HAPPY NEW (SMOOTHIE) YEAR!!

New smoothie tonight! It was  so good, and no sweetener at all! Breakfast and lunch tomorrow, already done and bottled!

I make my smoothies in a large ‘super-blender’ (mine is the HealthMaster brand, often seen on TV infomercials being endorsed by Montel Williams). You can adapt these recipes to any such blenders, including VitaMix, Ninja, Bullet, etc.

NOTES:
*I peel and cut up pineapple whenever I find them on sale, or find organic ones. I keep the core intact, since it’s full of flavor, and it will get ground up completely in my smoothies anyway. I pack about 2.5 to 3 inch slices, cut into big chunks, into each quart size container or bag, and freeze them.

*I also take every darkened or black banana that ends up in our house, and peel them and cut them into chunks, again, freezing them in bags or containers.

*I keep frozen organic berries on hand at all times.

All these are great additions to smoothies!

*In addition, I keep equal parts of hemp seeds, flax seeds, and chia seeds in a container, so that I can add them to every smoothie I make.

Here’s the recipe of the day!:

HAPPY NEW YEAR SMOOTHIE!

appr. 2 inches of pineapple slice, core and all
1/4 of a large lemon, complete with peel
1 large naval orange
1 cup banana chunks
1 medium size apple, cored (I used a gala this time)
1 large carrot
1/2 large pomegranate, (the seeds extracted from the rind, of course)
3/4 cup organic blueberries
generous handful of raw spinach leaves
1/3 cup hemp, flax, chia seed mix
2 cups (give or take, depending on how fluid you want your smoothie) coconut water

I put all the ingredients into the blender container and blend until completely smooth. It is sometimes necessary to use the ‘plunger’ to push down the fruit until it is incorporated fully and ground up completely.

Post-Thanksgiving Back-on-Track Smoothie

Holidays can be cruel! Especially to those of us who try so hard to watch our weight!! I’ve been on this weight management journey for over two years now, and I have to give myself credit…I’ve done pretty well! BUT….things like Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings are out there just waiting to bushwhack us! It’s those potluck dinners full of delicious dishes made with things like cream, whole milk, whole eggs, lots of sugar, lard, butter, fat renderings….well….you get the picture!

Try as I might, I cannot seem to get through one of those dinners without trying even a tiny amount of just about everything on the table!! Can you relate?? Some of the foods are even healthy! And although I’m exercising individual portion control, I end up with a LOT of food, because of the sheer numbers of options!

So, on this Monday after Thanksgiving, I’ve become a bit more grounded again, and I’m working on both ridding myself of all that food-gasming by, what else?...SMOOTHIES!

Last night, I pulled out fruits and vegetables from the freezer and the fridge, and I began putting together a nice smoothie to help bring my appetite back to ‘reality’. It was going to be both breakfast and lunch for me today. At the moment, I’m having the second round, the lunchtime bottle I saved for myself, and it’s so delicious, and so filling, I felt the need to add it to the blog and share it with all of you!

So, here it is, my latest “back on track” smoothie:

2 cups coconut water

2 apples (golden delicious)

1 ½ inches or so of fresh pineapple, peeled (core and all! I freeze mine)

1 cup frozen blueberries

½ lemon, seeds carefully removed (peel and all!)

1 large carrot (I used a handful of small ones from my garden)

Good handful of fresh spinach

1 banana (Frozen. I freeze overripe bananas to keep for just this purpose. Cut them up and bag them for the freezer)

1 cup fresh orange juice

Agave syrup or honey to taste (I probably used half a cup of agave)

¾ cup mixed flax, hemp, and chia seed (I keep these mixed and ready to add to my mixtures anytime)

(I have a super blender, a HealthMaster, but I’m sure you can use any brand of high-functioning blender.)

I put the coconut water in the blender first to help make breaking down the fruit easier. Begin adding the fruit and vegetables, making sure it doesn’t jam up by using the big “rammer” as I call it! You can add the orange juice for more liquid during processing, or just add it once all the other ingredients are in. Add the sweetener. Add the seeds mixture last and continue blending until smooth, and the seeds are ground pretty well.

