While I definitely love my fair share of cookies, brownies, and ice cream, it should come to no surprise to you that I eat fairly healthy. I haven't had white bread in years - I'm a wheat bread convert. I have grown to love brown rice, wheat pasta, and spaghetti squash. I can't remember the last time I had red meat in the house - ground turkey is my preference. I eat a lot of salad, carrots, celery, and cottage cheese. Yeah, I'm that girl. Don't hate - I have already had one cookie today and it's not even 10am.
I first heard about the "green smoothie" about 2 years ago. My boss would make them everyday and I'd be left to clean the blender/glass. It wasn't pleasant.
I was reminded about the green smoothie a few weeks ago and decided that 2011 was going to be my year for trying out the green smoothie. I researched some recipes, looked at the nutritional information, weighed the pros and cons, and finally bit the bullet and bought everything to make some for this week. Here's my recipe:
1/2 orange or 1/2 cup of cubed pineapple
1/2 banana
1/4 c strawberries
1 cup kale or spinach
1/3 c 1% cottage cheese or yogurt, greek or regular works great!
4-5 ice cubes
I usually make 2 at a time and save one for the next morning. I throw all of these things either in a blender or a large cup and blend with our immersion blender. There was some trial and error, but before long I was able to find the perfect consistency. Here's my review:
I don't like oranges and I don't like kale, so it's a good thing that they just cancel each other out. The acidity of the orange balances the bitterness of the kale and I don't taste either of them. The ice cubes combat the frothy tendency. The cottage cheese blends up nicely and adds more protein than yogurt would. Besides, I don't like yogurt and didn't want it in the house if this smoothie thing was a bust. The smoothie basically tastes like a strawberry-banana smoothie. You definitely have to get past the kale texture and color, but once you do, it's smooth sailing! Here's the nutrition information for my green smoothie. Not a bad deal to start your day with 14 g of protein, and more vitamin A or C than you'd need in 2 days!
Any of you jumped on the green smoothie band wagon? What are your thoughts?
I LOVE green smoothies! I have one almost every weekday! How did you calculate the nutrition?
ReplyDeleteI vary mine seasonally, and have used peaches and pineapple too. I also add ~1 tsp of ground flax seed to my smoothie--I don't taste it and it's so good for you!
Sometimes I use spinach instead of kale, and I like to add a bit of water sometimes since I use orange juice instead of actual oranges.
Oh, and for the squeamish, six-ten blueberries can really help with the color. I'll have to try the cottage cheese (I am not a huge fan of it by itself, but I bet it'd be fine in a smoothie!)
I also find that freezing the fruit can help too. I pre-make little cubes of kale/spinach with water and a little OJ so I just pop those in, pop in the frozen fruit, add water, juice, flax, ice and yogurt and blend. Love it!
I have them nearly everyday too! I just started added spinach to them and it's helping with the consistency and bitterness of the kale. I calculate the nutrition of my recipes using http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php. It's awesome. You just put the recipe in and it gives you the facts!
ReplyDeleteI added frozen whole strawberries and a frozen banana this morning and it was awesome. You can't taste the cottage cheese at all, so it's just added protein! I'll have to try flax - I have some of that for my oatmeal! Thanks, Carrie!