Tuesday, March 15, 2011

faith's smoothie

faith's smoothie
{smoothie ingredients}

In the comments this morning, Cindy said, "Would you please share Faith's green smoothie recipe? I need amounts or I will just make a mess of it!"

Cindy, I totally get that. I am usually a person who loves recipes, directions, and proportions. But believe me, this is really simple, and anything goes. My original green smoothie post is here. I still stick to those same ingredients a lot of the time. But recently I've been interested in upping the vegetables, so we decided to add cucumbers. Yum! We call this "Faith's smoothie" because she made the first one over the weekend. Really, anything goes. Just keep in mind that if you add red fruit (strawberries, or a blood orange as above) your smoothie will be a little bit brownish. I encourage you to maybe avoid the red fruits at first.

Here is what we used today. We laid it out on the cutting board so you can get an idea of amounts: two oranges (these are from the yard--one blood orange and one Cara Cara), peeled, frozen mango chunks (buy them at Trader Joe's), spinach, a banana, and 1-2 little cucumbers (we buy the ones at Trader Joe's they call Persian cucumbers, I think), peeled. We like to get all or most of it organic. Place this all in the blender and add water (maybe about a third of the way up the blender to start). Adding enough liquid is the key to getting the smoothie to blend in a regular blender (which is what we have). Then blend, blend, blend. If it won't blend, add more water. Let the blender run for a full minute or two. You want the spinach to be totally ground up. It is very unpleasant to find a big piece of spinach leaf in your smoothie! We love the taste of the cucumbers in this, and I'm also enjoying a somewhat less sweet smoothie.

faith's smoothie

Anyone else adding more veggies to their smoothies? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

11 comments:

Sarah said...

kale is always good in smoothies, too!

Chris said...

i really have to try this. once in a while i buy green smoothies and my littlest (who never lets a veggie pass his lips) drinks them with relish.

Maiz Connolly said...

1 pkg of cooked beets (TJ's)
1 small chunk of peeled ginger
4 pitted medjool dates
1 or 2 oranges
1 large dollop of yogurt
water or apple juice

I know it's not vegan, but that's my total fave!

Sometimes I like spinach-banana-orange, too.

cindy said...

Thank you SO much! I can't wait to make my own. Thank you for the pictures and tip to go to Trader Joe's too!

Cindy

Its_Lily said...

My favorite is still the collard greens. I substitute the banana for pineapple because I love the taste of the pineapple. My grandson begs for these and, like Chris' son, he detests veggies.

Carrie said...

If one can afford it, we are not wealthy by the way it was just a priority to us,buy a Vita-Mix blender! We bought one three years ago and it is wonderful for all sorts of things but smoothies are a breeze to make in it! You don't even have to peel the fruits (or decore apples) it is that powerful.

As far as adding vegetables, we make our smoothies with kale (the most healthful green)and add wheat grass that we sprout ourselves.

Lisa said...

I have to try this one Mary Beth. I always blend up my spinach/green first, then add the fruit and blend again to avoid the larger green bits. One of my favorites includes celery as well. We've also tried to vary the greens, including dandelion greens. Yum!

Emm said...

I like to use Swiss chard in green smoothies, purely because I always tend to have an excess of it to use up! Someone told me it was easier to grow than spinach so I started growing it, found it easy and stuck with it. This year I might give growing spinach or kale a try for variety.

Karen said...

I just can't say enough how much I love your blog! I get new ideas all the time.

no spring chicken said...

My kids absolutely love smoothies and as the years progress so do their taste buds. It used to be that every time you varied the ingredients they turned up their noses. Now just about anything goes. Thanks for the encouragement you offer on your blog.

Guilt & Coffee said...

I use the left-over steamed broccoli, it barely tastes and adds a lot of green look to my pinnaple-ginger morning concoction. And my picky husband has no objection ;)