This is one of my favorite winter time smoothies, yet I found a cold day in the summer (and I had some left over pineapple that needed to be used) that fit the bill perfectly for this one.
Even though the ingredients might seem a little complex, I assure you that it’s one simple little bold flavored treat that you’ll be coming back for more. Maybe tomorrow if you’ve still got the same collection of ingredients! Lol….
1 mango
2 bananas
About 1 inch ripe pineapple
6 to 7 small dates
Bowl of lettuce
About 1 cup water
1 little probiotic
With all this lettuce, you’ll really have to cram it into your vita-mix blender. Just make sure you place the wettest things on the bottom for once the water gets spinning it tends to suck in the greens.
As you can see, I was definitely hungry this day! Or, I can’t remember, maybe I had company. People are starting to figure out that if they spend the night, they’ll get a green smoothie of some sort for breakfast. And, as luck would have it, I haven’t gotten any real complaints (except form a child that doesn’t eat anything but white bread and hotdogs).
Frozen bananas really add a cold creamy consistency to just about any smoothie. Yet, when you add a mango to it, you’re doubling your mouth watering experience. Take special note of the watermelon juice that used as the base. I love picking up inexpensive watermelons, juicing them up and drinking it all day long. Yes, it’s a cooling liquid, so make sure you pick out the hottest days if you’re really going to flush your system.
For now, that bowl of lettuce leaves are calling for a quick whirl.
1 mango
2 frozen bananas
6 or 7 little dates (the really small ones)
1 to 1 ½ cup watermelon juice
1 bowl lettuce
One little probiotic
Stack them all up on the blender, if you’ve got a strong one, of slowly feed them in if it’s a more common variety.
In the end, you’ll have a treat that you can savor on your way out of the house in the morning. It’s also a way to get all the greens that you could possibly want in one little meal!
Finally, … A keeper! This is one that I feel really good about sharing. Peaches and Lettuce with a hint of watermelon! Perfect. Green smoothies don’t get much better than this.
If you haven’t noticed, this winter and spring has driven me to using a lot of coconut milk (not raw from whole foods). It makes for a creamy heavier base that adds a little more umph to the smoothie. But what I really love is fresh juice. The oranges and apples this last winter weren’t all that great, but now that summer’s on (somewhere in the world) I’m starting to see melons showing up in the stores. Last weekend, I picked up two little watermelons.
One made this and more!
Pure Watermelon Juice!
You can add the watermelon fruit directly into the smoothie, but I prefer just adding the juice – because I like drinking the juice straight up.
If you don’t have a juicer, I’ve been happy with my Breville JE900 Juice Fountain Professional Juice Extractor. I decided on that model after reading reviews on Amazon and seeing that this model got great reviews regarding cleanup. The cleanup is really simple. So simple in fact that you’ll actually use the machine!
And, as you can see from the picture above, it can take one little watermelon and make a lot of juice.
In any case, here’s what I used for the Peach, Lettuce, Watermelon smoothie:
Peaches, Lettuce, watermelon and a couple dates
As you can see, it was:
3 ripe white Peaches
1 bowl fresh garden lettuce
1 ½ cup fresh watermelon juice
3 little Deglet Noor dates
1 probiotic (optional)
That’s it! After it was all whipped up, I thought that the dates might have been a bit much. If the watermelon where a little closer to being in season, I’d drop the dates altogether.
Looks good!
I love how these white peaches stack up. And the garden lettuce is sweat all by itself. It’s almost too good to blend up into a smoothie. But hey, I’ve got Sooooo much this year that if I’m going to be grateful, the best way of doing that is by letting the lettuce experience being made into a smoothie!
Made a bit over this quart.
And this one was so easy to drink. Unlike smoothies make with harsher greens, this one is worth savoring.
It’s peach season so get out and bring some home. Any Saturday market should also have a ton of fresh greens, so you have no excuse.
If fresh fruit and greens it not your thing, mint-chocolate might be what the doctor’s calling for! I’m thankful to have a couple different types of mint growing in the garden, and as it turns out, this variety of spearmint is coming on strong right now. It’s amazingly refreshing when added to a smoothie and, as luck would have it, it doesn’t take much.
What I absolutely love about this smoothie is the fresh garden lettuce! Yes. It’s been a cold wet spring that there was absolutely no sunlight for growing – just enough to survive. The zucchini plants that I put in in may just sat there for more than a month. It wasn’t until the clouds parted that the plants actually started to grow. And, now that the sun has arrived, I’ve got a bounty of lettuce. These leaves are delicately succulent with no bitters. They’re so good, you could just graze your want through the garden – which is what I did today for lunch.
