Apple Carrot Ginger Juice (or Soda)

     Today's kitchen experiment has a somewhat random backstory. It's something that I've wanted to try for years, and I'm so glad I finally did. So one day several years ago, I was reading some blog in German. I don't even remember what it was about or who wrote it, but the writer was talking about her day and mentioned that she enjoyed a glass of her favorite fresh-squeezed juice. At that time, I didn't really understand the German too well, but I recognized that the name of this juice had something to do with apples and carrots. That sounded pretty good to me, so I looked up the rest and found that it was apple-carrot-ginger juice. That sounded like a very intriguing combination, strange at first but secretly wonderful. So I put it on my culinary bucket list for someday when I got a juicer, but today I realized that there's got to be a better way. So I came up with a way to make this juice with just a regular blender, and it turned out great! As you'll see in the pictures, I used a single serving blender cup, so I had to make it in a few steps, but you definitely could and should blend everything at once in a full-sized blender. Finally, there are a few variations on this juice that I have yet to try, but I bet it would be pretty easy to turn into a healthy soda, so I'll share my plans for that at the end.

INGREDIENTS:
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
about 15 baby carrots (fewer if they're the big fat ones)
a splash of cranberry juice (less than 1/4 cup)
about 1 cup water (or sparkling water)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Peel and chop the apple and peel and grate the fresh ginger. You can either blend these together first or wait and blend everything together if there's enough room.

2. Add the carrots, cranberry juice, and about 1/4 cup of water. Blend thoroughly. Then, add enough additional water until you have a 1:1 ratio of water to juice (or pulp at this point). So you basically add water until you double what you originally had. Blend it all one more time, and you should have approximately 20 ounces total.

Note: If you want to make this a soda instead of a juice, use plain sparkling water to double the volume instead of regular water. I haven't tried this yet, so you may want to add a teaspoon of sugar, but try not to. Even the regular juice isn't supposed to be really sweet. It's the ginger that's the real star ingredient here.

3. At first, I tried drinking the juice at this stage, but there was way too much pulp and it was texturally terrible, so here comes the real key to this recipe: You have to stain the juice through a mesh strainer! If you made this with a juicer, you wouldn't have to do this, but using a blender, this step is essential. So hold a mesh strainer over a glass and spoon the juice into it a little at a time. Push the pulp down in the bottom of the strainer until you get as much liquid out of it as possible. You should get at least 12 ounces of juice and be left with a few tablespoons of pulp that looks like orange apple sauce in the strainer. Just throw that part away.

So here's what you get:

     I really hope you give this a try! It's hard to describe the taste because it's so different from anything else I know, but it definitely doesn't taste like carrot juice if you're concerned about that. The little bite of the ginger really wakes you up and works well with the tart apple juice. This is my new favorite beverage and I'm adding it to the list of reasons why I rarely drink soda. So enjoy, and come back tomorrow for the best casserole in the world...or at least in my world!