snowbanner

Archives

Smoothie Update

There are now kiwis going into the smoothies. The idea of putting whole fuzzy fruit in there was weird at first, but honestly it disappears in there like everything else.

Aside from that, I wanted to write a little update on how the smoothie making routine has formed up over the last few months.

    1) Buy bulk fruits and veggies at Costco

    2) Use raw if you can,

    3) but if it’s something that’s going to go bad before you can use it all, then you need to get it into the freezer. And if you’re using frozen fruit and veggies for smoothies, it needs to be in usable chunks.

      a) baby carrots. Add a couple paper towels to the bag to absorb excess moisture, stays in the fridge no problem for a long time.

      b) baby spinach. Use a fresh handful in each smoothie until it starts to wilt. At the first signs of wilting fill freezer bags with the spinach, and then add water to cover it all, squeeze out the air as you zip the bag closed. You want the bag to be flat, maybe an inch thick, when you put it in the freezer. Not bulging. I was skeptical of this process at first, but have successfully broken the ice chunks apart for smoothie use.

      c) cherry or grape (small) tomatoes. Again, fresh is good, but these are super easy to toss in a freezer bag and into the freezer and use as is. No peeling, cutting, or thawing needed.

      d) globe grapes WITH seeds. The seeds are good for you and the blender makes them disappear. These are as easy as the tomatoes.

      e) mango and pineapple chunks. Bought at TJ’s, and are already cut up and found in the freezer section. Ready to use. (We bought 2 pineapples that went bad and got thrown out. We never managed to cut one up from fresh and get it in the freezer, so screw it.)

      f) watermelon. We bought a small one with seeds and got it cut up into chunks and into the freezer. I’m not super fond of watermelon and probably won’t bother with it again. The chunks we cut were also too big, so we’ve learned that in general they need to be smaller.

      g) apples. Must be cut into slices and seeds removed. Fresh or frozen, apples seeds are poisonous. I learned this the hard way. ugh. Cutting them up fresh to toss in the blender is awesome and supplies extra liquid (not ice) to the mix.

      h) oranges. Must be peeled and pulled apart into usable chunks. This means 2 or maybe 3 wedges together, no more.

      i) bananas. Peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks and frozen in bags (like everything else). I find that freezing all of these things with the bag as flat as possible is much better than ball shapped. If you put one flat layer of banana chunks in a bag to freeze, they will pull apart easily. If they are more ball shaped, you will have trouble. Same goes for just about all of these.

      j) kiwis. Fuzzy skin and all is apparently really good for you. We cut these into usable chunks (1.5″ – 2″ cubes).

    4) Starting your smoothie: Start with some plain yogurt and liquid. I use about a half cup plain yogurt, then I pour in coconut milk, filling to the 1 cup mark on the blender. The yogurt helps save me from gut aches caused by a lack of intestinal flora needed to process all these fruits and veggies I’m not quite use to eating yet. The liquid could be water, milk, juice, other milk substitutes, whatever you like.

    5) Add fruit and veggie chunks. I like to add a little of everything I have on hand. A small handful or a couple wedges of each. The biggest chunkiest things I put into a big pyrex measuring cup and microwave for a minute. So far these have been: watermelon, apple, orange, spinach. Often I’m putting in everything frozen except for the carrots (yogurt and milk, of course), and it’s too much hard ice for the blender. I almost never add ice cubes anymore. Only if I happen to be using lots of not-frozen ingredients. Then it will need ice.

    6) Don’t overfill the blender. This will depend on your blender of course. For ours, I’m filling it maybe 3/4ths full, and when it’s done blending it shows 3.5 – 4 cups of smoothie. I split that into 2 glasses and share with Mike.

    7) It doesn’t keep well. When Mike was away I put the second glass in the fridge to drink the next day. It’s okay, but not great, so I tried to make smaller batches for just myself so there weren’t leftovers.

Bottom line: Buy whatever fruits and veggies are available. Prep them in bite sizes and freeze. Use a little of everything and enjoy!

Comments are closed.