Happy Mother’s Day!
I was just watching Netflix Ted Talks again. One talk was heralding how great white bread is due to the fact that it represents our industrialization of food. Without that industrialization, we couldn’t live on 2% of farming familites or feed ourselves pasta from Italy. Louise Fresco points not to the American family that lives within driving distance of a local Farmer’s market, but the millions of southeast Asians without access and those who would not thrive without access to a supermarket that carries Wonderbread. It was an interesting take on what we normally hear in America on how everything needs to go back to small farms and local markets.
RECIPE: We have been trying to perfect green smoothies for about 4 years now…. I may like them and then the kids do not. This Green Smoothie here was the last success – and quite a few years back! Now a Vitamix blender does help mix it up so there are no flecks, but I have made this in a regular blender as well and it works great. The regular blenders sometimes take a little starting and stopping to get the spinach to pull down into the blended mixture.
Or this could work in a Magic Bullet!
In regards to ingredients, I always make it with several core ingredients listed below. The 1 cup of fruit changes depending on what I have left in the fridge or what is going to be too ripe in the fruit basket. It doesn’t matter if I use a pear, pineapple, grapes or kiwi – the kids LOVE this smoothie.
Blending Tips: Always add liquid first. Add the soft ingredients, then the spinach and ice always last. The weight of the ice will push the rest of the ingredients down towards the blades.
Lemon Tip: We love lemon with spinach. It really masks the bitter flavor of spinach and kale in smoothies. We have had to increase the amount of lemon from 1/2″ square of lemon peel to 1″ square of lemon peel. The Vitamix blender blends it to a pulp and a regular blender may need lemon zest. Feel free to add or subtract the amount of lemon zest to your tastes.
- ¾ cup water
- 1 banana, sliced in half
- ½ apple, sliced into quarters
- 1 cup fruit, diced (pear, pineapple, grapes, etc.)
- juice from 1 lemon
- 1 tsp. of lemon zest or 1" square of lemon peel
- 2 handfuls spinach
- ½-1 cup ice
- Add ingredients to blender in order listed. Blend and serve.
I made this last night with our dinner and we all loved it! I think it will become a staple in our house 🙂