Munchie Monday: Cherry Pie Filling Smoothie

We had some things in the refrigerator that needed using up...such as some cherry pie filling.  Since Dear One is rather a fan of breakfast and not at all averse to smoothies, I decided to give it a try.

This was the smoothie:

1 cup pineapple juice (well, the juice that was leftover from draining canned pineapple for ambrosia salad)
1 cup cherry pie filling
3 frozen sliced bananas

Put the pineapple juice in the blender first, then the pie filling, and finally the frozen bananas.  Blend on high speed for a minute or until lovely and smooth.

This made two tall glasses.  I had one sip and put it aside.  Dear One sucked his right down!  He loved it, I guess...so I handed him my glass which he took with a smile.  This smoothie was some sweet.  WAY too sweet for me.  Almost made me gag.

For myself, I needed something a little better for my taste buds.  I got out sauerkraut, sautéed kale and onions, and two pieces of Whole Foods Market Sesame Tofu from the salad bar which I broke into pieces.  Two minutes in the microwave and I was in heaven.

Healthy, Wealthy, Wise-ish--Smoothies

It is such a good idea to eat healthy foods, not too much, mostly plants (ask Michael Pollan...).  Recently (on my birthday, actually) I woke up to some information on my computer that put me back in the kick for eating better.

So yesterday morning I hopped over to Winco pretty early so I could get ingredients for some smoothies. I did not go hog-wild purchasing stuff, but did have a bag that was sort of heavy and off balance which was tough to drag up the stairs. I had a mind to phone Dear One, wake him out of a sound sleep, and ask him to come slogging down the stairs to help me.  But I forbore.

For breakfast we had a fruit smoothie.  It was okay.  Not stunningly good, but certainly very edible.

Breakfast Smoothie-1
2 handfuls fresh spinach
1 cup water
2 cups mixed berries--blueberries (freezer-burned) and strawberries
1 frozen banana in chunks
1/2 scoop Plant Protein Powder

Put it all in the blender and let it roll for about a minute.  As I say, it was okay.  Next time I will put in pineapple to perk up the flavor, instead of water.

The OTHER SMOOTHIE: a vegetable smoothie.  Everyone who knows me has been bored to tears from me talking about Dr. Michael Greger, NutritionFacts.org, and How Not To Die.   WELL...one of the emails I read on my birthday was from Dr. Greger.  He reminded me that not only stopping forward progression of major diseases is possible with a whole-food, plant-based diet, but even those deadly diseases can be reversed.  He spoke of a vegetable smoothie that he eats every day that he is home.  I thought it had to be good.

So the story is that I got everything except the jalapeno pepper at Winco--but only because they were all sold out!  Rats!  Well, I would only have put in a little anyway.

Everything went into the blender...then the magic happened:  Vegetable smoothie ready to go.

Well, not quite.  It turned out that warm vegetable smoothie is rather nasty.  I realize as I am writing this that if I had blended for another couple of minutes it would have been hot and very much like a tasty smooth vegetable soup.  At the time, however, I could NOT stomach it so I put it in the refrigerator and ate three servings of potato chips for supper.  Smart, huh?!!  Dear One noticed.

Anyway, this morning I pulled the chilled smoothie out of the refrigerator.  Still not stellar but then I squeezed in half a lemon, grated in some fresh black pepper and sprinkled on some coarse Kosher salt.  Yummy!!  Surprisingly so.

Vegetable Smoothie

1 rib celery
4 baby carrots
1/2 red bell pepper
Green shoots from 4 scallions
1/4 beet
1/3 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup kale--or a little more.
1 cup vegetable juice
1/8 teaspoon black pepper.

When I make this again I will use roasted beet instead of raw beet.  One-quarter of a medium beet was a little heavy on the beet.  Of course, if you love beets....

Munchie Monday: Four Fruit Smoothie with a Vitamix Scale and Blend App!

We like smoothies at our house.  You know that.

On Friday we were at Costco walking down the main corridor and there, right in front of us, was the Vitamix demonstrator guy. I asked him what he was selling us this time.  He said, "A four fruit smoothie."  He put the blender jar on a little kitchen scale that looks like it is made of stainless steel, and said, "Watch!"  So we did.  It was a really interesting five or ten minutes.

 He connected his iPad to the scale via Bluetooth then started cutting up fruit and putting it into the jar as the iPad told him how much to add then beeped when he had enough in the jar.  After an orange, a slice of fresh pineapple, four strawberries, some agave syrup, some baby carrots, some VEGAN(!!) protein powder, and some ice cubes,  he placed the blender jar on the Vitamix base then pressed the Smoothie button.

In about 45 seconds he had a pretty and delicious-looking smoothie.  He put six little 3-ounce paper cups on a tray.  He told me not to touch them, which I thought was odd, but I did not touch them.  He poured the rest of the smoothie into a large red Solo cup, then handed that cup to me!!  Well, thank you very much, good sir!!!  Dear One drank one of the little cups then shared mine with me. I could not drink it all.

Well,  guess what!  We walked away with the scale AND the vegan protein powder.  And have used the scale multiple times since.  With smoothies at juice bars costing in the neighborhood of $5 a smack, we will pay for this thing in savings very quickly.  Plus, it makes me smile.

Immediately upon arriving home, I made the Four Fruit Smoothie.  Ours does not look like the one in the recipe because rather than using straight ice cubes, I used the ice cubes I had made with "leftover" smoothie earlier in the week...the blueberry and kale smoothie. (One problem I have always had with smoothies is that there was always too much for just two reasonable servings. ) Somewhere I got the idea to put the leftovers in the ice cube tray then use them in the next smoothie.  It works!

Munchie Monday: Easy Delicious Fruit Smoothie

We had some fruit and juices in the house.  I was feeling like not making anything big for supper.  Dear One agreed that a smoothie would fill the bill. 

This is what I did:

Got out the Bosch mixer with blender jar attachment.

Into the blender jar I poured:

1 cup orange juice
1 cup cranberry juice
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup frozen (sweetened, this time) strawberries
2 Tablespoons ground flax seed meal

Turned on the blender and blended until thoroughly mixed and ground up.

Served into two 12 ounce glasses.

Sucked it down as fast as the frozen beverage would allow!

Sorry there are no pictures.  We drank it before I thought of the camera.

A while afterwards Dear One heated some frozen french fries in the oven then ate them.

Not to be outdone so I took two slices of Red Hen 100% whole wheat bread, put on a little mayonnaise and two small slices of homemade baked seasoned tofu.  This makes a great sandwich.  You feel as good as if you were eating an actual Reuben sandwich. At least the tooth feel makes you imagine a nice meat-based sandwich but it is made of plants.  Next time I will get out the sauerkraut!