Juicing is what seems to be on everyone’s minds these day! Don’t get me wrong, I do love to juice and love how I feel after drinking that ultra vitamin packed drink. What I don’t love is the clean up! Blah! I am a very, “I need a breakfast made in 5 minutes so I can run out the door and still possibly be late!” kind of person lately. Which makes me feel super blah and flaky, but hey nutrition takes time and dedication!
So after I went juice crazy for about a week, I decided, “Hey, I don’t really mind ingesting fiber. I don’t really want to detox through a juice feast right now, so why not try smoothies?!” So I pulled out my $20 blender (I am in desperate need of an upgrade, seriously!) and got to work.
Sometimes my smoothies aren’t really the greatest sugar-wise. But at this point any fruits and veggies into my esophagus is healthier than the past, so I take what I can get! But lately I have been trying to get myself to eat the rainbow. Now this is pretty easy with fruits, but I am slowly trying to make more of my “rainbow” veggies. So far I have spinach….yeah I need to put more effort into this!
So I threw in a banana, some blueberries, strawberries, mandarin oranges, and spinach, all fresh and not frozen. (I really need to work on measuring my ingredients!) I grabbed my coconut water out of the fridge and poured it in. Blend. Lets just say the “rainbow” turns out pretty muddy looking when blended, haha.
I take a sip, and instantly I think, “Man, this tastes really sour, in an off kind of way not in a bitter fruit kind of way.” Lately I have been trying to be really good about cleaning up right after I cook/bake so I turn around to rise out my blender (much easier to clean than a juicer) and the mason jar where my coconut water was. Lo and behold I look into the mason jar and see some nice white fuzzy mold growing on the bottom. ::Gagh::
Can you believe that I seriously considered drinking my smoothie anyways because I didn’t want to waste all my fruit? I’m gross I know. But don’t worry, I poured it out and started over! This time, afraid to use my unopened coconut water, I opted for using some unsweetened almond milk!
Unfortunately, I now had to use frozen fruit (that I had bought and then froze myself). Remember how I mentioned that I needed a blender upgrade? This is exactly why! My blender has such trouble with anything frozen. I have to stop, stir/unclog, blend: like every 5-10 seconds! It is ridiculous.
Anyways, my new smoothie had a frozen banana (chopped up), frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, plain stonyfield yogurt, granola (i bought in bulk at Sprouts), spinach, and unsweetened almond milk. OH MY GOODNESS!! That was like the best parfait tasting smoothie ever! (the only one I have ever made, so I am slightly bias.) Who hasn’t been eating a parfait and thought, “Man, I wish I could drink this instead of make the effort to eat it?” Haha. Not to mention it turned out a little prettier than the last one!
So there you have it! My way to convince myself its okay to drink a “milkshake” for breakfast ::wink::
-Ellie
Ellie Eats Educated 