Showing posts with label smoothies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoothies. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2008

Morning Melon

Mel and Sonja can both attest: Californians are downright spoiled when it comes to food. Restaurants aside (Asian, Mexican, Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw...), the farmer's markets are amazing. The melons are one of my favorite indulgences. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors like I have not seen before.

If you cannot procure local melons in October, the supermarket variety should be just fine for the recipes below. The results are bright and fresh on the palate and light in the body. Enjoy!


Recipe 1: Green Ambrosia Smoothie

blend:
1/2 c water
1/2 ripe ambrosia melon*
a big handful of lettuce*
1/2 sweet yellow plum
1/2 banana
a small spoonful of tahini
a bit of vanilla
sprinkle of sea salt
sprinkle of cinnamon

*The melon I used was about 5" in diameter and green on the inside. Any sweet summer melon will do.
*My lettuce was a delicate purple romaine, which almost tasted like butter lettuce.



Recipe 2: Cool Melon Soup
...serves 3, as a light dish to begin dinner

1/2 large melon (I used Cantaloupe)
2/3 avocado
juice of one lime
sea salt
a handful of ice cubes
water as needed

Blend until smooth and serve in small bowls.

This pairs well with a salad of heavy dark greens.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Commuter Smoothie

This is a smoothie that I often make the night before I go to work. I put it in an insulated mug, refrigerate it, and drink it on my drive in. It's healthy, it packs in a lot of fiber, and it tastes pretty good, depending on your choice of liquid and frozen fruits.

(My other favorite breakfast is fruit and cheese.)

NOTE: Some dairy / frozen fruit combinations do not mix well when left overnight to party. If you feel inclined to use acidic fruits, you may want to try something else, or make it immediately before consuming.

***

Recipe:

- One 4 oz block of soft tofu (i.e. 1/4 of a 1 lb package of soft tofu)

- 1 c frozen fruit: berries work well for this

- 1/2 frozen banana (I peel and cut the bananas in half, then freeze several together in Ziploc bags)

- 2 T of ground flax seed (golden or brown)

- 1 c milk: from the animal, nut, seed or grain of your choice (e.g. cow, rice, soy, hazelnut, hemp, etc.)

- approx 1/2 - 1 tsp of liquid Stevia (an all-natural sweetener), or you could use various sugars to taste

- 1 scoop of whey or soy protein powder (my favorite is "Designer Whey" from Trader Joe's). NOTE: Try to buy unsweetened protein powder - less weird stuff in it that way!

- dash of vanilla extract (all-natural, please!)


What To Do:

Put all ingredients into a blender. I tried to make sure I poured liquid over the protein powder, and that liquid wasn't the first ingredient in the blender, but other than that, order doesn't matter.

Blend till smooth.

Pour into a glass. This will probably make around 20 oz or so...

***

NOTE: I found that rice milk or dairy milk tended to have the smoothest results. I often tried it with Silk soy milk, and I don't know why, but I suspect something in the soy milk would really make the mucilage in the flax seed thicken up, and it was almost impossible to drink the smoothie out of the mug while I was driving... your mileage may vary.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Chocolate Melon

...serves one.

1 c almond milk
(1 c water, +
1/4 c almonds, soaked overnight, +
sea salt, +
1 date)
1.5 c fresh, ripe melon
a heaping tablespoon of cacao powder



blend and serve.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Banana-Walnut-Chocolate Smoothie

Elizabeth gets credit for original idea of this smoothie, I just changed a couple things and added walnuts to get this result instead:

2 bananas
glob of almond butter
water
handful raw walnuts
3 pieces of dark chocolate

put bananas, almond butter, and water in first. Put the walnuts on top of that, and blend.

Add the chocolate a little later, then blend some more (but less thoroughly.) This will leave you with some chunky bits of dark chocolate in the smoothie instead of having it all blended together.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Mango Macadamia

1 c filtered water
1.5 mangoes
1/3 banana
3-4 medjol dates
2 tbsp cocoa or cacao powder
sprinkle of cinnamon
1/4 c raw macadamia nuts, soaked for 2-3 hours
(room temperature, covered glass dish) and drained
(these will stay well in the refrigerator for 3-4 days after soaking)
sprinkle of sea salt

Super Smoothie

...serves 2-3.

1 mango
1/2 apple
an orange
1/2 big bunch of mustard greens
couple leaves of rainbow chard
1/4 avocado
1/4 tsp vanilla
cinnamon
3-4 black mission figs
a scoop of ground hempseed
1/2 tsp honey

blend, adding water to reach the consistancy you desire.

beware! mustard greens can be very bitter.