

Then I was left with the clean up. The machine has lots of parts that get stained by juice and filled with vegetable pulp. The thrifty part of me couldn’t bring myself to toss out the massive amounts of pulp produced during the juicing, so I froze it, planning to use it in muffins or find some other use for it. (In other words, I’ll throw it out the next time I defrost my freezer.)

The juicer is still sitting there. If I was a knitter I would knit it a tea cozy type cover, because it’s starting to gather dust. Maybe on a day when the mood hits me I’ll give in another try. In the meantime, I think I’ll stick to carrot sticks and celery, the old fashioned way: raw and crunchy.