I Love Cold Pressed Juice
The Backstory
I love cold pressed juice now. In December 2021, I realized that as much as I liked fruit, I was never eating it. Yes, I would go to the grocery store and pick up several items. Magically, these would get buried in the crisper drawer of my fridge. About a month later, I would purchase more and remove the now multicolored, scientific experiment from the drawer.
Shopping during the holidays, it seemed like the fade was to purchase a juicing machine (I think it was the same people marketing air fryers during the pandemic). Every store I went to sold one. I’m thinking, do I really need one of these things? Heck, I already have the big juicing attachment made by Kitchen Aid. Does it work? Yes, it does a wonderful job with extraction. It’s just a pain in the rear when you must take it apart and hand wash every single tiny piece and let air dry.
The Attachment
I was bored so I decided to do some quick research on Amazon, and I found this attachment:
This is a masticating juicer. That means that instead of pushing down only on the flesh of the fruit to get the liquid out, it grinds it. All the fruit that you feed in is ground up and pressed hard. The juice flows out the bottom spout and the leftovers come out of the front of the machine by way of auger. Grinding the fruit gives you more fiber, the essential oils, and more juice overall.
For the price, I’m like why not? If it sucks, I’ll send it right back and get a refund! I purchased it and waited for its arrival. Since I’m getting this new attachment, what is the other thing I needed to have? Fruit and lots of it. I live in Michigan about two miles away from a great apple orchard. Well, I loaded up on apples, went to the store and purchased tangerines (love them) and lots of berries and bananas.
Arrival Day
Can I tell you how excited I was until I opened the package? The juicer was inside (in parts) and no instructions. ☹ However, the parts are well marked and easy to assemble. One piece of advice. You will find two cylindrically shaped containers that have slots in them. One has the slots closer together as you can see in the picture. I figured out how this works. The smaller the distance in between the slots, the more solids the attachment will filter out. In other words, less big pulp pieces but less overall yield. Ask me how I found out.
Attaching the device to your power take off on the Kitchen Aid is easy. I will make another suggestion here. If you have a smaller Kitchen Aid (like a five-quart), I would use it if you had the option. I first used my 6-quart machine. The power is fine in all the designs. However, it has a longer distance to drop down to whatever receptacle you are using.
Fruit Prep
Preparing the fruit is easy too. You have two concerns:
- Cut the fruit small enough to feed easily down the feeder chute.
- Remove all big seeds and labels (you do not want to juice a label).
My base recipe most days is the following:
- Four tangerines with the stem end cut off, labels off and rinsed. I cut these into four wedges each.
- Two apples (normally Fuji but Cosmic Crisp is a good one), rinsed, labels off and wedged to remove the core.
- 8-10 cherries pitted. Make sure they are pitted since one large pit will jam the machine. Every year when MI cherries go on sale, I load up on them. I pit them and freeze them in small amounts and then pull what I need for juicing, pies, and jams.
After this, it all depends on what you like. When kiwis look good, I may put 1-2 of them in the mix. When berries are on sale, I will use these instead of the cherries. Anything you want to put in will work in general. Bananas, even fully ripe, tend to mash and not give juice. If you use them, don’t expect a lot of liquid. Navel oranges I normally do not use as the rind is thick and bitter.
The Results?
The fruit is cut and ready. The attachment is ready. I have two large, iced tea glasses to catch everything. The Kitchen Aid is fired up on mid speed. Feed in your fruit in and the machine will take care of the rest. The attachment makes short work of everything. One piece of advice. I alternate my fruit types and leave three apple wedges as the last pieces to feed in. For example, if you run all blackberries through at one time, the solids end will clog with the seeds (experienced it). Alternating the fruit types helps to keep it free flowing. The apples at the end help to push everything through and cleans the machine.
The best part is now I have one cup of solids that goes to my compost pile in the garden. The pulp/liquid is now ready to drink. And it’s amazing. As a kid, my dad and I would walk the garden and he would pick something fresh and hand it to me to eat right there. There is something different about eating it this way – it almost feels alive. It’s the same feeling I have with juicing.
Ever since then, I’ve been juicing every other day. I say every other day for one important reason. If you look at my recipe, it makes over two cups of juice. The first day I drank all of it. Don’t do that!! Fresh juice has a cleansing effect as I found out. ☹Now I drink half of it and place the other half in the fridge. Then I do not have to pull out the machine again for two days.
Time Involved
Now, I can already hear some of you complaining about the cleaning. Yes, you need to take it apart and clean by hand. This attachment is not dishwasher safe. However, I have a designated toothbrush to help with this. A little soap and hot water and I have it cleaned and drying in less than five minutes. I let it air dry, store it and two days later, it takes a minute to put back together and install.
Yes, juicing does takes time. However, I normally can cut everything in less than 5 minutes with another 5 minutes to run the machine. In total, I’m spending about 15 minutes over two days for juicing. I think that is time very well spent.
Final Thoughts
What are the benefits? I love it. It’s refreshing to drink and try out new blends. Nutritionally, I know that I’m getting more nutrients and fiber in my diet. The major reason I enjoy it so much is I know I’m getting 3-4 servings of fruits and vegetables each morning. I used to be a meat eater. I still am but my definition of a meat eater would be eating a 16 oz ribeye with a biscuit. Veggies were always after if I had space left. Now, I’m ensuring that I’m helping my body with getting a better nutrition profile for the day.
Give it a try…I think you will like it. What have you got to lose? Return it if you don’t like it. 😊
@artofthepair
