beet, carrot, apple and ginger juice – no juicer required

If you don’t have a juicer, then all you need is a good quality blender and a jelly strainer bag (see photo in my post). You can find these bags at most kitchen or hardware stores that sell kitchen appliances. I picked mine up at the local Ace Hardware in Larkspur, for those of you that are local. They cost $4.99 for 2 bags. BTW, don’t get the metal contraption that is sold with some of the bags, just buy the bags.To clean the bags, just use some dish soap and rub the bag together till it’s clean and all the soap is off the bag. Then place the bag on top of a glass or something similar to air dry. These bags should last quite a while. I have used my 10x already and it still looks new.Let's first start by washing your beets. I didn't peel my beets, but you can peel yours if you want. I just took a brush that I use to scrub potatoes with, and scrubbed the beets while I rinsed them under water.Chop off both ends of the beets and then cut them into chunks.Peel your ginger. To peel your ginger, just use the back of a spoon.Wash and chop your apple into chunks (be sure to chop around the core), peel and chop up your carrots, cut your lemon in half and then peel off the skin. Peeling a lemon is just like peeling an orange. There you go, all of your ingredients are ready to be juiced!If you have a juicer, then please juice away. If you don't have a juicer, then follow along with me.Get out your blender and pour in the ¾ cup of water and then add in the beets, carrots, apple, ginger and lemon.Puree all of the ingredients until smooth. You will notice that the juice is rather chunky.Take your jelly bag and wrap it over a large measuring cup or bowl.Pour your juice into the jelly bag.Don’t worry if your bag slides off the bowl, you just want to make sure that your juice goes in the bag. You can aways hold it open with one hand while pouring with your other hand.Once all the juice is poured into the bag, remove the bag from the measuring cup or bowl and gently twist the top of the bag closed. Slowly twist the bag so the juice escapes. Keep twisting and squeezing the bag until all of the juice is released. I will warn you that you're going to have some pretty red hands after, but the red will come off after a few good hand washings.Throw all of that extra pulp into your compost.Pour your juice into a glass and enjoy right away, or put it in the refrigerator for a few to let it chill a bit.