So why, a couple of weeks ago, did I buy this and ask my Facebook friends for smoothie recipes?
I guess I was trying to shake things up a bit with my diet. (Pun intended.) I was bored with my routine and therefore wasn't sticking to it, and also decided that I needed to add more vegetables. Thought this might be a fun and easy way to do that. Thought I might actually use a smoothie-maker that was smaller than my other blender and came with cups that could be used for mixing individual smoothies. Thought I might make smoothies the night before for the next day's breakfast and mid-afternoon snack. Why I thought that last one is a mystery to me, as in 32 years of working I have yet to get into a reliable routine of making my lunches or picking my outfit for the next day on the night before! Anyway, I read a few reviews and picked the Cuisinart. Also bought The Smoothie Recipe Book.
The first thing I learned was that most of the recipes say "drink immediately!" The only ones recommended for "bringing for lunch" are the ones with lemon or lime in them. I Googled this and read that the citrus prevents oxidation, which turns the smoothie brown. OK, don't want that; that sounds even weirder than green!
So far I've tried three smoothies. The first one had no vegetables in it, and turned out to be my favorite of the three. It was a breakfast smoothie with 1 banana, 2 clementines and 1/2 cup of almond-coconut milk. Tasted like a coconut milkshake. Of course I liked it. But it wouldn't fit in the travel cup for mixing, so I had to make it in the blender cup and pour it into the travel cup, and clean the both the blender cup and the travel cup. Oh well.
Next, I picked one to take to work for a mid-afternoon "pick-me-up." It was supposed to taste like a Bloody Mary, and had lemon and lime in it so it wouldn't turn brown. Here's what was in it: 2 stalks celery, 1 tomato, 1 teaspoon horseradish, 1 lemon wedge, 1/4 lime, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper. Also had to mix this one in the blender cup. I really expected to like this, so I bought a week's worth of tomatoes. When my husband asked me what the tomatoes were for and I told him, he said, "You could have just bought V8!" He was right! It was like drinking cold, chunky soup. I like my Bloody Mary's spicy, but this was too much horseradish. Might be better with less horseradish, but the texture was so unappetizing that I've just been using up the rest of the tomatoes on sandwiches and eating the celery sticks the usual way. Next time I want to drink tomatoes, I think will have a V8!
Smoothie #3 was this morning. It had actual vegetables in it, and it was going to be my first green smoothie! But here is what it looked like when I ate it:
That's right, that's what my "smoothie" looked like that when I ATE it, not when I drank it! It was too much for my smoothie-maker. It didn't make a smoothie; it just made noise. When it started to smell like I was burning the motor, I gave up and transferred everything from the blender cup to a bowl and just ate it. It actually tasted good, although it never would have occurred to me to put these ingredients together in a bowl and eat them for breakfast: 1 cup frozen broccoli, 1 large apple, 1/2 large cucumber, 1 banana, 1/3 cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt. The recipe actually called for a "scoop" of yogurt, but I could find no clues in the book regarding the size of a "scoop" so I arbitrarily decided on the amount equal to one weight-watcher's point. The broccoli was minced as I had successfully processed it in the blender cup before adding anything else.
I might keep trying, but so far I'm thinking I had the right idea back before I bought a smoothie-maker, when I told my sister it was simpler just to EAT food rather than puree it first!
I almost posted on Facebook this morning, "Anyone want to buy a smoothie maker?" But I still have most of the almond-coconut milk to finish up so I'll use it at least a few more times.
Any smoothie advice, stories or recipes to share?
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