Eat, DINK and Be Merry » smoothies

Smoothie of the week: dragonfruit and guava

Amber — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:00:43 +0000

I was in the produce section and found something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time: dragonfruit! There was a basket of small yellow guavas next to it, so I grabbed some of those as well. I bought a banana for a thickener and some pre-cut pineapple for sweetness:

If you’re not familiar with dragonfruit, it is pretty neat. It grows on a cactus and tastes a bit like a kiwi, but milder. (To my disappointment, it does not taste like dragonfruit Starburst.)

You can cut it in half and gently pop the fruit out to separate it from the skin:

I’ve seen photos of the skin used as a bowl, with cubed fruit placed inside. I think that would be an adorable summer side dish! But I was going to blend the heck out of my dragonfruit, and I did, after slicing the stem ends off of the guavas:

I have to admit that this smoothie really didn’t do it for me. It was pretty mild, and Mark thought it was a perfect combination of sweet and tart, but like my smoothies really, really sweet — so I poured a bunch of mixed frozen fruit in there until it looked and tasted more like what I’m used to. I didn’t see any reason to share a photo of that.

If sweet and tart sounds good to you, I will offer this advice — make sure you blend the heck out of it with a powerful blender, because between the dragonfruit and the guavas, it’s seed city.

Have you tried dragonfruit?

Smoothie of the week: when good strawberries go bad

Amber — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:00:17 +0000

Anyone can enjoy this smoothie, but the squeamish may not want to know how I made it.

One of the nice things about smoothies is that you can use them to hide overripe fruit or lots of other produce that is starting to go south. When I pulled out all the ingredients for this one, the strawberries were starting to get moldy and some of them were a little mushy. I cut off a few of the mushiest spots, pulled off the worst-looking leaves, and gently rubbed the mold away as I rinsed them. Obviously you may not want to do this if you have mold allergies, and definitely not if the mold has been growing a while, but I knew these were recent so I took a chance and suffered no ill effects. Use your judgment.

I recently made a smoothie with ice for the first time in a while, and I was disappointed at how the addition of ice seemed to blunt the flavor of the fruit, so this time I went back to blending my fresh stuff and then adding frozen fruit. It came out perfectly, and it really was that red!

So here’s what was in it: a quarter of a papaya with skin, a thick slice of pineapple (core included), a banana, a ton of strawberries, a handful of fresh blueberries, a couple handfuls of mixed frozen fruit and frozen blueberries, and a splash of milk. It’s generally the same stuff I always use, but much heavier on the strawberries than usual because I wanted to use them up before they got worse.

By the way, happy birthday to Mark! We celebrated Saturday night at El Meson, a Cuban-Spanish-Mexican restaurant that is one of our favorites, but our brunch plans today were thwarted when we realized Beaver’s would be packed with World Cup watchers. Oh well!

Smoothie of the week: blueberry whatever

Amber — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:00:45 +0000

When I was on my business trip to Lake Charles, the only thing I missed as much as Mark and our Tempur-Pedic was my smoothie supply. I threw this one together on Saturday in an effort to use up some stuff. Blueberry isn’t the dominant flavor, just the dominant color:

When Mark makes smoothies, they are always green or brown. I told him that sometimes I see him putting in so much spinach that I wonder how there will be any room for GOOD stuff. :) When I’m driving the blender, a handful is enough to make me feel virtuous for the day!

Contents: a handful of spinach, half of a small avocado (peeled), a banana, a couple very large chunks of pineapple, a cup and a half or so of papaya, a couple handfuls of frozen blueberries, a couple cups of frozen mixed fruit, and a longish pour of milk. The frozen mixed fruit came from a gigantic bag of HEB’s own brand, containing peach slices, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries, and grapes. I didn’t add any ice since so much of the fruit was frozen, and ended up with one pint glass and one Camelbak bottle’s worth. Drank the former, froze the latter and had it today for breakfast.

I know my directions are imprecise, but I duplicated it the next day without worrying too much about proportions and it was just as good. I always blend what looks like enough, taste it, and decide whether to add more of anything. I have to admit that it makes the engineer and the baker in me a little nervous to just throw things in so willy-nilly, but it works!

Smoothie of the week: mixed tropical fruit

Amber — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:30:21 +0000

Before:

From top to bottom: kiwis, pineapple, banana, strawberries, papaya, mango, spinach, milk. I leave the skin/stem on everything but the banana and pineapple, because it makes everything easier and the skin is where you find a lot of antioxidants. I was initially very squeamish about the little hairs on the kiwi, but you can’t detect them in the end. Trust me, I’m the pickiest person alive.

After:

It’s kind of unfortunate that the color is less appealing than the taste, but even just a little spinach tends to turn it brown. Again I didn’t use any sweetener (and you know how I love candy, so that should tell you something). If your creation looks too ugly, you can add some strawberries or blueberries to perk up the color. If it becomes too tart, add more pineapple. I have always hated pineapple, but it is essential to the sweetness!

Smoothie of the week: green papaya

Amber — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:00:03 +0000

Sunday is smoothie night, and here’s what we’re drinking:

We don’t measure anything, but here’s what’s in it: a quarter of a very large papaya (skin on if your blender can handle it), a couple cups of pineapple, a banana, a couple cups of milk, about a quarter bag of fresh spinach that was on its way to being not-so-fresh, a large squeeze of agave nectar, and a man-sized double handful of ice. We were going to add mango, but ran out of room in the blender because of all that darn spinach. The result tasted slightly leafier than previous smoothies, but still tasted and smelled sweet and delicious.

I go straight to the gym in the mornings and get ready for work there, so I’ve been freezing a bottle full of smoothie and leaving it in my trunk during my workout. By the time I get to the office a couple hours later, it is about 2/3 slushy and 1/3 frozen (I expect that it will all melt once we get into Houston summer weather!). I consume it with a handful of nuts for protein and healthy fat. Here’s one ready to go from the smoothie I made for breakfast Saturday:

That mix was a quarter of a papaya, a mango, a banana, about a cup and a half of pineapple, a little less than a cup of milk, and a few handfuls of ice. It was so good that I didn’t even add sweetener!

Vita-Mix!

Amber — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:05:42 +0000

I thought I could never love another kitchen appliance as much as I love my KitchenAid mixer. Until we got a blender.

I don’t like fruit, but I like fruit-flavored things, and I like shakes, so we figured this was a good way to add healthy things to our diet. Especially Sunday nights, after we spend the entire afternoon moaning that we’ll never be hungry again and force ourselves to unenthusiastically eat something before bed just so we don’t wake up ravenous.

You should see the recipe book that came with this sucker. Apparently you can make ANYTHING. Like bread dough. Or peanut butter. Or soup — blend long enough and it heats up! You can throw anything in there. It’s like a home version of Will It Blend?

Today we went a little crazy at the farmer’s market and brought home a ton of produce for the blender’s maiden voyage. We didn’t use a recipe, just put a little of this and that in and blended away: grapes, a tangelo, a carrot, kiwis, spinach, strawberries, a banana, Greek yogurt, raw honey, agave nectar. The result tasted pretty good, looked a little worse, and smelled awful. I’m not writing this recipe down for posterity, but I’m pretty excited to see what else we can make.

Just no yogurt next time. I hate the smell of yogurt, why did that sound like a good idea? :)