Ode to Hector

This blog post isn't actually a recipe, but rather a tribute to, and excuse to show off about, our new juicer who we have named Hector (short for Hector the Liquidator). If you are considering getting a juicer, but aren't sure if it's worth it: it is! Especially now that so many delicious fruit are starting to come into season. Last weekend my friend Derk came over to hang out a bit. Inspired by the wonderful spring weather and our tradition of drinking juice (although we have only just recently evolved from the kind that comes in tetra-briks) we went out to buy some fruit. We got a huge 1 kilo crate of strawberries, a pineapple and a small container of raspberries. We then proceeded to make the most amazing juice ever, although we did eat some of the fruit in its original form. We made some pineapple-strawberry-raspberry juice, then some plain pineapple, then plain strawberry. The plain strawberry was actually slightly disappointing. But overall it was delicious. It's also really cool to see it being made when the different colours of the fruit mix together.



You can basically juice anything: berries, pineapple, apples, oranges, lemon, carrots, melon, spinach, cucumber... the list goes on, i think basically anything but mangoes and bananas as they are too fibrous. The amazing thing is, no matter how odd a combination may sound, it always tastes good. Something we learned from making plain strawberry juice is that sometimes the flavour of one fruit can actually be intensified by complementing it with another. For example, if i'm in the mood for a simple juice when i get home from school, or we just don't have any special fruit around the house, i will always make orange and carrot. It's an old standby: you can hardly taste the carrot (well, this depends on how much you add) but it tastes like it's a more special and sophisticated version of OJ, not to mention you inevitably get a larger variety of vitamins when you mix up different fruits and vegetables. You could also make some pretty amazing cocktails with this juice, assuming of course that you are old and wise enough to be consuming cocktails.

You also get a bit of fruity foam at the top of your juice, which not only makes it look fancy but also tastes good and has a cool texture.



This is also an amazing source of vitamins im sure, considering that Derk and i pretty much finished all the fruit we bought. It's a bit of a pain to clean the juicer but it's definitely worth it, especially if you are making juice for more than one person.

You can also use the pulp to cook with to make, say, carrot cake and other such things. The pulp is also pretty to look at, but this may just be my artsy side speaking...



Basically, get a juicer. You wont regret it.

Cheers!