Juicing the garden

Helen came for lunch. It was great to see her again. I made avocado and ginger pasta, we picked herbs and a big bowl of green salad and had a good chat. After a walk around the garden we had coffee and baked lemon ricotta cheesecake. So..... what to have for dinner after all that.... maybe more of the never-ending leftover soup? Oh god, not again! Maybe a stir fry? I just couldn't get enthused about that either.

I was standing at the sink, doing the washing up and I thought..... juice..... I feel like juice. I had a few of my Lady in the Snow 'seconds' apples that were going soft in a bucket in the laundry, I have tall, thin celery in my glasshouse, lots of densely packed carrots still in the ground in the chook yard and a beetroot and piece of fresh ginger in the fridge. Perfect... except of course it was dark and drizzling outside! But I took my basket and a torch and headed out to collect dinner.

I came back refreshed and ready to juice the garden.

First I always juice the ginger because, otherwise, the juice gets caught up in the other pulps and the flavour is somewhat diluted. Then in went a few apples, carrots and celery stalks and leaves. At this point the juice was a bit of an unappetizing colour but once I had added 1/2 a beetroot, it turned a deep, deep red. I said "Wow, look at that, Pickle!" but as usual he was asleep, upside down, in his box! I continued on until I had juiced enough to keep some for tomorrow.

Pouring the finished product into a glass produced a gorgeous pink froth. The flavour .... oh lalalala..... the perfect mix of sharp ginger, super sweet apples and carrots then the deep earthiness of the beetroot and finally the punch of celery leaves. Is there anything that could make you feel any better than drinking that?

Oh.... I forgot to keep some; in the end I drank it all! Well I wouldn't want to get hungry in the middle of the night and get up to have a piece of lemon ricotta cheesecake, now would I??