avoid food waste + add more vitamin c to your life using the entire orange | recipe by Meghan 07/02/2023
Slowly over time, we’ve learned how to utilize an entire orange when juicing in the morning. Here's what you will need to make our homemade vitamin C powder:
fresh oranges
knife
peeler
dehydrator or oven set to 200° baking sheet
parchment paper
nutri bullet or blender
mason jar w. lid for storage
The benefits of vitamin c seem endless but to name a few, vitamin c helps with your immunity, aids cells in healing, manages high blood pressure, prevents iron deficiencies + helps your brain too!
The peel actually has 3x the amount of vitamin C as the juice/fruit itself. Who knew?!
First, you peel + juice the oranges for oj using an electric juicer or an old-school metal hand juicer is great too. We like to add some pulp back into our glass or save the rest in the freezer for smoothies. We use a vintage veggie peeler to get nice thin strips of the peel off the fresh fruit which makes dehydrating a breeze.
Next, we dehydrate the peels until they’re bone dry before tossing them into our Nutri bullet to pulse into a fine powder. If you do not own a dehydrator you can use your oven at a very low temp (175-200° for about 3-4 hours) by lining baking sheets with parchment paper and allowing the peels to dry out slowly over time in the oven. Check the settings on your air fryer or toaster oven - sometimes they have a dehydrating setting too. Don't forget to twist some peels to set aside for old fashions. Your house will smell so good btw.
So what do you do with the powder?
We use the vitamin c powder in shakes, yogurt bowls, teas or with hot water, honey + lemon.
we also use it in stir-fry dishes + to marinade meat like beef, chicken or lamb.
Fresh squeezed oj makes for the best orange crushes on a warm summer day (pictured here in our 1950s tom collins glasses).
Think twice before you toss those peels away next time - and please consider composting your scraps too.
There are local farms where you can donate your compost (@rancocascreekfarm) and companies like @gardenstatecomposting that will gladly pick up your food waste too. Any questions? Email or chat us any time at lucidladybugvintage@gmail.com
Be well, meghan
photography: @lucid.ladybug | all rights reserved.
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