Garden Cocktail

On Friday night Neil and I went for our traditional post midwife date night dinner. This week we decided to dine at Kismet Kitchens in Montpelier, a restaurant we used to love to visit for brunch back when we lived in Montpelier. We had an amazing dinner of Veg Carpacio and Vegan Tempeh Club Burgers and Neil tried their Garden Martini (fresh squeezed vegetable juice and gin with a salt and pepper rim).

Well we absolutely loved our meals and Neil loved his drink so much so that we decided recreate our meal at home for Saturday night dinner. Since any good date night in starts with a cocktail we decided to make our own version of the Garden Martini.

Makes 2 Cocktails

Juice Mix:

• 1 bunch parsley
• 2-3 large tomatoes
• 3 celery stalks
• 4 kale stalks (stems and leaves)
• 1/4 jalapeno

Juice everything above in your juicer and then comes cocktail time!

• 2 1/2 oz vodka or gin
• 1/2 oz dry vermouth
• wedges of lemon
• salt and pepper for the rim of the glass
• celery sticks and jalapeno slices, for garnish

Alcoholic Version: Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add about 1 cup of the veggie juice, the vodka or gin, vermouth and a squeeze of lemon. Shake and then using the strainer pour into a salt and pepper rimmed, ice filled glass and garnish with celery sticks, jalapeno slices and a wedge of lemon.

Non-alcoholic Version:  If you don’t drink alcohol or are pregnant like me you would fill a shaker with ice add 1 and 1/2 cups of the veggie juice a squeeze of lemon and shake.  Then pour into a salt and pepper rimmed glass that is filled with ice and garnish with a celery stick, wedge of lemon and slice of jalapeno.