I haven’t been cooking anything fun lately – just a lot of random foods pieced together to make a meal. I am, however, obsessed with my new Vitamix, and am making smoothies daily.
Here’s a great recipe for you to try if you are interested in trying to incorporate more greens & veggies into your smoothies – but still keep it sweet.
Here’s what you need (for 1 serving): 1 orange, 1/2 banana, handful of spinach leaves, 1 celery stalk, 1/2 persian cucumber (or 5 slices of regular cucumber), 6 fresh mint leaves, 1 t. chia seeds (optional), and 1/2 cup light lemonade (or water and fresh lemon juice).
Simply peel the orange with a pairing knife – and reserve a 1″ slice of the zest to add to the smoothie – slice celery and cucumber into 1-2 inch pieces – remove the mint leaves from the larger stems — throw everything into a heavy duty blender.
Note: I was using a food processor for a long time before I splurged for this new blender. I bought directly from vitamix.com and chose the refurbished model. It was about $100 less and has the 5 year warranty on it – I’m very happy with my choice so far. You can easily make this smoothie in a less powerful machine – but be prepared for it to have a thicker and more chunky texture. My dad also got a Vitamix a few weeks before me…..we’re obsessed!
Blend for 30-60 seconds – add more or less light lemonade to your preference – the consistency of this is a thick juice.
And that’s it. A seriously quick, healthy option for a breakfast or afternoon snack. I like to have one of these when I get home from work because it reduces my urge to snack right away.
Also – this is just a suggestion of ingredients based on what I had available. Other ingredients that are amazing to try: fresh ginger, lemons, limes, nectarines, and apples – just to name a few. Adding in other dark greens, like kale or broccoli – is also pretty fun. But this is an easy and fairly tame take on the veggie smoothie.
what is a Persian cucumber?? Laa dee da!!! I have not jumped on to the smoothie bandwagon – I still am convinced I need to “chew”!
like my eat your greens smothie better, u would be proud of me today. mom brought home a bunch of ripe yellow peppers so i made my own version of quinoa vegan stuffed pepers that are above and beyond goooooood. I did cheat and use feta cheese but the rest was no oil pure veggies. using the vitomix @ 3 setting I chopped 1med onion. one med zuke 2 carrots 2 garlic gloves, heated using veg broth till soft , added 2 cans diced tomatoes reserving the lig, 1 can drained and rinsed black beans ,1 cup quinoa cooked on top of stove 1/2 hour, seasoned with 1 tlb cumin plus pinch salt/pepper and a dash of oregano. after simmering in 2 cups veg broth a 1/2 hour. I then added 1 cup crumbaled [ why cant i spell ] feta cheese , cooked 5 more min. then stuffed 6 peppers sitting in the reserved liq baked covered 1 hour. with the rest of the leftover stuffing i cut up the pepper I screwed up , mixed it in the stuffing and cooked separate and ate it with stuffed pepers . I looked up recipes for vegan stuffed peppers and took a little bit of this and a little of that from 4 different web sites and about 6-7 recipes. Again I have to brag it came out super good. I made dr f’ s veg chili, my version this weekend using a beer but the point I was going to make is that I used the vitomix to chop all my veggies , major labor saving. Also I was going to use veggie cheese but there is almost the same amont of oil/ fat as feta. The feta I used was flavored [back to stuffed peppers] with garlic and herbs and sprinkled some on the top of the peppers to make them look pretty. I ve been busy I also made dr f’s anti cancer soup , u need to make it I use 2 tablesoons of dr braggs seasoning and 1 tablespoon mrs dash instead of his thousand dollor per oz seasoning and it comes out super good I never add enough salt or pepper but I know u will figure that out, well happy healthy cooking love ya DAD