Lee

For years I treated Swiss chard as the awkward vegetable, the one in the veg box I would stare at before folding it into yet another pan of wilted greens. Then one September afternoon I juiced it with a sweet apple on a whim, mostly to use it up, and I have not looked back. … Read more

For about three weeks every September, the box of Victoria plums at the greengrocer’s is the best thing in the shop. The rest of the year I walk straight past them, and then suddenly they’re here, soft and dusky and smelling of jam, and I buy far too many. Some go in a crumble. A … Read more

I ignored passion fruit for years. A fruit you have to scoop out with a spoon, seeds and all, felt like too much faff for the payoff. Then one hot afternoon I spooned the pulp over a bowl of chopped mango on a whim and something clicked. That sharp, perfumed tang is exactly what sweet … Read more

I never used to think of pears as juicing fruit. They’re soft, and soft fruit gives you less juice for your effort than apples or carrots, so for years I only added them to blends with firmer things. Then came the September when every pear in the house ripened on the same day, and I … Read more

I didn’t expect to like this one as much as I do. Grapefruit on its own is too sharp for me first thing, but the cucumber takes the edge off it and the ginger warms the whole thing up, and what you’re left with is a juice that tastes like a proper drink rather than … Read more

I never planned to make grape juice. Grapes are the fruit you eat out of the bowl while you’re waiting for the kettle, not the fruit you push through a juicer. Then a bag of black ones went soft at the back of the fruit bowl, too far gone to enjoy but too good to … Read more

I came to this one late. For years mango was a smoothie fruit and oranges were a juice fruit, and it never crossed my mind to put the two together. Then a mate knocked up a jug of it one hot afternoon and that was that. I’ve been making it ever since, especially now the … Read more

I came to kale juice late, because my first attempt tasted like the garden it came from. The trick is to stop treating kale as the whole drink and start treating it as a guest. Two oranges and a sweet apple carry it, a knob of ginger keeps the glass interesting, and suddenly the greenest … Read more

My nan used to send me out with a bowl to pick blackcurrants off the bush, one cluster at a time, and I would come back with purple hands and a stained t-shirt. The reward was a jug of dark, sharp squash, the kind that made the shop stuff taste watered down. I had forgotten … Read more