Pineapple with Grape and Lettuce

Here is another grape combo that I loved for a couple days. Grapes are so easy! Only blend up the good ones through. Notice I used a healthy slice of pineapple.

Recipe:

  • 1 thick slice of ripe pineapple peeled and cored
  • 1 branch seedless grapes (about 1 ½ cups washed and stemmed)
  • Copule dates (I wanted this one really sweet)
  • 1+ cup coconut milk
  • 1 bowl lettuce
  • 1 probiotic – Optional

Stack in blender:

And give it a 60-second whirl.

Notice the grape skins don’t break down all the way. It gives the smoothie a peppery look, but make no mistake about it, this one is a sweet dream!

One thing that I’ve noticed when drinking green smoothies is that you want to drink the entire quart in 15 to 20 minutes and you want to make sure you mix lots of saliva with it. The more you chew it, the more your saliva glands respond by releasing digestive enzymes. The more effort you put into mixing the enzymes with the green smoothie in your mouth, the better it digests. Same holds true with eating fruit plan. Don’t just bite off a mouthful and swallow.

Tropical Grapes with Parsley

It’s an emerald infusion of topical goodness, yet, hold the apple. The flavor combination of this smoothie has held up all week. I guess, when I find something that I like, I can’t help but keep it going as long as I can. This smoothie has now been the mainstay for two pineapples and about 10 lbs of grapes! It’s amazing how fast good fruit disappears.

A couple weeks ago, I got another great deal on grapes at Costco. At the same time, I picked up bananas, pineapple; enough so I wouldn’t have to think about it for a while. The greens I left on the shelf for the fall crop is still producing in the garden. I don’t expect it to last more than a couple more days, but it’s been a fantastic run (part of May, all of June, July, August, September and now nearly a full month of October!). Five months of greens in the Seattle area up at 500 feet is pretty amazing. … can’t wait for next spring to start over again!

I tried this smoothie with Lettuce, Beet Greens, Swiss chard and Collards. The Grapes carried the day with each one of them. Here’s what I started with:

Recipe:

  • 1 inch pineapple peeled and cored.
  • 1 ½ cups seedless rich colored grapes
  • 1 banana
  • 5 cubes coconut milk (Or 1 cup coconut milk from the store)
  • 1 bowl greens, in this case parsley
  • Optional: ORMUS supergreens (for light chlorophyll lettuce days)
  • 1 probiotic

Here, the picture shows the fresh young Thai coconut milk ice cubes. I didn’t have the ice cubes every day, so I used coconut milk from Whole Foods. Throwing all the fruit into the blender, you get this:

If you haven’t noticed, I find that starting the blend with just the fruit helps speed up the process. It also gives me a good feeling for the amount that it will make with it’s done. Thus, if I need to add an apple or banana, I can. And, as you can see in this picture, the apple never made it into this smoothie.

In the end, if you make enough it you’ll have breakfast and part of lunch.

Get out and get some grapes. You’ll love them blended with your favorite greens. It’s all about getting the alkalizing green in and enjoying it in the process.

Drink up!

Same fruit, different greens – smoothie

There are times when you know that a different type of green would just mix better with a particular type of fruit, but that opportunity to actually give it a try doesn’t come along very offend. Yet, for me, this last week I was blessed with 5 lbs of amazingly great black grapes, a ripe pineapple and 10 fresh young Thai coconuts! That’s right, 10.

What an amazing deal on coconuts. Last weekend Lori and I stopped into the local Uwajimaya and the first thing we saw was the 10 for $10 posted above the coconuts. Knowing that I wanted to make cacao pudding and smoothies (using the water) I figured 10 was a good round number that we’d be able to put to work.

So, what was Dave’s experiment? Well, it was short lived, and consisted of making the same smoothie using the following different greens: Parsley, Lettuce and Beet Greens.

Recipe:

  • ½ to ¾ cup water
  • 1 inch ripe pineapple
  • Big handful ripe black grapes
  • 6 young fresh Thai coconut water ice cubes
  • Greens of your choice.
  • 1 probiotic optional

They all looked pretty much like this:

And, because I’m an advocate for getting a full day’s worth of greens, I show this blender as being FULL.