In any case, I had company over this morning and offered them a green smoothie. Being grateful guests, they willingly agreed to whatever I wanted to make. Knowing that one of my guests has a love affair with chocolate, I decided to sneak in just a little:
Little cacao goes a long way
And as you can see, it really wasn’t much. But the combination of flavors all mixed together to make for a mouth watering delight.
Mint-Chocolate Lettuce Smoothie
Love that garden lettuce
Clockwise from left (sort of):
Three tips of fresh mint (about three pairs of leaves each)
Add milk, probiotic, dates to blender. Peal leaves off mint stocks and use only the leaves. Peal oranges and make sure no seeds make it into the blender. Add bananas and then stuff in the lettuce.
It all fit!
It’s hard to imagine that that entire bowl of lettuce fit into the blender at one time. It took a little packing, but it wasn’t too bad.
Blend for about 60 seconds. You’ll want to start out slow and get the greens turning before you whip it up to high for the 60 seconds.
When good and smooth, add the little spoonful of cacao and about ¼ teaspoon vanilla. It really doesn’t take much vanilla at all. Blend for a couple seconds so the powders mix in.
Serve.
Just part of the results
With the volume from the oranges, bananas and coconut milk, the end result was nearly 8 cups. After using the nice glasses for the guests, I ended up with what was left over. It was probably 2 cups that tasted great and went down smooth.
I’m going to have to get me some descent party glasses that I can use for breakfast on the weekends. As much as I love me quart size jar (with lid), I don’t really need it around the house on a lazy Sunday morning.
If you love mint and chocolate, you’ll probably love this one. Life’s too short to not give it a try!
Cherries are in season! I’ve waited all year for this. There’s something special about cherries that’s similar to the first buds of spring. It’s like you know that the abundance of summer is upon you! It won’t be long before peaches, apricots and pears make their arrival. Thus, I look forward to getting my first green stemmed bounty of wonderful stone fruit.
The other day one of my daughters picked up 10 lbs or so at her local fruit stand. She got a great deal – a fraction of the ‘$5 a pound’ cherries that you find around here. And, they are even better – at least I like to think so.
Last year for father’s day I received a pitter as a gift.
It’s been patiently sitting in the pantry awaiting the work of early summer. Well, I’ve finally got to dig it out.
watch out for the flying juice!
I love this little pitter. It makes fast work of removing the seeds from the fruit – mostly. As it turns out, about 1 in 20 cherries will have a problem being pitted. Thus you have to watch closely as the seed pops through into the catch basin (the handle stem points down towards the little catch basin. You can kind of see it in the picture above). Sometimes, the seed is too big to push through (rarely) so you have to deal with that. And, even after all this checking, I pressed a pair of pits out of one cherry the other morning! I’ve never seen two pits in one fruit before. That explains why I’ve gotten some ‘wood’ in my green smoothies.
Ultimately wash the cherries, pick off the stems, place them on the pitter and then press the pits out. Afterwards, inspect the berries to make sure all the seeds have been removed.
Oh, also, last year I learned how to tell the fresh picked cherries from the cherries that have been sitting in the store’s fridge for a long time – it’s all about reading the stems! When cherries are picked, the stems are green. The longer the time they’re off the tree the browner they get. Thus, always look for cherries with green stems.
Now what about breakfast?
These dates are really small
This one gives me a new appreciation of lettuce. At the farmer’s market I found a vendor selling absolutely HUGE heads of romaine lettuce for a couple bucks. Thus, what you see here is only half that plant – yet it still fills the bowl. Next to that is more cherries then you’ll need. I washed these up and only pitted ½ of them.
Ingredients:
½ head huge romaine lettuce (one regular store head)
About 3 cups pitted cherries
8 little dates (like this one sweet)
1 banana (thought I might need two, but I pitted enough cherries)
¾ cup coconut milk (or juice or water)
1 little probiotic.
Just pile the ingredients in the blender and grind away. It might take a couple spins to get all the lettuce fed into the blender. I usually grind up the fruit first – just to get it turning and add a big handful of lettuce. I spin that in and then add more lettuce until I’ve got it ground in the roughest sense. Then, I flip the blender on high and start counting. About 60 seconds is good.
When all’s said and done, you end up with a browner “green smoothie”. And my signature green smoothie container with finished product…
Love the color and texture!
The key to this smoothie is adding enough cherries. The taste of cherries is fairly mild, thus you have to really go overboard. If you think adding 3 cups cherries will be more than enough, you might be in for a surprise when you add another cup or so.
I can’t wait for the cheaper boxes of cherries to come on sale! At that point, I’ll take a Saturday afternoon to pit, package and freeze what I’ll need for the entire year.
