I went to the farmer's market and got some stuff.

A beet (including greens), hazelnuts, fish oil, kale, coconut milk, half a peach, blackberries...I left out the carrot and added some honey. Whrr-whrr-whrr went the blender. Whir some more. Add more coconut milk. More high speed whirring.

The result tasted considerably better than it looked--somewhat sweet and acidic, a bit "green"--and I can overlook the ugly color caused mostly by blackberries. But I honestly don't think I could choke one of these down daily, especially not first thing in the morning. It's lumpy and thick, which prevents the guzzling that would make it at least go by quickly. It was kind of a chore.
Do people really do this every day? In the absence of an expensive blender, how?
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, where there are
Comments
Maybe it's that simple: just use half the vegetable matter and twice the liquid.
And yeah, a plain old cheap blender is all I've got to work with, and no great impetus to save for a Vita-Mix. I don't need another appliance.
I have to say, a couple of hours after downing that gloppy sucker, I feel pretty good!
I have a cheap blender and find that starting with the juice helps- I don't measure, but a good sploosh of juice and then whir it with the fruit (adding more fruit and juice as needed to keep it whirring without sounding like it's about to die) and then add a scoop or two of yogurt, whir it a bit more and done. Adding enough of the juice (which you could switch out with the coconut milk I suppose) is the key I've found.
But definitely more liquid would help the medicine go down.
(Have you ever tried frozen banana 'ice cream'- peel and freeze a very ripe banana (just put it in a bag of any sort, you can wash and reuse the bag). Slice and then mash, add a splash of regular/almond/whatever milk if desired and blend in some peanut/almond butter/nutella if desired. It basically becomes the consistency of soft serve ice cream)
Thanks for the suggestion.
Personally I adore V-8 juice (and they sell it low-sodium if that's a concern). Think gazpacho or Virgin Mary: pour some V-8 or tomato juice into the blender. Maybe squeeze in juice of a lemon or lime. Now add greens--perhaps parsley, mint, scallions, watercress, spinach as a warm-up for kale, which *is* kind of hard-core. Cayenne, ginger, turmeric, and horseradish are all supposed to have health-promoting properties.
The function of ice cubes in smoothies is primarily to thicken them, so if it's too thick, just start with really cold ingredients and use less/no ice. Or add some water or broth--you can keep a tetrapak of beef or vegetable or chicken broth in the fridge and use it as a diluent.
Sweet smoothies are a lot easier. All the cool vegan kids seem to go a ton on soaked raw cashews--I'd try soaking some overnight and adding them to juice and fruit as a thickener and protein ingredient. No dairy! Protein!
I like really, really thick smoothies so I've been known to chuck in some raw oatmeal; there's a South American soft drink made with oatmeal and lots of cinnamon (which is also supposed to be health-promoting and good for controlling blood sugar).
I like the more savory idea, frankly. I don't really need a lot of fruit--it's a huge glycemic hit no matter how you blend it. Mint and parsley and green onions sounds kind of lovely. And ginger in particular is always good on the stomach.
But the more I think about this, the more I realize that it's about a) being like my sisters, which I emphatically am not, and b) trying to eat more kale for reasons that I can't actually vouch for. I eat lots of other cabbage-family vegetables quite happily in their solid form. Maybe I'm trying too hard. Wouldn't be the first time!
Possibly once I'm retired, and actually at home in the morning at the hour when my appetite wakes up (generally two hours after the rest of me), I can dig deeply into smoothie art and science. Of course, then it will be January and I imagine that a liter of ice-cold chunky fruity goodness might not sound quite as lovely as it does in August.
If it's a vegetable-soup-sort-of-thing, you can pour it into a saucepan, warm it up, and pour it into a thermos rinsed out with hot water.
Also, you can buy an extra ice cube tray, and freeze cubes of leftover cooked vegetables. (Immersion blenders are great for turning 1/4 of a saucepan full of cooked vegetables into vegetable puree.) For savory smoothies, add some Mystery Ice Cubes! Or, y'know, just throw some frozen peas as-is into the blender.
They don't have blenders at work, and I'm not going to bring one in, so for that and a couple of other reasons, a breakfast smoothie is probably a non-starter for me. It was worth a try, though!
I was sort of trying to get away from dairy, but the commercial nut milks on the shelf have a list of ingredients as long as my arm, which never bodes well. One practitioner suggests making your own (soak raw nuts, grind, filter...) but OMG I have to draw the line somewhere and that's on the other side of it right now.
In any event, I've decided that smoothies for breakfast are probably not right for me.
I understand that coconut oil is very beneficial, especially if you have candida or fungal problems. This article seems to support that idea.
I love the stuff--been baking and cooking with it instead of butter. It's delicious and wonderful.