I rarely juice greens – and the reason is that there’s not a lot of juice in them! So when you put them through a juicer, almost all of that leafy green goodness ends up in the trash bin. So instead, I juice the veggies that do produce juice, and then add the greens in a blender.
The secret to this juice is wonderfully fresh beets – you can tell a beet is fresh by how firm it is. It should feel like a baseball, or even a golf ball. Any mushiness at all, and you’ve got an aging beet on your hands – one that won’t produce a lot of juice.
Makes 32 oz juice
1 firm, fresh beet
3 stalks celery
6 radishes
½ a fennel bulb, including stalks (but not the frilly sprigs)
1 granny smith apple
1 ginger juice cube *
½ a cucumber, sliced into chunks
a dozen or so parsley sprigs, stems removed
a leaf or two of kale
Put the ginger juice cube in the bottom of the juice cup when you start juicing, and by the time you’re done it should be melted. Juice the first group of ingredients – beet through apple. Skim off any foam, if desired, and swirl to make sure the ginger is melted.
Put the second group of ingredients – cucumber through kale – into the blender. Pour the juice from the juicer over them and blend on high speed until the kale is completely chopped up.
If the finished juice has too much pulp for your taste, you can always put the cucumber through the juicer too.
* I make ginger juice cubes by juicing a big chunk of ginger, then freezing the juice in ice cube trays. They’re easy to pop into stir fry, smoothies, etc.