Juice the thing.

We got a juicer! It's so exciting. I didn't think that just juicing fruit could be such fun, but it is. In goes fruit, peel and all, and out comes delicious liquid. Our relationship with fruit will never be the same again. Gone will be the days of fruit festering in the fruit bowl, and frantic searching for recipes to use pears that went ripe when no-one was looking. Into the juicer it'll go.

I think it's even more exciting because the juicer came courtesy of our landlord so we didn't even have to buy it! A total sconto moment. However I already fear the inevitable need to purchase one when we move as we'll have been so addicted to juicing!

It arrived on Friday and so on Sunday morning we collected up some fruit that had been sitting around and decided to start our juice experiments. Employing the "techno-joy" approach (throw away manual and get stuck in) we basically turned it on and chucked in a whole bunch of random fruit: pineapple, pear, apple, and in my case lemon. The result? Joy in a glass. It was so wonderful, totally different to the stuff you get in cartons. No added sugar, no preservatives, just a whole load of lovely juice, topped off with the foamy goodness produced by the juicing process. I posted the picture of our first experiment the other day as part of a photo essay, but I shall post it again, because yes is it as tasty as it looks!

We got straight back on the juicing wagon on Monday morning, frantically searching for other things we could put through the crazy whirring blades. We came up with a mango, more apples and pears and a banana. Now the banana wasn't too successful (it clearly didn't get the brief about it needing to come out the juice end not the pulp end - oops!), but some of the flavour still got through into the juice and once again we had tasty goodness in a glass. It was so nice I drank it before I could take a photo!

Today I did some more experimenting, this time using a pink grapefruit, apple and nectarine. It wasn't as good as the first two attempts - too much grapefruit so it dominated - but still a lovely juice.




I can't wait to start trying all sorts of things. I'm not sure whether I will be trying anything too experimentaly, like weird vegetable juices with odd herbs that offer the "ultimate detox" (yes the super juice recipe book really did promise that, my response of course was to reach for the chocolate), but I reckon pretty much any fruit will make it into a glass in this flat at some point from now on.

In other news, the Malteaster tray bake has indeed been made far too many times since the first attempt. Not great for the waist line, but oh-so tasty. N made it (shock horror!) on Saturday afternoon, this time using dark chocolate instead of milk. It was amazing. So much better than the milk chocolate, richer with a greater depth of flavour and not as sickly. Today I have made some as a half-time treat (we're off to see the mighty Arsenal at the Emirates this evening) this time using half dark chocolate and half butterscotch. We shall see, but I think no matter what, it's going to be a winner!