Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Smoothie

 Tonight I was edgy to slice some onions and zucchini and make a treat for myself.  I asked Dear One if he wanted some.  As you might expect, his answer was, "How about a smoothie?"  Since I have made a few lately I decided to go ahead and do it.

This is the one I made:

The color does not come through very well but it was a nice purple color.

In the blender I put:

1 cup soy milk
1 ripe banana
1 cup frozen mango (I am trying to empty the freezer...)
1/2 cup frozen blueberries

After blending one minute, I used the canning jar filler to pour the smoothie into the container.  Because it was a smoothie it did not pour well which I could immediately see and decided to use that jar filler rather than cover the counter with lovely purple smoothie.  That worked perfectly.

It tasted good to me and to Dear One who used his new stainless steel straw to suck it up. I went back downstairs to finish cooking the onions and zucchini.  I ate it all. I also ate it all without salt.  Patting myself on the shoulder about that!

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Delicious Fruit Smoothie

We bought a big basket of strawberries at the Farmers' Market last week and the week before.  Dear One said they were perhaps the best berries he had ever eaten!  The first batch was the better basket...

We have now used all of them!  Two big jars of jam (one of which was chia seed thickened and the other was low-sugar pectin thickened), one serving of strawberry shortcake left, and one quick and easy smoothie.


Quick and Easy Strawberry Smoothie

In a blender place:

1/2 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup fresh strawberries
1 large frozen banana
6 ice cubes


Blend for about a minute.  Pour into glasses and enjoy.  This made two 8-ounce glasses full.  It took no time at all to put them down the hatch!  So good.  I have not had a smoothie myself for some time.  This one was the best!

We will probably make this again.  There is a farm near us that has pick-your-own berries. I think we will go there this week!  They might have other produce as well.  It is sort of like anticipating Christmas!

Munchie Monday: Dr. Greger's Breakfast Smoothie

In the past I have mentioned Dr. Michael Greger.  He is the man behind nutritionfacts.org.    That is a wonderful website with videos and podcasts on all kinds of nutritional information.  I highly recommend it.  He has a monthly Question and Answer show on Facebook (while walking on his treadmill!!) that is always interesting.

Anyway.

Here is his breakfast smoothie recipe;

Makes 2 Servings

2 medium

• Fresh mint. 2 tsps
• Lemon. 1/2
• Rolled oats. 1 cup
• Frozen blackberries. 1/2 cup
• Frozen mango. 2 cups
• Flax meal. 2 tbsps
• Ground ginger. 1/2 tsp
• Spinach. 1 cup
• Water. 1 1/2 cups 

1. Rinse the fresh mint leaves. Peel the lemon, cut it in half and remove the seeds.
2. Combine the fresh mint leaves, half of the lemon, rolled oats, frozen blackberries, frozen mango, flax meal, ground ginger, spinach and water in a blender. Add additional lemon to taste, and additional water if needed. Blend until smooth and creamy.

This is the nearly empty breakfast smoothie container!
OR maybe not.  Maybe it was a strawberry smoothie....

What I did:

Trader Joe's had a fresh mint plant when I walked by after going to Fedex last week. I picked up the mint plant then went inside and picked up a lemon, a bag of spinach, and a bag of frozen mango.

In the bottom of our blender jar I put 6 large mint leaves, half a peeled and seeded lemon, 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats,1/2 teaspoon ginger, a lot of flax meal (since I am trying to use it up), a pint of frozen blackberries that Dear One picked last fall and that have been languishing in the freezer ever since waiting for a good recipe, and finally I put the 1 1/2 cups of water and blended for 60 seconds.

It was good.  It was not delicious/fabulous/or any other superlative because:  it was very thick.  Very very thick, in fact.  Putting in all the flax meal in addition to the oatmeal (remember this is a breakfast smoothie) sort of shot us in the foot, thickness-wise.  Dear One does not appear to like such thick smoothies, even though they did taste good.  ALSO,  there were a LOT of blackberry seeds. I am wondering if I had blended longer if they would have broken down...

Still, even with the issues, I will make it again...though I might go to frozen peaches and frozen blueberries instead of mangos and blackberries.  Sounds better, anyway.

Food Friday: Purple Smoothie

When we went to Costco to get TurboTax software and medication, we happened to walk by the Vitamix demonstrator.  She had just made some Four Fruit Smoothie which I tasted and which was pretty good!  She asked if I had any questions and since I had recently had a problem with the attachment we chatted a bit.  She gave me some tips, one of which was that the cup needs to be securely screwed into the blade base, but not TOO tightly, in order for it to work.  I realized my problem had probably been not tightening enough.  Since she was so nice and asked if we had the 20-ounce cup to use with the extra base, we considered it.  When she told me the one cup was $23.00 I immediately picked one up!  When we had bought the Vitamix a year ago, to get the 20-ounce cup, we would have had to buy two, plus another seal adapter/blade assembly, which cost $100 which I could not justify.  Now, for $23.00, we could have the best of both worlds.

