Serving and storing juices, smoothies and blends

The ideal way to enjoy juices, blends and smoothies is to drink them immediately. This way you benefit from the full flavour and nutritional benefits, because time and exposure to oxygen take their toll on the nutrient content of most prepared fruits and vegetables. For instance, when you make carrot juice, it is a bright orange colour, but if you leave it for an hour it will turn brown as it oxidizes. Likewise, the flesh of apples or avocados turns brown as it oxidizes and loses nutritional value.

Serving and Decorating Juices and Drinks

There are many attractive and quirky ways to serve fresh drinks. With a little forethought and imagination, you can present friends and family with gorgeous-looking concoctions - whatever the occasion.

Adding ice Ice is a wonderful vehicle for serving, cooling and decorating drinks. Cubes are best for cooling drinks, and these can be decorated or flavoured in different ways. A handful of ice can be added to a drink, or you can add crushed ice to drinks in glasses to cool them quickly.

Juicy ice cubes Make cubes from orange, cranberry or diluted lime juice in an ice-cube tray. Thse will create a rainbow effect in your drinks and will also alter the taste as they melt.

Fruit ice cubes Place raspberries or other small fruits in an ice-cube tray and add water.

Flower and petal ice cubes Choose flowers that will be attractive even when the ice has melted - rose petals, carnation pinks or borage flowers,

Sugar-rimmed glasses Moisten the rim of a glass with water, dip into grated lemon or lime rind and then into icing (confectioners') sugar.

Fruit puree drizzle For a striped effect, pour fruit puree down the inside of glasses before adding the drink.

Edible swizzle sticks These can be fun and celery sticks are a natural choice for savoury drinks. Finely slice one end of the stick then soak in iced water for about 15 minutes — a fanned out fringe will develop.

Fruit skewers Place fruit segments or currants on a skewer and use as a swizzle stick. Bruised lemon grass stalks, lavender or rosemary stems, or cinnamon sticks can also be used.

Glass decorations Place fruit slices on the rim of a glass or skewer small pieces of fruit on to cocktail sticks (toothpicks) and balance these across the tops of glasses. Experiment with herb leaves and pared citrus rind.

Ice lollies Fruit juices make healthy ice lollies (popsicles) for children. All you need is an inexpensive mould, available from kitchenware shops. This is a fun way to serve drinks at parties.

Storage of Juices and Drinks While it is definitely best to serve juices and smoothies when they are just freshly made, you may want to store them for one reason or another. Perhaps you have made too much to drink in one go, maybe you have a glut of berries or some other produce that you need to use up before it over-ripens, or you might simply want to take a juice or smoothie into work for a healthy mid-morning snack.

One way to minimize the oxidization of juices is to add some vitamin C. Either squeeze in a little fresh lemon or orange juice or add 2.5m1/ 1/2 tsp of powdered vitamin C, which is available from health food shops. Juices can then be stored in the refrigerator for a few hours and won't discolour - make sure you chill them as soon as possible after making.

To store a juice or smoothie pour it into a jar or jug (pitcher), filling it right to the brim. Seal with clear film (plastic wrap) or, alternatively, use a screw-top jug or vacuum flask.
Most juices can be frozen for use at a later date and this will preserve almost all of their full nutritional value. Try freezing different flavoured juices in ice-cube trays — the ice cubes can then simply be removed and added to drinks. Otherwise, try to freeze the juice in fairly small amounts (glassfuls). Any juice or blended drink can be frozen successfully, but it is a good idea to make single ingredient base juices to freeze, because you can then add different flavourings when the juice is thawed. Make sure you label and date the containers clearly.

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