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The easy way to make granita is to freeze all the juice in ice cube trays until it is about 75 percent frozen. Then place the cubes in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, and pulse it on and off until it becomes mushy.

Return the mixture to the freezer in a mixing bowl. Once it has become frozen again, it’s ready to use. Remove the granita to soften 20 minutes before serving it.

Liquid Lingo

Granita is hard like granite, but it’s the Italian word for ice. The term is used to describe any hard, granular frozen ice that can be either sweet or savory.

Gourmet Gelatin

Vegetable and fruit aspics are nothing more than juices thickened by gelatin. While they were very popular back in the 1960s, they fell from favor with devoted foodies. But like many foods, such as fondue, they’re beginning to make a comeback in popularity.

Juicers make a mean aspic. The general rule of thumb is to use one ¼-ounce package of granulated gelatin for every 2 cups of liquid. The first step is to soak the granules in cold liquid for 3 to 5 minutes so they will soften and swell up. This makes them dissolve smoothly when heated.

Pulp Tidbits

Commercial gelatin didn’t hit the scene until the late nineteenth century. Until then cooks had to make their own by laboriously boiling calves’ feet. The only other products that produced the desired effect were isinglass, which is a natural gelatin from fish air bladders, or carrageen, a dried seaweed. Most commercial gelatin today is a byproduct of pig skin.

Heat the juice until the gelatin dissolves, and then chill it until firm in a mold or bowl.

Other Ideas

You’ll find that your juicer can become a useful piece of equipment for everyday cooking as well as juicing. All those trimmings and scraps you are now throwing into the garbage after prepping vegetables for dishes might be candidates to be pushed through the juicer to intensify the flavor of the dish you’re cooking.

For example, if you’re making a dish with asparagus—like an asparagus risotto or cream of asparagus soup—chances are you’ll throw away the woody parts of the stems. But you can put them through the juicer and then use the resulting juice for part of the liquid specified in your recipe. The same holds true for any recipe made with broccoli.

Are you making a pot of vegetable soup? Push the well-washed carrot scrapings and celery trimmings through the juicer. While the nutrients will be lost through cooking, you’ll boost the flavor.

The Least You Need to Know

• Soybeans provide complete protein in the diet.

• Add nutritional supplements to any juice to turn it into a complete meal.

• Store fresh herbs in the refrigerator and freeze some of them.

• Transform juices into smoothies or granitas by freezing some or all of the juice.

Part 2

Garden Patch Purées

Noshing various elements from a platter of crudité is the same principle as making the juices from the recipes in this part. The difference is that you push the various elements through the juicer or pulp them in the blender.

Juices are an easy and delicious way to fulfill that hard-to-meet guideline of eating seven servings of vegetables a day. In this part you’ll find recipes with great combinations of different vegetables—with a fruit thrown in, too.

Chapter 5

The Root of the Matter

In This Chapter

• Juices made with bright orange carrots

• Delicate juices sweetened by pale parsnips

• Ruby red juices based on beets

Root vegetables, such as carrots, parsnips, and beets, are nature’s candy store because they are sweet right out of the ground and need little embellishment. And for these reasons, they’re the stars of the recipes in this chapter.

But their dynamite flavor is too much of a good thing if taken alone. Many people have adverse reactions to juices made from just root vegetables. This caution leads to complex flavors as these stars are joined by delicious supporting players.

Tapping Out

These three vegetables all fall under