|
One day my mother came home with a wide smile on her
face and invited us all to come see what she had that would make our lives
so much easier. We trooped into the kitchen and Mama took a square box out
of a department store bag and set out a shiny, height of technology (though
low-end in price) electric blender.
This, she announced, would do all the chopping,
stirring, mixing, cutting – all the nitty gritty work that made cooking a
chore for her. Now I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember thinking
that I had never seen my mother actually make and cook a meal. She did candy
on weekends, a fun day with the kids whenever it happened, and made
hamburger patties for barbecues. But Nana did the daily cooking, the holiday
cooking, the guests-are-coming cooking and everything in-between.
Nana, I recall, looked less than enthralled with the
new-fangled device, one more thing to keep clean in a tiny kitchen already
doomed to clutter. My sisters and I pushed all the buttons at once the
minute Mama plugged the blender in, thereby jamming it and earning us a ban
from ever going near it again.
When my mother died I took home her blender, having
none of my own. Is it the same blender? I doubt it. But it was quite ancient
when I got it, a Waring blender in yellow plastic, euphemistically labeled
“gold” when new. Gold was once the fashion in kitchenware.
It is no longer the most advanced of such devices, but
that blender has served me for 15 years and counting. And because of it, I
have never bought a juicer, a must-have rage among the health conscious
these days. I couldn’t see the expenditure of money when my mother’s trusty
blender could do just as well.
Well – almost as well. A juicer can do much more than a
blender, since it can rapidly squeeze juice from vegetables as well as
fruits and there is little need for prior preparation.
But if all you have is a blender or if you don’t want
to assemble the juicer, here are some tasty recipes for freshly made fruit
juices and fruit smoothies suited perfectly for a blender blade, or for a
juicer. And just like a juicer, the pulp a blender makes adds to the
goodness of the juice. Healthy and easy and a great way to take advantage of
the seasonal fruits arriving soon.
Today’s blenders can usually cut through ice cubes, but
if you have trouble, use crushed ice or very cold liquid instead. When
cutting up the fruit, make the pieces small enough to blend quickly and
fully. Some fruits, like apples, you can try leaving the skin on. Others,
like bananas, must be peeled.
Most of the time, juicing in a blender requires high
speed, but experiment with your blender for optimal results. If the machine
jams, use a spatula to move the stuck fruit from around the blades and
continue processing. The recipes below are adapted from various food sites
found on the Web. |
