Sunday, January 31, 2010

Smoothies!!!

A blender should be used for, if nothing else, smoothies (cheers, Valerie). Now, smoothies and I go way back. My household went through about seven years during which making fresh fruit smoothies was a twice a day occurrence. Our blender and a pack of bananas also traveled with us on vacation all over the country. Therefore, it is only fitting that my first blender post should be about smoothies.

By smoothies, though, I do
not mean ice cream or sorbet with a couple cuts of fruit. No, by my definition that would be a milkshake or a freeze. There is a reason that smoothies are marketed as healthy things, even if a lot of the time the commercial versions are not. In a very simple form smoothies are healthy.

So for this post I have three smoothie recipes: the classic apple, banana, carrot, and orange, the mango lassi, and the (ok, a little less healthy, but great for after workouts) chocolate banana smoothie.



Apple, Banana, Carrot, and Orange (or the ABC ..O)
  • 2 medium sized carrots washed or peeled with the ends removed
  • 1 sweeter apple like a fuji
  • 1 banana
  • about 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
  • about 3/4 cup of orange juice
The instructions for smoothies is really part of their beauty: put everything in the blender, put on the cap, blend until liquefied. If you live in a place like a dorm where the walls are practically nonexistent, try putting a thick blanket or towel around the base of the blender to muffle the sound somewhat.

Mango Lassi
  • 2 mangoes, peeled and pitted
  • sugar to taste
  • about 1 cup plain yogurt
  • milk or water until desired thickness
  • cardamom (if you have any) to taste
Those of you who read this blog often know I really dislike adding sugar to things, but when you are dealing with plain yogurt it's sometimes necessary. So...yep, put it all in the blender and go.


Chocolate and Bananananana
  • 1 banana
  • 1 packet of hot chocolate mix
  • 1 cup of milk
  • some ice cubes if it's warm enough...it was 19 degrees today, so no ice cubes.
Blender!

Anyone else have favorite smoothies?
Omnom! and yay for blenders!


7 comments:

  1. AHH yay! lol I'm in the library reading about the history of books and needed a distraction...totally just made my night.

    And I'll /always/ be a sucker for strawberry banana :)

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  2. adding a little bit of crushed saffron adds color and a bit of authentic brownness. saffron is usually really expensive though.

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  3. @Valerie, Yay I'm so gladdd!! history of books? sounds potentially interesting....
    @kseetharam, You know how we here at MiniandMicro love authentic brown.

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  4. I really like those smoothies that you make! I was wondering when you were gonna put that recipe up :)

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  5. you know what is also really fun to make in blenders? Gazpacho! :) It's kinda like a vegetable smoothie...

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