A green smoothie junkie, that is.
Sara (The Happy Foody) turned me on to the green smoothie concept, which is basically: get all your daily servings of fruits and vegetables in one go in a smoothie that tastes like dessert. Boost health! Get shiny hair! Improve digestion! Fight free radicals! Sounds good to me, you know?
So several weeks ago I started with a parsley-blueberry-apple smoothie, thinned with plain water. It tasted so clean and fresh and delicious that I kept right on, making another one each day. I love strawberries, so I started adding those, and oranges, and bananas (which I HATE, but I wanted something smooth and creamy-textured). I felt incredibly healthy and awake and great after just a few days. And then something awful happened. I ran out of greens, and had to go like three days without a green smoothie. It was terrible. Terrible!!
I finally got some more greens (2 pounds of organic spinach, which is like half a bushel, no lie -- it's a HUGE amount) and a bunch of other stuff, and made a green smoothie first thing when I came home from the store. It was a total revelation, and let me tell you why:
I've been trying to figure out a way to get myself to eat avocado. The texture massively squicks me out, and the flavor isn't my favorite either, so despite the fact that I know avocados are one of the healthiest foods you can possibly eat, I just haven't been able to get over my general feeling of yuckiness toward them. But I thought to myself, "They don't have a very strong flavor... and they're definitely creamy... what if I used them instead of banana in my green smoothies?" Best idea I've ever had. Seriously. So here's what was in that smoothie (and, uh, pretty much all my smoothies since then):
2 kiwis
1/2 a medium avocado
3 huge handfuls baby spinach
2 or 3 big handfuls mixed frozen fruit (includes strawberries, mango, pineapple, and peaches)
1 t. raw local honey
enough water to blend
I don't know if I can describe how good this smoothie is. It might sound strange, but it tastes like an umbrella drink you'd sip by the pool in Cabo, y'all. The pineapple and mango come right to the front -- if your eyes were closed I guarantee you'd never guess it had anything remotely vegetable-related in it.
I'm planning on doing a detox/cleanse with the green smoothies sometime in April. Has anyone else done one like it? I want to make sure I'm getting all the nutrition I need. Can anybody see gaps that I'll need to fill, if I'm having smoothies like the one above? Let me know.
Head over to Happy Foody and take the Green Smoothie Challenge, why dontcha?
Rangpur Lime Scones
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These lime scones are something special. Made with fragrant Rangpur lime
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4 days ago
11 comments:
just checked out this blog too -- love it.
Here is one Dorothy and I drank yesterday:
A bunch of spinach (~2-3 handfuls)
~12 oz OJ
1 scoop whey protein powder
1 C. vanilla yogurt
1 frozen banana
Mike liked it a little, but he'd like it better with frozen berries instead. The yogurt helps make it creamy too!
The berries are HUGELY important to me. I also love the frozen mixed fruit from Sam's club -- it has peaches, mango, pineapple, and strawberries. Sometimes the frozen berries aren't sweet enough for me.
For some reason though, I do NOT like dairy in these. I'm a fan of dairy products but for some reason I don't like the vegetable + milk combo.
If you're not allergic, Sarah, you and D should try the avocado (prob. minus the dairy). I hear avocado is basically the perfect food for littles.
That sounds really awesome but also really expensive to do everyday!Has it been?
Maybe we'll try this summer when we can take spinach fr the garden. :/
It's totally not expensive. On a normal week when I'm not on Spring break, the green smoothie is my breakfast! So really it just factors right into my food budget. I figure I spent less than $20 for more than two weeks' worth of green smoothie supplies -- it's about 2 weeks worth of spinach, but the frozen fruit that's part of that lasts a month. I bet each one works out to be in the less than $1 range, and that's a darn frugal breakfast.
Mrs. O'Neal said to be careful with the cleanse thing. It made the news out here about how dangerous "cleansing" is because of the way it can strip beneficial bacteria from one's alimentary canal. She said it is much better to just consistently eat a balanced diet. Cleansing can lead to some nasty colon attacks.
Oh... not that kind of cleanse! I'm pretty sure she's thinking of the kind of cleanse where you take herbal laxatives and things, and she's totally right about that kind. It can mess up your digestion. The Master Cleanse is pretty popular -- that's the one where you drink lemon juice with maple syrup and cayenne pepper and then drink an herbal laxative tea to get stuff out the other end. Yuck. There's no way I'd do one like that!
This kind of cleanse just focuses on unprocessed food -- no starch, no meat, nothing like that.
Green Smoothies ROCK!!! It makes me so happy to seem them getting more popular by the day :)
Cheers,
Kristen
Oh my gosh! I tried that green smoothie recipe today and it was SOOO good!!! :) Thanks again for meeting with me Laura! :)
Laura--
Thanks so much for that recipe! I've been trying to make smoothies more often lately, and I'm definitely going to try this (and check out your links!)
AND, I am pleased to announce that you won my March giveaway! Your site sent the most number of new visitors to my blog last month, so I'd like to send you a free copy of one of my books. Just hop on over to To Love, Honor and Vacuum and you can email me through my profile and let me know which book you'd like and how to get in touch with you!
Thanks!
Found your blog through Sheila - love it! Great encouragement to reboot my smoothie passion. If you're doing it for more than a few days, just make sure you're still getting some protein! My mom always used to add wheat germ to hers.
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