"Aaaaahhh," I said as I took a swig of my green smoothie. "It's so creamy and sweet. I can feel the vitamins and nutrients making the cells in my body spring to life!"
She rolled her eyes, grabbed her high fiber cereal topped with strawberries and left me to my mess.
I didn't used to be a smoothie girl, but since I've decided to make organic vegetables and fruits my primary source of food, I've jumped on the green smoothie bandwagon.
I like to use 2 cups of spinach as the base. Spinach is high in Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Vitamin C, manganese, iron, zinc, and so much more. Occasionally I'll use a combination of spinach and kale or just kale, but I really prefer spinach because the kale can taste bitter. To me, the spinach has no flavor in the smoothie.
Once I've got my spinach set, I'll add half a banana or avocado to make it creamy; 1/2 cup of frozen fruit to make it cold; some water, coconut milk, or almond milk to thin it out; and then I might add in some flax seeds for additional omega 3's and fiber. I will sometimes add in a tablespoon of a nut butter to make it extra satiating if I know I'm not going to be able to eat lunch at my usual time.
I know it looks weird. It's so...so... green. But I promise - all you will taste is the fruit and their sweetness.
Do you have smoothies for breakfast? What do you typically put in your smoothie? I'm looking to try something new - non-dairy - and would love to hear your suggestions.
Love to juice, feel free to add Greek yogurt and ground cinnamon or fresh ginger... I make a big batch, it lasts for a few days. Here are my two favorites. Green drink organic baby spinach, organic swiss chard or kale as the base. 1-2 English cucumbers, 4-5 ribs of celery and 1/2 lemon. To cut the veggie taste, add peeled and seeded fuji apples and pears. Yellow drink, 1 whole pineapple, 2 apples and 2 pears that have the skin and seeds removed, fresh peeled and slivered ginger, about 1/2 thumb size, 1/2 lemon, you can use the peel, for extra zing, just cut it in slivers, seeded removed of course. Since I make the juice in batches, I keep it separate, and add Greek yogurt and cinnamon when ready to drink. Sometimes I combine the green and yellow drinks for extra goodness. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteThose are some great ideas, Roxane! Love the idea of adding cucumbers. Bet that would taste great with honeydew melon chunks. I can't do the dairy, but I'm sure some non-dairy milk will do fine...not as amazing as delicious, thick Greek yogurt though ;-)
DeleteYummy! I love green smoothies! I'm been putting bok choy greens in my smoothies lately. Kind of weird, but I don't like them in my stir frys(I just like the crunchy stalk bit) and I think they have even less of a taste than spinach, if that's even possible. I clicked over from one of the food photo sites and I just had to comment because I love your blog title. It's awesome, and made me literally laugh out loud :D
ReplyDeleteHey Heidi! I've tried swiss chard and kale, but not bok choy. I've seen it at the farmer's market, but have yet to figure out how to use it. Will have to try that. Thanks for dropping in. Seriously...isn't laundry just the worst??
DeleteI have doing alot of smoothies lately and you are right- you cant really taste spinach!
ReplyDeleteThis looks delicious! My favorite smoothie is: 1 cup soy milk, 1 cup spinach, 1 cup kale, 1 pear, 1/2 banana and 1 tbsp hemp seeds. All you can taste is the pear and banana!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to try that! I'm trying all kale and it is bitttttter. Whew! Maybe the key is to cut it with the spinach.
DeleteNo, there's still a little taste of spinach but the mango and banana is more domineering. :) And I just love it because it's so nutritious and packed with vitamin K2 (because of spinach!).
ReplyDeleteYay for vitamin K2! Something else I've discovered is that I notice a spinach taste with baby spinach leaves as opposed to the full spinach leaf (I've been getting mine at the farmer's market).
DeleteThat's a bubbly green smoothie right there, Erin! Ahmm.. The great thing about green smoothies is that there are more veggies one can consume than what he/she normally eats during meals. Green smoothie contains vitamins, minerals, chlorophyll and healthy carbohydrates.
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