Juicing seems to be all the rage these days. If I am honest, I can get behind drinking some delicious-and-oh-so-good-for-me juice from time to time…but I’m not quite sure it’s all I could do to sustain myself for an extended period of time. Actually, I’m positive I couldn’t do it! All juice, all the time? No way!
Anyhow, last weekend we made some carrot juice, and in the process, we decided to see how far we could stretch every aspect of a few carrots, half a beet and some sad (left in the fridge too long) grapes.
We started with 15 carrots, 1/2 of a medium sized beet and about 2 cups of red and purple grapes. It’s what we had on hand and, as it turns out, carrots, beets and grapes contain a wide variety of good-for-you vitamins and nutrients and are remarkably low calorie (if you’re worried about such things, which I maybe should be, but am too lazy to do anything about as of yet).
There were several remnants of each item (carrot ends, a few moldy grapes and the end of the beet) that went straight into the compost bucket (I’ll spare you the visual of our compost bucket at the moment).
In total we got 24 ounces of juice from our fruits and veggies to share between the two of us.
The exciting part, though, was the pulp! Here’s what we did…
We used about half the pulp to give the chickens a nice little treat. I’ve heard that some chickens won’t eat pulp, but our Ladies love it!
Then, I coated a batch of french toast in the pulp after battering it as per usual (I make a mean egg, milk, vanilla extract and spices concoction for French Toast). I was a little hesitant about how it would taste (or if the texture would be weird), but it was actually incredibly delicious! Extra fiber? Oh yeah! Plus, maple syrup can make anything yummy thing even yummier!
Finally, Tool Lady made a delicious (and not-too-sweet) carrot bread using the remaining pulp which has been perfect for breakfasts throughout the week warmed up with a little bit of butter. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), we ate it all before I could get a picture of it!
So, there you have it! Healthy eating (and drinking) with zero waste! Yay for juicing!
Wow! I never would’ve though to use the leftover pulp back into my cooking! That’s a great idea. I actually have juiced once and we gave some of the leftover pulp to our girls and they love it too!
Thanks for sharing at the Homeacre Hop! We hope you join us next time!
Mary
http://www.homegrownonthehill.blogspot.com
Ha! See, I don’t understand those who say that their chickens don’t like the pulp…we’ve always been successful with it!
Thanks for popping over, Mary! I’m enjoying the Hop!
Clever ways to use every piece of juicing. Thanks for sharing on Tuesday Greens!
Thanks, Becky! It’s fun to experiment with it all 🙂
Great idea to use the pulp to coat French Toast! So glad you shared on the Home Acre Hop!
Thanks for popping over, Nancy!
Great uses for what would have been thrown away. I never would have thought about using the pulp to coat french toast. Next time I do some juicing I will have to try it:)
It was the first time we thought of it as well and it worked out well 😉 i do hope it works as well for you!
I enjoyed reading your post. I love it when I can figure out how to do things with no waste! Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn’t but it is always good to try.
Hi Abbi! You’re right about trying! I’d much rather try something and fail than not try and never know!
Wow, we’ve been juicing regularly (including kicking it off with a 10-day juice-only fast, which we were *pretty* successful at, does “cheating” with vegetable soup once mid-way through mean you’re a failure??) since mid-April. I’ve read about things to do with the pulp but haven’t tried anything. Your french toast looks pretty good though.
I don’t feel too guilty about composting the pulp since it’ll eventually make its way back into the garden. If I was just throwing it away in trash that gets landfilled, I’d probably be more concerned…
Wow…um, of course “cheating” with soup does NOT count as cheating! At least not in my book 😉
You’re right about composting, too…there are definitely worse things than sending it all back to the earth!