I bought a VitaMix a year and a half ago at Costco - I was so excited I made a million green smoothies and choked them all down. Okay, some weren’t that bad- but they weren’t that good either. I bought different brands of green powder stuff full of goodies to add to the nutrition in my smoothies, but I still didn’t like them that much. By the way, if you’re interested, the best of the green stuff is Amazing Grass. I gave it a good few months and gave up on it except for adding spinach to whatever smoothie. And lately I’ve just been buying the Naked Green Machine at Costco- by far the cheapest - the ingredients cost way more than what you pay, it’s awesome! My kids love the Green Machine and then they get all that good stuff so it makes me happy too, if it were organic I’d be ecstatic!
Anyway - a couple of weeks ago I was trying to find some good breakfast recipes and came across this recipe (and picture above) on Shape - Kimberly Snyder‘s Glowing Green Smoothie. I was totally intrigued. The base of the shake is romaine lettuce- which I have not tried in a shake fearing it would be weird - but really, can it be much weirder than spinach? Which is something that I’ve had in a million shakes. And if you think about it, romaine has a crisp, clean taste and may actually be refreshing in a shake. The celery adds to that clean crispness, and the lemon finishes it off. Parsley and cilantro surprisingly work - but if you don’t like cilantro just omit it. The smoothie is light and refreshing and fills me up for a good hour. I got on Kimberly Snyder’s blog and read up on some of her reasonings on food and pairings and I love it- not sure if I could ever actually do it all. I feel like I should listen to her since she’s so cute, her skin really does glow and she has a rocking body. After drinking the smoothie for awhile I’ve found that my skin is actually looking better this week! Which could be attributed to the unseasonably warm weather and my slight tan - or the fact that I changed pills a month ago - but maybe it’s this smoothie? Anyway - it’s promising and so maybe someday I’ll do something crazy (for me) like her whole detox plan. For now, I’m just enjoying this smoothie and the additional nutrients my body gets every morning.
I should also mention that even though I like this smoothie - it’s really not for everyone - understandably so looking at the ingredients. My neighbor practically spit it out, which was pretty funny. Neither of my kids liked it and didn’t want to even drink the Green Machine for a week - but they’re over it and back to drinking their green smoothie….whew! I split the batch into two portions and give myself a little more than half the first day, since the VitaMix really airs it up and the following day after sitting in the fridge for a day it’s a little heavier and you end up with more. Also- even if everything you add to the blender is cold - all that blending really warms it all up. I recommend freezing the banana and/or adding ice cubes. For the next day, store it in an airtight container and shake the crap out of to get some air back in it - it tastes better that way. I almost didn’t make the smoothie a second time because my 1st second day smoothie was too dense and it tasted wrong. Glad I gave it another chance. I ran out of pears a few days ago and used grapes instead - it was just as good but the tiny red particles inside made it not look as pretty. Although I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this smoothie lately, it makes for a lot of trips to Trader Joe’s. In an effort to save another trip to the store and give my fridge room to breathe a while, I’m having eggs tomorrow.
I bought the VitaMix because I previously had two different fairly expensive $100-$120 blenders over the past 8 or so years and they both were good for nothing. You think if you put in a reasonable chunk of money, the blender should do its job - but they never really have for me. I hated when I had to blend anything with ice since it didn’t ever work - and I also had a Magic Bullet blender (terrible name choice by the way) and it was annoying since I could never add enough stuff and always ended up with chunks of frozen banana or ice. Plus, all the cups and lids were messy. When I got the VitaMix - I got rid of all the other crap and I’ve been so happy! No, I did not sign up to link to them to get paid a portion of whoever buys one from my recommendation. But it’s pretty awesome. I wonder if the Blend Tec one at Costco is as good - I got mine from Costco as well- best deal I could find by far.
Kimberly Snyder’s Glowing Green Smoothie (recipe from Shape.com)
Ingredients
-1 1/2 cups water
-1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped
-3-4 stalks organic celery
-1/2 head of a large bunch, or 3/4 of a small bunch of spinach
-1 organic apple, cored and chopped
-1 organic pear, cored and chopped
-1 organic banana
-Juice of 1/2 fresh organic lemon
Optional
-1/3 bunch organic cilantro (stems okay)
-1/3 bunch organic parsley (stems okay)
Directions
Add the water and chopped head of romaine to the blender. Starting the blender at low speed, mix until smoothi. Gradually moving to higher speeds, add the celery, apple and pear. Add the cilantro and parsley, if you are choosing to add them. Add the banana and lemon juice last.
The fruit and lemon cut right though the grass taste. Feel free to mix and match different greens and fruits, as these two specific food groups combine well.