As soon as we got home Dear One walked over to Whole Foods Market, which he wanted to do anyway (to check out Amazon PickUp and Delivery), and where he bought a can of crushed pineapple so I could make my own version of the Four Fruit Smoothie.

This is my version.

In the 20-ounce cup place--

2 mandarin oranges/clementines that have been peeled and separated (the mandarins were not as sweet and juicy as the clementines we had purchased recently. Disappointing.)

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/3 cup crushed pineapple with the juice it came in

1/4 cup pomegranate juice

1/2 small banana, peeled and sliced

10 grams plant-based protein powder (which we had purchased when we bought the Vitamix Blend Scale last year)

Attach the blade unit to the cup, place on the Vitamix base, and blend for 45 seconds.  Any longer would warm it up.

Dear One thought this was pretty good.  I thought it was pretty much purple sludge, but would drink it in a pinch.

 For myself, when he had consumed his cup of smoothie I used the same cup to make my "green goo" that I have mentioned before.  It was what I ate for supper.  I noticed the calories on the two little packets of flavoring:  total calories 55.  Adding in a few raw almonds to the green goo (as I write this I remembered I did not put in the apple cider vinegar nor the flax seed meal. Oh, well. Next time). The almonds and the flax meal would take the calories up  higher, but not that many.  I went to bed more or less hungry, something I aspire to as often as I can.  Depending on the morning numbers (weight and blood glucose), I may make this much more regular.

Food Friday: Green, VERY GREEN, Smoothie--Quick and Easy

Someone named Dr. Mona has a channel on YouTube.  By a fluke I saw a video advertised about green smoothies.  I have been pretty anti-green smoothies but must have been at a weak point today so I watched it.  Not only did I watch it, I got up and made it and shared it with Dear One.  He drank it!  You could have knocked me over with a feather.

This is the very green smoothie.

Using a high speed blender, in the blender jar I put:
3 cups baby spinach leaves
2 cups water
1 whole lemon juiced.

Started the blender and blended for 60 seconds.  Probably did not need that long but the one and only time I have used spinach in a smoothie before there were chunks of spinach leaves which gave a very nasty texture on my tongue. NOT what you want in a smoothie.  At least, I don't want that.

Next put in:
1 cored and chopped apple. I used a Pink Lady.
1 ripe banana

Blend again for 60 seconds.

This is very very green.  Pour it into glasses quickly. I gave a 4-ounce glass to Dear One and an 8-ounce glass for myself--since I really wanted this to be tasty enough to eat.  And maybe eat more than one time.

Well, it turns out there is enough for two days, so the rest is waiting for tomorrow morning.  Now I am thinking about what else I can add to the smoothie....maybe some flax meal or chia seeds.  What else?  Hum.  I will have to think about that.

Munchie Monday: 8-ounce Blendar Jar Smoothie!

Totally the main reason I finally purchased the Vitamix blender was because they had an accessory kit which had  an 8-ounce blender jar. I have used it multiple times.  This time I decided to make a smoothie in the jar.

This is what I did:

Into the jar I placed 2 larger frozen strawberries,  half a sliced banana, 2 tablespoons crushed pineapple and juice from a can, 1 tablespoon flax seeds.

Screwed on the top then placed on the Vitamix base and started it up, going from speed 1 up to speed 10.  I left it at speed 10 until the timer read one minute.

 It was a wonderful smoothie, according to Dear One. Well, he did not say it was wonderful, that was me because it worked so well,  but he sucked it up rather rapidly.

It was a nice accompaniment to Grapenuts with bananas and four ounces orange juice.  I had some kale salad.  next time I will make a small smoothie for myself, I guess.

Food Friday: Pineapple Citrus Smoothie

For years I have wanted a kitchen gadget that I just could not manage.  Through a series of events, some very very grim, and some ever so sweet, I have been able to realize this dream finally.  I shudder to share it because it is so worldly but it is a fact so I might as well let you know about it.

A new kitchen toy arrived this week:  a Vitamix Ascent blender with a Blender Bowl Starter Kit.  Now I can make smoothies and many other things, plus I can grind up flax seeds and any other hard things I want to grind in small quantities.  There, I said it.  I am so very happy.  As I am writing this, it is Sunday and I have not used the blender today but I used it every other day this week.

The second smoothie I made was a pineapple citrus smoothie.  Dear One really liked it.  (The first one was blueberries, super sweet salad mix, almond milk, and bananas.  I did not tell him what was in it until he asked.  He was impressed that the kale, etc was in it and it was good.   I thought I took a picture of it, but cannot locate that one.)

Here is a picture of the pineapple one:

Pineapple Citrus Smoothie (the way I made it)


3/4 cup water
1 15-ounce can pineapple slices and the juice
1 cup chopped carrots
1 slice lemon, including peel
1 1/2 cups ice cubes

Put all ingredients in the blender bowl in order listed.  Start the variable switch at 1and turn on the power.  Slowly raise the speed to 10 and let it blend for 1 minute.  This is supposed to make 4 servings at 60 calories each servings if you double the pineapple.  I gave it to us in two tall glasses.  There was a half cup left over which I gave to Dear One.  He did not object.

