Carrot-Orange Creamsicle Juice

Carrot Orange Creamsicle Juice:
12-15 medium size carrots scrubbed or peeled

2 sweet juicy tangerines

1 half inch knob of ginger

This juice is my favorite!. Remember when we were kids and the ice cream truck would come rolling around playing it's little tunes, hypnotizing children like rats to the Pied Piper? One of my favorite treats was an orange push-up pop. It was creamy, smooth and orangey. Well this juice reminds me of an extremely healthy version of that! The key is to use some really sweet juicy tangerines!

For this you will need a juicer, not a blender. I use an Omega Nutrition Center. It is not a inexpensive piece of equipment but it is well worth the investment if you are serious about juicing. After a lot of research on juice quality I chose this one. There are many good ones on the market, but there are some cheaper ones that do not extract as much juice or they destroy some of the nutrients. The bonus of this juicer is that it can also be used as a food processor, grind flour, coffee beans, nuts etc. and make noodles! It comes with a juicing attachment, a grinding attachment, a couple pasta and bread stick attachments. I ended up ordering mine from Bed, Bath & Beyond with a 20% off coupon. If you sign up with your email address they will periodically send you these lovely coupons!

Most people peel carrots. However, most of the nutrients are in and just under the skin. So now I just give mine a good scrubbing with a vegetable brush (unless the skins look really bad). I cut the carrots into narrow sticks to feed them into the grinder. I feed in a few carrot sticks first to get things going, then add the ginger and tangerines. I don't bother peeling the ginger, I do cut off any section of the skin that looks bad. If the tangerines have a thin clean looking peel I just leave it on and quarter them so they fit down the tube. If the peel has a lot of pith then you are going to want to peel or trim the tangerines and just add a few pieces of the peel. Then I go back to adding the carrots. The carrots are a lot more fibrous so they help push the softer tangerines through. You also don't want to add the ginger last or you may not get all the juice from it. My juicer has two cups, one for the juice and one for the pulp. You can discard the pulp or save it and use it in broths or on top of salads. Mine comes out pretty dry. I use some of it, it is great fiber, but most of the nutrition is in the juice. So when I'm done feeding all of the ingredients into the juicer, I then strain it into the mason jar with a small metal mesh strainer. I picked up a mason jar funnel for about $1.50 and a mesh strainer, that makes this super easy This gets the last bit of pulp out of the juice so it is really smooth!

I drink my juices from mason jars and use a glass straw. I love my glass straws! I was given two as a gift from a very sweet lady I met in a local health food store. She was a sales rep for Foods Alive. They come with their own little brush so you can easily clean them. You'll never want to use a plastic straw again after you've used these! You can also find these on Amazon. Is there anything they DON'T sell? All I know is that finding healthier options can be challenging locally. I do buy locally when I can but when I can't I go right to Amazon.