Peach Mango Melon Lettuce Smoothie

Peach and watermelon is a GREAT combination. These are two great summer fruits that always go over well on a warm sunny morning. Even if the peaches are not as ripe as you want, they will still work in this recipe. The trick is the mango. It provides the creaminess if the peaches can’t.

Now the lettuce, well, this smoothie would probably be ten times better if you didn’t add ¾ lb lettuce! The lettuce always brings in a bitterness that’s hard to mask. As much as I love lettuce, I’d probably mix spinach in with this fruit next time. It’s too bad I don’t have much spinach in the garden this year for I’d do just that. It just so happens that I’ve got tons of lettuce. So, lettuce it is…

Recipe:

2 peaches

  • 3 cups watermelon
  • 3 larger medjool dates
  • 1 large mango
  • 1 cup rejuvelac
  • 1 large bowl fresh garden lettuce

Place all the fruit in the blender and spin it for a few seconds to liquefy the fruit.

Now stop! Drink it like this – unless you’re really bold.  J 

If you know you want ¾ lb lettuce, stuff that into the blender and spin on high for about a minute. Don’t let the liquid heat up for you’re not making soup.

With this one, I got a ½ and ½ treat for the morning and a quart for brunch later. I love being able to get multiple flavors in the same glass. That’s king of fun.

Remember though that the idea is to get the greens. Smoothies are all about increasing your green intake. Your greens should taste good and be something you can eat in larger quantities.

It’s a great day for a smoothie – have you had yours?

Strawberry Pineapple Banana Lettuce Smoothie

Pineapple and lettuce is such a great combination. For some reason, they complement each other very well. Then, when you add some additional flavor – like fresh strawberries, you get a meal and a happy plate both at the same time.

I love it when I can find really good ways to eat lots of lettuce. Consuming it in a salad takes way too much time. There are so many things to do and so little time outside of work to get it done. Thus this smoothie!

Recipe:

  • 1 inch pineapple peeled and cored.
  • 3 medjool dates
  • 1 banana
  • 1 bowl strawberries (probably 3+ cups)
  • 1 cup rejuvelac
  • ½ cup juice (orange pineapple mango is this one)
  • 1 large bowl lettuce

Start out by blending all the fruit to liquefy.

Then add the lettuce.

When you pack in all that lettuce, you’ll be amazed that it all fits. Even though it’s a huge bowl, it doesn’t really take up much space. It might have taken 1 cup (wet measure) when I added it. Once it’s in, blend for an additional 60+ seconds until everything it broken down well.

As you can see, it makes about 8 cups. You’ll want to find someone to share this one with or stretch it into a breakfast and lunch.

One of the nice things about using rejuvelac is that the living culture will come alive as it sits for a little while. If you want to grow some B vitamins, let the second half (lunch) rest a room temperature until it’s time to consume it. I haven’t let it sit any longer than that, but I would expect that it would get tangy if left much longer. Maybe one day I’ll try it and see! 

Life is an adventure, even if you do the same things every day, the subtleties of each moment can be enjoyed with new enthusiasm!

Pineapple Orange Banana Lettuce Smoothie

There is something about this combination that I love. I’m not sure if it’s the simple fact that the lettuce is straight from the garden and harvested only minutes before hand, or if it’s something else. It could be the juices that I’ve added, of the fact that the banana is fully ripe and already partly creamy.

In any case, there is nothing bitter about this and you’ll find that it’s amazingly easy to drink!

I also find this combination a bit cooling, so if the day is warmer than normal, this combination might be what you’re looking for.

Recipe:

  • 1 inch ripe pineapple
  • 1 large orange (remove the seeds)
  • 1 ripe banana
  • ¾ cup your favorite probiotic juice
  • ¾ cup Orange Peach Mango juice
  • 2 pitted dates
  • 1 large bowl fresh picked garden lettuce

Peal the orange, banana and pineapple before placing in high speed blender. Add the juice and dates. Blend to break everything down.

Next, cram in the lettuce. You’ll be surprised how much will actually fit! Blend until smooth. It might take a minute or so on high speed.

Breakfast and lunch! All at one time I’ve put together what should keep me going for the better part of the day.

I’m not sure how I could change this one to make it better, but who knows, tomorrow I will probably find myself combining similar ingredients but with slight variations. Hopefully, I’ll find the next one as enjoyable as this one!

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.

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.