It tasted pretty good. I think it would have been better if I had actually put in the two cups of fresh pineapple the original recipe called for.

Food Friday: Green-ish Brown-ish Smoothie!

Lately I have heard a lot of talk about the health benefits of "green smoothies".  It seemed like an interesting idea, especially since some years ago a friend was feeding her young children green smoothies for breakfast.  Apparently the children just plain sucked up these smoothies with great pleasure.

This is how I made ours which made two LARGE smoothies.  Next iteration will be half size.  Good nutrition has to include common sense and small portions.

2 cups orange juice
2 large handfuls fresh baby spinach

Blend these in your blender for AT LEAST one minute until the spinach has COMPLETELY turned into juice.

Add 1 cup frozen strawberries and 1 cup frozen banana chunks.  (When bananas become very ripe-which they inevitably do-I chunk them up, put them in a freezer bag, and put into the freezer to be ready for a smoothie.)

Blend until very smooth and serve immediately.

Next time not only will I decrease the size of the smoothie but I will add ground flax seed meal and maybe even some turmeric....The added yellow of the turmeric cannot make the appearance any worse.

Munchie Monday: First Greenish Smoothie!

Communication is a great thing!  So often Dear One and I have incomplete communication which can cause a certain amount of aggravation on both sides.  I tried to smarten up this week.  We had a discussion about the food we eat.  I planned to make something using kale.  I mentioned it.  He said he likes "a few baby spinach leaves", not actually kale.  Well.  That is something!  So I asked if he would want to try some in a smoothie.  He waggled his hand.  I took that as a "yes'!

You will notice that I spilled the smoothie on the outside of the glass so I carried it with a paper towel, effectively removing the spill-over.  Some day I will learn to use Photoshop Elements and edit out the nasty parts of pictures...

This is what I did:

This is the basic fruit smoothie I have told you about before which includes:
1 cup orange juice
1 cup cranberry juice
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 frozen chopped banana
2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds

Then I threw in one handful of washed, shaken out, baby spinach. 

Starting the blender, I stood over it  and blended for about 3 minutes.

This made two large glasses of purple lusciousness.  I asked Dear One his opinion.  He said,  "It is good."  Good!!!!  That is such a great response!  I loved it.

So, today I made another of these greenish smoothies.  I put a much larger handful of baby spinach in it and ground it for about 4 minutes.  (The last one had a few little bits of spinach identifiable on my tongue. I was not so fond of that texture issue, so I blended longer this time.  It was still good the last time but this one was ideal texture.)

When mine glass was almost half gone, I remembered my sister sent me a message about adding turmeric to our diets to help with arthritis, and other, pain, so I thought, "Why not?"  Since Dr. Greger in "How Not To Die" says we need 1/4 teaspoon a day of turmeric,  I threw in a quarter teaspoon of it into my partial cup of greenish smoothie.  Since I just sort of stirred it in, it sort of clumped up. 

May I just say, this was not so pleasing. The clumps were dry on my tongue.  Not good.   I will try it again but will add the turmeric to the blender.  I will just add it to my serving the next time, and the time after that, after conversing on the subject with Dear One who could use a little pain relief, I will add it to the whole blender jar of smoothie if he gives me the green light.

I wonder how far we can go with this green smoothie thing before we cannot tolerate it....

Another Yummy Smoothie Drink: Chocolate Banana!

The second recipe try in a row was a winner!  At least I loved it.  Dear One gave me the wavy fingers, but he drank it all and made no negative comments. I consider that a success.  Not a BIG success but still, successful.

This is what I did:

Using our blender, I put in--

1 cup unsweetened Almond Breeze almond milk
1 frozen banana chopped into about 1-inch chunks (I chopped the chunks before freezing, placed them on a tray in freezer.  When frozen, I put them into a plastic bag.)
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon ground flax seeds (flax seed meal)

Let the blender roar until the smoothie is, well, smooth.  Probably about a minute in our blender jar.

Pour into a tall glass and enjoy.

You will need a spoon because it is nice and thick and frozen.  Just what I like in a smoothie.  You may, too.

Munchie Monday: Food Failure

Just to add to the list of food failures...I thought I would make a smooth that someone on Facebook posted and said it was great.  News Flash:  It was not.  I can eat almost anything, but this was definitely not pleasing.  A little too gritty.  Having said that, Dear One ate his whole serving!

This is what was in it:

1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen cherries
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon ground flax seeds
1 teaspoon chia seeds
3 ounces firm tofu, chopped
1 cup almond or other plant milk

Put everything except the almond milk in your sturdy blender (if the frozen strawberries were very large, chop them somewhat).

Healthy smoothie, if you can take it...

Pour the milk on top and blend well.  It makes a nice thick smoothie.

WELL....it was not the best. It was certainly good for you, BUT the taste was not the best.  For one thing, I did not have blueberries which were actually called for in the recipe. 

For the main problem:  we are accustomed to orange juice-based smoothies.  Having an almond milk-based smoothie did not work for our tastes.  You may love it.