January | 2010 | shoes and pie

While my boy Nick was staying with me over Christmas, he asked if I knew anything about juicers. Well, as a matter of fact, I went research-crazy over juicers a few years ago, and I wound up choosing one of these babies (grabs a L’equip pulp ejection model from the cupboard and plops it on the counter). I love it. And oh, look, I have a bowl of organic fruit from Mile High Organics. How handy. Let’s get to juicing!

Nick went to work on an orange, four tangerines, and an apple or two. It made for some lovely looking juice, and while I cleaned the excess pulp into the compost bin, he put that juice into my blender with a banana. The resulting drink was delicious, if outrageously sweet.

Fast-forward a few days. Nick is gone, I’m home working on my etsy shop, and a late-night infomercial for a food emulsifier comes on the TV. I look it up, and the online reviews indicate that it’s a piece of crap. But it gets me to thinking about a Vita-Mix, and the friends I have who’ve bought and love them. They are WAYWAYWAY out of my budget, but…

A few years ago, I burned out a blender. It was the second blender I burned out in just a few years, and was in fact one of those Bullet jobbies that is supposed to be All Powerful. A blender which I had selected, in spite of its relatively small capacity, because I had just burned out a standard kitchen blender. Yeah, well, fat lot of good that did me. A pair of dear friends (big shout out to Tim and Erin here) did me right by buying me a new KitchenAid blender for my birthday (and in Empire Red, no less). My first chance to use it was at my birthday party. I wanted to make some slushy drinks, so I poured in the drink ingredients, a bunch of ice cubes, and, because I know how difficult it is for blenders to get through ice, I turned it on High. Within seconds, the ice was pulverized to Very Very Very Cold Water. My slushies were not slushy. Dang, this blender has some POWER! I don’t think I’ve used the High setting since then.

And that got me to thinking: I wonder if my regular ol’ KitchenAid blender would emulsify fruits and veg the way the Vita-Mix can? While I’m sure the Vita-Mix has abilities that surpass the relatively simple blending of fruit, I could save HUNDREDS of dollars if I keep it simple!

I remove much of the pith from two oranges, and toss them in the blender. Add 1/2 of a banana, peel removed, and 1/4 of a bell pepper. Turn it on. Blend blend blend! Look, it’s making… well, that’s kinda thick, actually. I add water. Hey, look! That looks like JUICE! Or, seeing as how it’s opaque (I didn’t remove ALL of the pith), it a least looks like liquid. It’s an unfortunate flavor (note to self: do not try to sneak a green bell pepper into your fruit juice) but it worked. And I don’t have to clean two appliances.

Whee!