The Boy's Home Made V8

This is the boy’s version of V8 juice. You’ll need a juicer. It makes a small jug full.

12 ripe tomatoes

2 celery stalks

4 carrots

2 small beetroot

A handful each of spinach, lettuce, flat-leaf parsley & watercress

A good pinch each of salt, white pepper and mild chilli powder

A good squeeze of lemon juice ( about ¼ lemon)

The tomatoes are the main part so they need to be good. Obviously if you use organic veg you will really taste the difference – especially with the tomatoes, celery and carrots.

Our juicer has 2 speeds and slow suits soft things like tomatoes best. Juice these first. Turn it up to high and juice the parsley, spinach and watercress. This is because they don’t give out much juice and the other harder ingredients will carry any remnants through the blades. I like it with a healthy amount of parsley.

Still on high speed juice the carrots, lettuce and beetroot. The beetroot will make this drink purple, so it won’t look like V8. I suppose you could use white beetroot but I quite like a purple drink.

The boy usually decants this from the jug that comes from the juicer into a clean glass jug, and skims off any foam so it looks better.  Depending on how juicy the tomatoes are, he sometimes has to decant these first and then mix the rest in. You could sieve it  first to get it extra smooth – and you can – but I think this robs it of essential fibre. If this is going to be good for you, you might as well go for it. Add ice cubes if you like.

Now the seasoning – a really good couple of pinches of flaky sea salt are essential to bring out the savoury nature of the drink. We think pinches of white pepper and mild chilli powder work really well, but make sure it’s the mild kind, otherwise it will drown the other flavours. Finally a good squeeze of lemon, stir and serve immediately before it loses it’s goodness.

You’re getting Lycopene, vitamin A, iron, vitamin C, Beta-Carotene, vitamin B6, Riboflavin, magnesium, potassium, zinc and goodness knows what else