A couple of my friends recently asked me how I make my green smoothies, so I thought I’d post my own recipe here to see if it sparks some interest in the blogosphere and consequently motivates me back into the blogging world.
Full disclaimer: while I spend most of my procrastination time reading about food and nutrition, I am in no way an expert (my memory won’t let me) so please forgive me if I talk bullshit some times or if some of my descriptions are a bit vague.
Check out my blender. Not a Vitamix, just £20 from Argos
So I have been happily green smoothying for about 2/3 years now and I think I can safely say that I know now what works for me and what definitely doesn’t work. Here’s what you’ll find in my smoothie:
Fruit
Banana: I know some people don’t do/like bananas but to this day it is THE fruit that makes my smoothie creamy. When I do some forward planning (admittedly not so often) I slice a banana or two and freeze it in a tupperware the day before. This gives the smoothie the texture of a milkshake. Well kind of, I wouldn’t really know since I don’t consume dairy and I come from a country where we didn’t grow up on milkshakes anyway. I’m from France, we are raised on red wine yo.
Looks weird right?
Add filtered water and blend
Another fruit: in the last few months I’ve always had a bag of British frozen berries (that’s local for me since I am currently living in the United Kingdom), so I put a little handful of that in my smoothie. But lately I have discovered that an apple does the job nicely too (and makes the smoothie cheaper too, tadam!), but any fruit you like can go in: pear, mango, grapes, peach, melon, pineapple, whatever.
Add frozen red berries (if that's what you fancy)
I would advise to go easy on the fruit though. While fruit is a “healthy” sweet choice, it still contains sugar, and too much sugar will likely give you a sugar crash at some point, plus excess sugar might show around the muffin top too if you are not careful.
Greens
Any leafy green. Mine would be spinach, a massive handful of it. And I always have it organic because none organic is evil when it comes to leafy green (pesticides, chemicals etc) plus it won’t have all the nutrients you are after. You can also try chard or kale, I don’t do that anymore because you can really taste it. Oh and lately I discovered that mint is delicious too. And that’s green. Chlorophyll woop woop!
Like I said, a massive handful
Try it
Superfood and miscellaneous stuff
That’s where I go a bit experimental. Like the day I started putting almond butter and discovered it was really yummie in the smoothie (but super expensive, bordel). So here is the list of superfoods I have used so far:
Maca (1 tbsp): better than caffeine without the bad stuff, plus awesome for libido I hear
Flax seed (1 big tbsp): omega 3s
Hemp seeds (1 small tbsp, that shit is expensive): proteins
Chia seeds (1 or 2 tbsp soaked in water for 10/15 minutes first, expensive too but well): good for lots of stuffs but can’t remember what exactly
Cacao nibs (1 tsp): lots of minerals, magnesium powerhouse, good for so many things I’m on my way to become a superhuman
Wheatgrass powder/spirulina/barley grass powder: I haven’t tried those yet but they are green right? And they are amazing for you everyone says.
coconut oil: so I love to put coconut oil in my smoothie but the problem when the smoothie is cold (cold water, frozen bananas, frozen berries…) is that it solidifies and you find little lumps in the smoothie. I personnally don’t mind but Jimmy kind of does, so I’m leaving it out for now.
Do not overdo it if you do not have someone to get intimate with... just sayin'
Ruined the pot last night. Bummer.
I might rename my blog "Almond butter and banana"
Omega 3
Chia seeds
Soak them
Put the chia seeds in the blender
Liquid
I put filtered water. If like me, you are using a Brita filter it’s a good idea to stop the blender before pouring the water straight from the Brita jar, because if the lid falls in the running blender, your green smoothie will have bit of plastic in it, which might or might not have happened to me.
Brita filter, the leed
At one point I was using coconut water instead of water, which was really good as you can probably imagine, but I had to stop because there is a bit of a credit crunch in my house and the coconut water was not helping.
Some people add milk (dairy or not) in their smoothie, I don’t because I don’t feel it’s necessary but if you want to try, by all means, knock yourself out.
I will try to take some pictures tomorrow to make this a respectable food blog post but I might get totally lazy so don’t hold your breath… Done!
Blend it
You might have noticed, it's not green, it's the berries fault, but it's green in spirit, you saw all the spinach right?
How do you like to start your day? If you are already a (green) smoothier, what do you have in yours?
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