Orange Juice... sorta

My husband and I juice quite a bit.  It seems to happen in waves, we juiced pretty heavily when we first got our juicer, a lovely Value Village find for $50.  We both have done cleansing juice fasts and lost weight and felt much lighter and cleaner inside as a result.  We have not fasted in a while and our juicing tapered off for a while towards the end of the year.  But we're back in action again, refocused with the start of the new year. 

I wanted to share a couple of quick and easy juices with you.  They are orange in color but are not your typical OJ. 

The first is one of my faves:  Sweet potato, carrots and oranges.
You need 1 large sweet potato, about 3 or 4 carrots and 2 oranges.  Wash and peel the sweet potato, wash the carrots and chop the potato and carrots into whatever size pieces your juicer can handle. Cut the rind off the oranges leaving most of the pith (white part) but removing all of the orange peels.  Juice it all and serve over ice!  Makes about 32 oz of juice depending on how big your veggies/fruits were.  I know you are thinking juicing a sweet potato seems weird but it is sooo good it makes a thick kind of creamy sweet juice... just yum! 

Don't toss out your pulp!  I am going to share a super easy recipe for doggie treats using this pulp tomorrow.

The other "orange" juice I like is: Grapefruit, carrot and ginger.
You need 3 grapefruits, about 4 carrots and a 1 inch knob of ginger (if you have never juiced ginger before maybe cut that in half, ginger packs a punch!).  Wash your produce, peel the ginger if you wish (some people do, some don't) I just wash the heck out of it.  Cut the rinds off the grapefruit removing the colored outer rind leaving the pith.  Juice and serve over ice!  This one makes about 24 oz of juice depending on how big your grapefruits are.  So yes it's going to be a bit sour and yes that ginger is going to have some bite to it but once you've been juicing for a while you come to appreciate unique flavor combos such as this and even crave them.  The pith of the citrus fruits hold a lot of vitamin C and antioxidants. This particular juice is known as a natural energy drink due to the ginger/grapefruit combo. 

Check back tomorrow for the recipe for dog treats that will make your pup the happiest on the block, using your juice pulp. They seriously LOVE these treats... they are lick-your-doggy-lips-good!  Charlie says so!