Yesterday Jonathan and I celebrated 1 year living in our new home. Our little corner of the world has many joys, but one of the greatest surprise has been our fruit trees. The pears have been our most bountiful harvest. We give them away to neighbors and friends and still have plenty to spare.
While most people immediately think canned pears or baking pies, I think juice, especially since back to school season has me fighting off the germs. This green juice is less sweet and more powerful, filled with plenty of low glycemic fruits and veggies to balance the high sugar in pears. The greens pack powerful vitamins, the lemons help your system to detox while giving you a vitamin C boost. Drinking this will hydrate, boost energy, and help reset your body for a new start.
Ingredients
- 2 cups spinachÂ
- 1 lemon peeled
- 3 mini cucumbers or 1/2 regular cucumber
- 3 cups chopped pears – about 3 small pears or 2 medium pears
Equipment
Juice is very simple when you have the right equipment. I use a slow press or masticating juicer because the juice will stay fresh for 72 hours. A centrifugal juicer also works, but it does waste more produce. The juice from a centrifugal juicer goes bad after 24 hours. My favorite juicer is a wide mouth juice by Kuvings. I like the wide mouth because it’s much easier to feed chunks of produce. This juicer is easy to assemble and has held up against years of juicing.
I also make sure to have a good knife, a strainer to filter the juice, a cutting board, a rag to mop drips and spills, and plenty of mason jars.
Directions
Feed the juicer little bits at a time rotating in different produce. I usually start with the spinach, put in a lemon, follow it my pear chunks and finish with the cucumber. Saving the cucumber until last is super helpful because it’s a strong enough vegetable to push the rest through.
You can toss in some ice cubes and drink it fresh right away. If you’d like to save some juice for later, pour it in a mason jar trying to fill the liquid as close to the top as you can. You don’t want much space for oxygen to get it. Consider adding water to fill the gap. Adding water is also nice if you want to make a more muted, cleaner flavor, it just depends on how powerful you want the juice to be.
