Since I have absolved myself of having to follow the make-your-own ice cream trend, I wanted to share that I am single-handedly bringing back the Smoothie. That's right. Say hello to your old pal, the '90's. Heck, even Brenda Dickson, that nut, knew a good thing when she tried it.
I know perfectly well that I need to eat a million servings of fruit and vegetables a day, but sometimes I am just too damned bored or lazy to cut up fruit. And frankly, too clumsy in the morning to handle it.
So what I do is go to the Farmer's Market or my local fruit stand and buy a bunch of fruit, then spend an hour or so cutting it up and putting it into snack-sized baggies which I then put in the freezer. I mostly do this with strawberries and bananas, and occasionally blueberries. Bananas should be ripe or over-ripe when you do this. Strawberries should be dry so that they don't stick together. I also have a ton of Dole frozen peaches left in the freezer from our Pannini and Bellini party in January. Then I keep some fresh fruit on hand, whatever is in season. At the moment it's Ruby Red Grapefruit, and stone fruits. I love white peaches, so that's what I have in the fruit bowl.
Other ingredients to have in the pantry or fridge:
Milk
Buttermilk
Non-fat yogurt (I use Fage 0% Fat Greek yogurt)
Ice
Limes*
Orange Juice
Honey (use raw, local honey. It's a natural antioxidant and good for allergies)
Tools/Equipement:
Knife
Citrus Reamer
Blender (I use a Kitchenaid one)
Here are a couple of my favorite smoothies at the moment.
Pink Grapefruit:
Juice from one Pink Grapefruit (use the reamer to get all of the juice and pulp)
1/2 C frozen cut up Strawberries
1 T. Honey
2-3 Ice Cubes
(Also very good with 1 C. non-fat Yogurt added)
-adapted from Recipiezaar
Banana Peanut Butter:
1 frozen sliced Banana
2 T. Peanut Butter
1 C. Buttermilk or half-and-half
1 T. Honey
2-3 Ice Cubes
Banana Peach:
1 frozen sliced Banana
1 C. frozen sliced Peaches
1 C. Buttermilk
1 T. Honey
2-3 Ice Cubes
- adapted from Jamie Oliver
A great tip that I read is to add your ingredients in this order: liquid, solids, frozen. That will make them blend faster and not dull the blades as quickly.
Remember that a serving size is not as big as you think. These make a nice-sized glass full. What they serve at places like Jamba Juice is enough to feed a whole family (and did you notice that the people drinking the Big Gulp sized ones are usually sized in direct proportion to their smoothie?)
Go forth and blend.
*the limes are for cocktails. You should always have limes on hand in case friends should drop by and need a gin & tonic.
