Back on Track Smoothie

Over the weekend, I had some crazy temptations....food 'sirens' that would call to me from across the room! I’d been doing so well this week getting myself back to my pre-birthday party (my mother’s) weight! Yeah, I put on a few last weekend too! Well, I was back to ‘normal’, and of course, another party came up. This one last night was with my high school class friends. We often get together for dinner out, or, worse, the ever-scary POTLUCK!! And if you’d see our group, you’d know how very much we all love food! Food was even the topic of conversation for quite a bit of the evening.

Well, I ate lots of stuff that I knew that I shouldn’t. Hey....it CALLED to me, ya know!!! Anyway, this morning, I felt lousy, sluggish, bloated, and generally slovenly! I told my wife that today was going to be ‘Back on Track’ day for us. I started the day out with just a cup of coffee, and a nice bowl of bran cereal with almond milk.

I began to look through the fridge for some fruit for lunch, and I noted several things that simply needed to be thrown out. I then started going through the fridge, throwing out obsolete leftovers, shriveling fruits and veggies, and old outdated beverages. Going through the fruits and veggies, I realized I had the potential for a really nice smoothie for lunch. A quick check of the freezer confirmed that I did, in fact, have a nice bunch of recently frozen fruits that would add nicely, so I started pulling stuff out. I got a big bowl, a cutting board, a ‘trash bowl’, a couple of good knives, and I started to work.

While I was being so creative, I decided that since we had a dinner guest planned for Monday, I would use some of these treasures to begin dinner as well! I was on a ROLL!!

Below is the recipe for the smoothie I came up with. Ruth and I had this for lunch and LOVED it! It’s sweet, tangy, spicy, and cold and delicious! What more can you ask for??

Back on Track Smoothie

2 apples (cored)
2 inches of fresh pineapple (core INCLUDED) peeled
1 lemon (seeded, but include the entire peel)
1 raw beet
1 fresh carrot
2 handfuls fresh baby spinach
About 3/4 cup pitted sweet cherries
1 tablespoon chia seeds
2 tablespoons flax seed
1 inch or so of fresh ginger
1/4 to 1/2 cup agave syrup
approximately 3 cups coconut water

And from my freezer:
About 5 large (and I mean LARGE) fresh-frozen strawberries
Half a quart of fresh-frozen peaches
About 1 1/2 fresh-frozen (overripe) bananas
3/4 cup fresh-frozen blueberries

As always, I put all the ingredients into my big super-duper HealthMaster blender and blended until completely smooth.

I refrigerated what we didn’t drink right away. It won’t last long!

BREAKFAST AND LUNCH REPLACEMENT SMOOTHIE!

Last night, as a treat with dinner, we had some very fresh peaches, given to us recently by a friend and co-worker. They were DELICIOUS. I found myself thinking about them all evening. Should I go get more, I thought? Maybe just a few. No…I would tell myself, I’ve been really good, and I don’t want to blow my diet now. Finally, it hit me that I had just packaged and frozen a bunch of those peaches, and had been waiting for the right moment to break open a bag to make a nice fresh smoothie!

Since I’ve been on a crusade to improve my health and appearance, I always seem to have fresh fruits and vegetables in the house. So I went foraging through the refrigerator drawers and started laying out the things that I felt would work well together. 

BREAKFAST AND LUNCH TODAY SMOOTHIE!

 1 Fuji Apple, cored

½ lemon, unpeeled
1 large navel orange, peeled
1 carrot
1 ½ bananas, frozen
1 cup (approx.) fresh frozen peaches
10-12 large fresh frozen strawberries
2 inches or so fresh pineapple, peeled, but with core left in
1 handful (probably 8-10 good sized leaves) fresh spinach
1 ½ inches (approx.) of fresh ginger, peeled
1 tbsp. chia seeds
2 tbsp. flax seeds
2 cups (more or less to desired consistency) almond milk

I put all the above in my own HealthMaster super blender and blended until smooth and creamy. One may need to alter the amount of liquid (almond milk) to a desired consistency. ENJOY!! I sure am enjoying mine today!

Simple All-Fruit Smoothie!

Today I went to the dentist and had one of my molars temporarily crowned. My dentist is great, and it was pretty easy, but my molars are tender enough, after the numbing medicine wore off,  that I didn't want to worry about chewing. So I ran home and made myself a quick smoothie with what I had in the fridge and freezer

1 apple-cored
1 large navel orange
1 carrot
1 frozen banana
6 (approximately) strawberries
3/4 cup blueberries
1/4 cup agave syrup
2 1/2 cups coconut water

Drop all ingredients in a super blender (I use the HealthMaster blender) and blend until smooth and creamy.