The first time, I added Parsley. The parsley in the garden still looks beautiful. The weather has turned a little cooler so it’s pretty much stopped growing, which means it starts to turn bitter. I don’t mind, but Lori simply hates parsley – regardless if it’s bitter or sweet (more for me… lol). I figure I’ve got a week or so before my garden crop turns to mush and I LOVE parsley, thus today, bitter or not, it’s mixed in.

That full blender made a bit more than this quart. The taste was definitely ‘full’ (from the parsley) and sweet (from the grapes). To me, it’s a great combo.

Next day, Beet Greens.

The color is a little more brown form the beets, but the flavor is a lot more smooth. Drinkability wise, this smoothie was better than the parsley based one. Parsley is really strong!

Third day, lettuce.

Notice that big pile of leaves! The lettuce that I planted at the end of July is now bolting. When the plant bolts, the leaves pick up a deeper bitter flavor. Yet, I don’t want to let this bounty go to waste. And, because Lettuce is lower on the mineral charts than the other two, I figured I’d just pile it in.

The end result was the best of the three. Lori liked this one the best, yet the entire mixture is not something that stands out as being a killer-combo. Yet, it meets my goals of making greens consumable!

I wish I’d picked up some spinach or tried the same recipe with Swiss Chard, but I guess I’ll have to wait to finish this experiment another day.

No matter how you look at it, it’s all about masking the off flavors of the greens in a fruit melody that’s not too sweet. This combination of ingredients played out just fine this week so I wanted to share.

Peach Grape Lettuce

With Coconut ice cubes to really give it a zing! I don’t think I could stress it enough, if you get a chance to pick up fresh coconuts always save the extra juice (water) and freeze it into cubes. They’re oily, refreshing and flavorful for just about any smoothie.

Garden lettuce also makes a big hit with just about any smoothie. Pick out more than you think you’d eat – more than a store bought bundle – and you’ll get a full bodied smoothie everytime.

  • 6 fresh coconut ice cubes
  • 2 peaches
  • 6 to 7 little dates
  • Handful grapes (as ripe as you can get)
  • Bowl fresh garden lettuce
  • 1 little probiotic

As you can see, I must have been a little hungry when I started this smoothie for I noticed that as I started filling the blender, I really didn’t need three peaches nor all those grapes. The main idea with the smoothies is to get good tasting greens into your system (body), so cutting out some fruit is not a bad thing!

Even after running the blender on high for a minute, the ingredients didn’t reduce in size at all!  In fact, I think they actually grew!

It’s not bad having a little extra. Just make sure that when you eat it, the smoothie mixes well with the saliva in your mouth so it digests fully.  And, stop drinking when your body says your full.  It’s ok to not drink it all at once. Take your time. Enjoy it!

Strawberry, Grape, Spinach Smoothie

I’ll bet you never thought about that combination. Just so happened that I got to shop at Costco this last weekend and wouldn’t you know it, but they had Strawberries, Grapes and Spinach all at great prices. I think the 1 lb. spinach containers are the best price in town, but I don’t think they move as many as Whole Foods for I always have to carefully pick through the Costco spinach to pick out the bad pieces and I don’t have to do this with the Whole Food packages. Is it older? Or, does Whole Foods just care for it better? I don’t know. I guess you get what you pay for.

The best part about this smoothie is that tartness of the grapes add to the essence of strawberries which give a richness to the creamy spinach based blend that ultimately stands out from many of the other green smoothies that I’ve made. This one, I do have to say, is worth trying.

Happened to have the camera with me this morning when I threw this one together.

As you can see, this smoothie includes

  • About 12 medium sized strawberries
  • Good handful of red seedless grapes
  • 3 dates
  • ½ lb baby spinach
  • 1 cup coconut milk (not raw, with vanilla flavor)
  • 1 probiotic

When stacked in the blender they really fill it up!

The end result is something that’s easy to swallow and will make you want to come back for more! Got to love this stuff.

Now for the final product – my signature quart of green smoothie.

Yum.