A guest post from my friend Jen!
At least three times a week someone stops by my desk at work and gets a horrible grossed out look on their face and queries me about my mason jar of green “sludge”. I have heard every comment under the sun from a simple “What is that?” to “Are you growing a science experiment?” to “Are you insane?” I generally laugh and patiently explain to them that “that” (aka jar of greenish-brown goo) is my daily green smoothie.
Every morning my family makes a pure fruit smoothie and then – purely for the added health benefits – we blend in leafy greens (spinach, Swiss chard, romaine, mixed greens – take your pick!). My bloggy friend Reesh introduced me to green smoothies and after my first taste I was absolutely hooked. You probably won’t believe me until you’ve actually tried it yourself, but you really can’t taste the “green”.
If you can get past the horrid colour resembling something you might find in the back of your refrigerator after a month away from home, I guarantee you will like it! What’s not to like about a smooth, cool, refreshing jar of your favourite blended fruits?? Especially one that has great health benefits such as keeping your bowels regular and giving you more energy along with a good portion of your daily recommended fruits and veggies? And the very best part? You might even convince your kids to “drink” their veggies!
I won’t go into too much detail about the science behind the benefits of eating raw blended greens, but for those of you who are interested, I would highly recommend checking out Victoria Boutenko’s website Green for Life or even checking her book of the same name out of your local library. Both the website and book also include a few recipes.
If you’re thinking this all sounds complicated, it really isn’t. All you need is a blender, some fruit (anything goes!), some type of leafy green and a little bit of water, juice or ice. Unless you have a powerful blender (we use a VitaMix since we make smoothies everyday) add the ingredients a little at a time and add water as needed to get the consistency you want. Whether you like them so much you make smoothies a part of your daily diet or just have one every now and then - they’re perfect for St. Patty’s day or to accompany a reading of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham – you can feel good about feeding yourself or your family these yummy treats!
Just to give you a little more incentive to pull out and dust off your blender, here are a few of our favourite blends:
Great Starter Recipe:
1 Apple (cored but not peeled)
1 Pear (cored but not peeled)
1 Banana
Blend with approximately one cup of water/juice until smooth
Fill blender with as much spinach (or other green of your choice) as you can and blend until smooth.
Yummy Summer Recipe:
Watermelon
Strawberries (fresh or frozen)
Ripe Pear or Banana
Swiss Chard
Blend as above
Fruit Salad Mix:
Grapes
¼ Cantaloupe
1 Orange
Romaine Lettuce
Blend as above
A few final notes: greens such as spinach and romaine have a fairly mild taste, but you can also use stronger greens such as arugula, dandelion greens, stinging nettle, or even carrot or beet tops (often free at your local market!); be sure to taste test along the way to find your perfect mix; get your kids involved in making the smoothie so they’ll be more likely to enjoy drinking it (Nate loves packing the blender with spinach and pressing the buttons); and you can store any left over smoothie in the fridge for up to 3 days but you will need to either shake really well or re-blend slightly before drinking as it will settle out.
Happy Blending!
Jen is mom to two year old Nate, wife of her high school sweetheart Dale and third favourite person of Turner the amazing labradoodle. Besides chillin' with her 3 boys, she works full-time as a member of the Canadian Forces Air Reserve and is trying to reconcile both her west coast-learned hippie tendencies and her city-grown roots with the conservative (and slightly redneck) ways of Northern Alberta.
top photo credit to Stacy Spensly
