Summer Garden Juice

Why This Recipe Works

Ever the kitchen experimenters, we wanted to create a juice inspired by the vegetable-laden dish of French ratatouille. Starting with the traditional ingredients of eggplant, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, tomato, and fresh basil, we did some test cook investigating to determine the best combination to translate our inspiration into drinkable form. It turns out that there is a reason people don't juice eggplant, as the taste was too bitter to be palatable; juiced alliums yielded the same unfortunate result. We ended up loving the tomato, zucchini, bell pepper, and basil together, so our juice took on more of a “ summer harvest from the garden” theme. The tomato became silky and sugary, the red bell pepper was sweet and vegetal, the zucchini added mostly neutral body, and the fresh basil leaves and stems were herbaceous and savory. The combination will surprise you at first and then compel you to go back for more again and again.