Serve cold.
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EASTER PREPARATION SMOOTHIE

SMOOTHIE DAY!

With the Easter holiday fast approaching, I realized this morning that there are three big feasts/gatherings this weekend on my calendar that I need to prepare for. My high school classmates are getting together to begin planning our 40^th reunion, and our gatherings always include a pot-luck! My youngest son and his wife have invited us to their apartment for dinner on Saturday evening. That is always a treat! And then the extended family is gathering at my sister’s house on Sunday afternoon for a more traditional family Easter dinner.

Not only am I faced with trying to put together some healthy dishes that everyone will like and eat, but I need to begin compensating now for the extra helping of mashed potatoes that I probably won’t be able to resist, or that dessert that will continually scream at me from across the room, or for my niece’s delicious homemade rolls. Oh, Lord…I’m in trouble already!

OK, so I swung into action as soon as I got out of the shower.  First, I got out the super blender and set it up, along with my big cutting board and a big chef’s knife. Then, I began scouring the fridge and freezer for compatible fruits and vegetables. WOW, I had so much more in there than I realized! This was going to be good!

And, to cut to the happy ending, it was delicious! Below is the recipe (well, let’s face it, it’s what I threw into the blender!) for this morning’s Easter Preparation Smoothie!

1 Fuji apple, cored
1 Bartlett pear, cored
1 banana, (I freeze chunks of overripe bananas and have them ready all the time.)
1 naval orange, peeled
1 lemon, with just the ends trimmed off
1 inch slice of fresh pineapple (peeled but not cored)
1 cup mixed frozen organic berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries)
1 carrot
Large handful of fresh organic spinach
2 tbsp. coconut oil
Tablespoon each of flax meal, hemp seed and chia seed
Coconut water (approximately 2.5 cups)
Agave syrup (sweetener) to taste (I estimate I used about 3 tbsp.)

Put all ingredients into the super blender and blend on high until they are mixed well and frothy! Add more ice to make it colder, add more coconut water to thin, and more sweetener as needed. ENJOY!

TIME FOR A JUMP START

(This morning, Saturday, February 8, 2014, for some reason, Blogger won't let me insert a photo here! I'll just have to hope I can edit later!)

I was in great need of both a little nutritional boost and a reunion with my healthier eating habits this morning. The holidays, the upheaval of our family by my mom's health issues, many enemies of my healthier lifestyle have been attacking these past few months. I am proud, in a way, that I didn't backslide in any sort of  major way, however, I have gained and lost the same five or so pounds over the last 2 months at least 6 or 8 times!

A trip to the fridge this  morning was really all the inspiration I needed! Luckily it was full of a great variety of fresh, mostly organic, vegetables and fruits, and they were just sitting there waiting for me to do something wonderful with them! So, I DID! At least, I think I did...and of course, my wife agreed! So, here's what I combined this morning to make my awesome smoothie:

3/4 quart of my own frozen peaches
1 frozen large banana (we always chunk and freeze our too-brown bananas for smoothies and ice cream)
1/2 cup blueberries
2 golden delicious apples, cored
1 whole lemon, peel and all
1 large carrot
2 handfuls fresh raw spinach
2 inches (give or take) fresh pineapple (I use CORE AND ALL! It's delicious!)
2 tblsp. ground flax seeds
2 tblsp. hemp seed
vanilla coconut milk to reach desired consistency (1 1/2 to 2 cups)
Agave nectar to taste, if necessary

I usually start with the most liquid of the fruits, and work my way to the drier ones. I put them all, handfuls at a time, into my super blender and blend until they become a smooth, dreamy, thick beverage.  The main thing is to be sure to grind everything completely, and to reach a nice consistency that makes it easy to drink. I sometimes add a touch of agave to help sweeten the mixture.

I hope you have a chance to try some of these combinations! I have yet to make anything I didn't absolutely love!

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.