Use your imagination and use whatever you've got in the fridge. Remember fruit that is in season and ripe will be the sweetest, so get to know the produce guy or gal. They can help you learn about some of the greens you've never heard of, let alone thought you'd ever eat, and which fruits are at their peak of yumminess. Use what's in season, it'll be magnifique! Always remember to rotate your greens! And it's ok to mix them together.
With a conventional blender you'll need to cut the greens and fruit into smaller pieces and periodically press things down towards the blades. With a blender this is usually not necessary.
Add more water as desired and more or less fruit to sweeten to your liking (you can also use dates or agave to sweeten – remember to take the pits out of the dates, the blender will hate those). The more you enjoy Green Smoothies, the more greens your body will crave and the less fruit you'll need to sweeten your smoothies. A 60% greens to 40% fruit is a nice ratio. Use your imagination, pretty soon, you'll be an expert and you'll have your own favorites.
Oh and folks have asked, "I heard you weren't supposed to mix vegetables and fruit?" We aren't using "vegetables" we're using "greens" in our smoothies. That's the leafy green frilly stuff that grows above ground or is at the top of the vegetables (like beet greens). Big difference!
Remember always to have ripe fruit around – frozen will do, this way you can add more if it's not sweet enough. Frozen bananas or peaches work really well for masking the taste of those really bitter greens such as kale, dandelion, collard or parsley.
Name of the game: mix and match fruits and greens the way you like them. There is something to be said for not mixing sweet and acidic fruits (that pesky food combining thing) but to begin with, I'd just experiment, see what you like, how you feel and go from there.
Add about 1 cup of water in the bottom of your blender to get the blades rotating easily.
Start adding fruit then greens.
Pack it in, turn it on and GO!
It's that easy. ENJOY!
NOTE: You might want to remove the stems from the greens, especially the harder ones. Save them for juicing if you have a juicer or compost them.
Take a look at the end of the recipes for some other addition ideas to give your smoothie that extra punch.
3 Collard Greens leaves
1 peach
1 mango
1 banana
1-2 cups water
6 kale leaves
1 peach
1 apple
Coconut water
5 chard leaves (really big ones)
1 peach
2 bananas
1-2 cups water
5 cups spinach (1 bag)
1 -2 pears
1-2 cups water
Dandelion greens (very bitter and hot)
2 peaches
Water
Add: chia seeds, Vitamineral Greens, seaweed, flax seed (ground or soaked), cod liver oil 2 times per week.
Coconut water frozen into ice cube trays is a wonderful addition.
5-6 ripe persimmons, sliced (with seeds removed)
2 cups of water or orange juice
Blend well in a blender.
Yields: 4 cups
5-6 ripe persimmons, sliced (with seeds removed)
4-5 leaves of Romaine lettuce
2 cups of water or apple juice
Blend well in a blender.
Yields: 4 cups
Thank you, Victoria Boutenko, The Raw Family for Persimmon Smoothie recipes. For more tips on Persimmon Season, see my Winter 2013 Newsletter.
1 cup water
4 leaves of Dinosaur (Lacinato) Kale or any mild greens
1 ripe banana
10 ripe strawberries (with the stems)
1 cup ripe blueberries
4 ice cubes (if you want your smoothie cold)
Add to blender and blend until smooth. Pour in your to-go mug and you're off and heading out the door. Enjoy!
If you'd like to read more about Green Smoothies check out one of our favorite books from one of our "Sheroes:" Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko.
