Welcome, and a Note on Juicing in the Ninja Blender

By now, we have (mostly) survived the holidays, and, if my blog traffic is any indicator, a lot of people received some type of Ninja Blender for the holidays.

Excellent!

If you are one of those folks, welcome to Test Kitchen Tuesday! While I cover lots of healthy living and eating topics, there is no denying that a good portion of the content on this blog has to do with blending, Ninja-style.

Amazingly, I keep coming up with new things to blend, so I hope you’ll grab the RSS feed and join me.

I have an “open door” policy around these parts, which basically means if you have a question, request, or conundrum, I am happy to help in any way possible. Shoot me an email or drop me a note in the comments, and I will do my best to help. I am not affiliated with the Ninja Blender folks, but I do know a lot about them and will often write up reader request posts to share with everyone.

In the meantime, I know a topic on a lot of people’s minds is juicing. Perhaps you’re thinking of doing a juice cleanse to start the new year, or maybe you just like juice. I am building my library of juice recipes, and will have more on this topic in the coming months. But, if you are looking for juicing ideas, here are a couple quick tips:

• Pulp-free juice: You can make pulp free juice with the Ninja Blender – check out this post that covers single fruit/veggie juicing, (you can also create blended juices, no problem). If you’re doing a juice blend, I recommend using a mixture that includes a few water-dense fruits or veggies in your blend (like cucumbers, cantaloupe, pears, etc.) as it will let you add less water.
• To get pulp-free juice, straining is involved. Some people don’t mind straining; some people can’t stand it. Personally, I don’t mind because the clean up is infinitely easier than cleaning up a masticating juicer, which strains the pulp for you.

• Smooth, whole food juicing: You can also make more of a thicker, but not truly “pulpy” juice or juice blend. To do this, you don’t need to add water, but you do need to add 4-5 ice cubes and blend a little longer than you would for pulp-free juice. The longer you blend, the smoother your juice will be. Just keep in mind, this juice will be thicker than strained juice as you have left the pulp in the mixture. Again, I recommend your juice blends have some water-based fruits and veggies in it to help with the blending process.

I am planning a Juicing 101 Post in the coming weeks, but wanted to get these quick tips and tricks up for those just starting out with their Ninja Blenders.

And, that’ll about do it for today. Continued happy holiday wishes to all!

Thanks for dropping by!