Juicy Fruit

This is the time of year for picking and eating citrus fruits.  We have tangerines, navel oranges, and now... grapefruit.  We have been eating a bunch.  Their color is vibrant and the taste and tangy and refreshing.  They'll keep just fine on the tree unless a deep freeze threatens.  If that happens, we'll pick them all and store them inside.  Otherwise, we'll 'store' them on the tree.

One of the things that we hadn't done yet, but will be doing lots more of is making fresh squeezed juice.  Tricia bought a new contraption that I wanted to try out.  It is essentially an old fashioned glass juicer that sits atop a jar.  After cutting a tangerine or orange in half, you squeeze the fruit on the juicer.  Theoretically, the juice flows through holes in the juicer and it fills the jar below it.

That's the idea.  Unfortunately, the seeds and pulp stopped up the holes and the juice couldn't flow down into the jar.  First, I resorted to using a steak knife to poke the holes and allow the juice to fill the jar below.  Then, I simply picked it up and poured the juice into the jar below.  It was just taking too long and I'm not too patient.

We save all the peels of the citrus.  In the past, we'd compost them until we made the discovery that our cows and goats absolutely love eating them.  Now, we save them and throw them over the fence and the animals come running to eat them up.

We did get a full jar of tangerine juice with the new juicer.  Truly delicious stuff!

But then I got the old glass citrus juicer and got to work.  It is fast work.  Simply cut the citrus in half, juice the fruit, and pour through a strainer into a jar or pitcher. 

In no time I had a half gallon of fresh squeezed juice!

We had homemade ice cream that past couple of nights and i mixed the ice cream with tangerine juice to make an "Orange Julius."  Pretty good stuff!