Brielle's Avalon

A few weeks ago a man walked into my meat department and asked me where we keep our fresh-squeezed orange juice. I suggested he look in the produce department or deli but I wasn’t aware that we sold fresh-squeezed. He said no, that his wife always buys it with the other juices in the dairy dept. I must have looked REALLY confused because he said “Really, she buys it here all the time!”. I said that I’d never heard of pre-packaged fresh-squeezed orange juice because fresh-squeezed OJ happens when you slice open multiple oranges and squeeze them, so it’d be kind of the opposite of pre-packaged, but I’d look through the dairy juice section with him. We found the brand and variety his wife usually buys. It says “not from concentrate, fresh-squeezed taste”. That’s a far cry from fresh-squeezed. Some people though…at least he laughed.

Anyway, if you come across some real oranges and decide to make the real thing, here’s how you do it.

Well stocked fruit bowl

Buy fresh oranges…or of you’re lucky enough to have a tree nearby that has ripe oranges on it, pick some. I have a blood orange tree and they look like this:

Home-grown blood orange.

But you’ll probably use Valencia, Navel or other normal orange oranges. You can just roll an orange around on the counter, cut it open and then squeeze with your hands, but that does get tedious.

Hand squeezing

So, get your juicer. Yes, this is another gadget post as well as a how-to, so if you need to run to the big-box store, grocer or kitchen boutique it’s OK, we can wait. If you need to know what to look for, it can be as simple as this:

Manual Orange juicer

Or this:

Different hand squeezer

Or as mechanical as this:

Mechanical juicer

Or this:

Juice from juicer

Other juicer

Either way, pull it out of the cabinet or run to the store of your choice. We’ll wait. Take your time. Really, it’s OK, just get the one you feel comfy with for the amount of juice you want for today. We’ll wait.

*checks nails, scruffs the cat, tosses a ball for the dog, turns the radio on*

OK, great, your back. So, Get the cutting board out and a good, sharp knife. Cut the oranges (or other citrus if you happen to fancy that) and start juicing. Tangerines, satsumas, lemons, tangelos, limes, grapefruit all have their own character and making your own mix can be fun, whether it’s for breakfast, afternoon refreshment or cocktails. Stemware makes anything better, so toast the rising (or setting) sun and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Cheers

Cut oranges