Ormus Greens

Beet Melody – the early summer smoothie

Baby beets are finally in season again and the Saturday market always has the best selection. One of my favorite vendors there is Full Circle Farm.

Don't panic - It's organic!

I’ve thought about signing up for their fresh produce delivery program, but it seems that I’m always in town on Saturday morning, so I just take 15 minutes and stop in. And this time, as it turns out, they had four different types of beets in their selection. I grabbed two bunches with the heaviest collection of greens with the idea that the first most valuable part would be my blended breakfast.

Thus, the Beet Melody Smoothie!

Here’s what I started with:

Beautiful beet tops

As you can see, this smoothie is a bit on the tropical side, for the fruit in abundance in this house happens to be oranges and pineapple. Which, I have no problem with.

If you want to reproduce this, you’ll need:

  • A few seedless oranges (I used three)
  • About an inch of pineapple
  • One banana
  • Seven or Eight little Deglet Noor dates
  • And, of course, beet tops.
  • (optional spoonful ORMUS Supergreens, Reliv Classic and Probiotic)

As you can see in the picture, I’ve already trimmed the beets. Turned out they made a beet-carrot salad last night. The beets were red on the outside and white on the inside. By sight, you’d probably mistaken them as radishes.

In any case, wash these greens! Anything that sits next to the ground is bound to have a little extra dirt in it. I use a water bath to really get it out.

Easy rinsing process

After shaking the greens in the water and carefully rinsing them off, they stack up in the strainer on the right. Afterwards, this is what you’re left with:

Leave the dirt behind!

No worries. We all process a lot of dirt in our lifetimes, a little more shouldn’t hurt. But I really like my minerals in the more bio available form – plant form.

After trimming the outer part of the pineapple, pealing the oranges (and picking out the seeds) and pealing the banana, everything stacks up like this:

This is what you'd normally have to chew up!

When I start blending something this full, I always start out slowly. I use the tamper to move the larger pieces down and get the mixture to start moving. As soon as it does, I remove the tamper, place the clear cap on top of the vita-mix and work it up to full on.

As with most smoothies, I start counting and cleaning. After about 60 seconds most the mess is cleaned up and the smoothie is ready to pure. These are always so easy!

And the results

Remember that the Queen of green smoothies says that to really change your life you’ll want to consume at least 1 quart (1 liter) of green smoothie every day on an empty stomach. All my recipes make between 5 and 6 cups. You’ll probably also notice that there are a few hundred calories in these smoothies. That’s actually a good thing! Fill up on healthy stuff rather than cheeseburgers.

Let me know what you think of this one. Beet greens are better for you than the roots and they’re easy to prepare.

Enjoy!

Masking the bitters out of a lettuce smoothie

Seems like the only greens of any quality right now is lettuce. That is, if you’re getting your greens from the local grocer. In the herb garden, mint and fennel are stretching tall with the full force of spring behind them. The fennel, when it’s young like this can’t be beat. And the mint, that is a wonderful addition to just about anything. Unfortunately, even though I love these two herbs, they don’t mix all that well with lettuce.

Lettuce is a little bitter. The closer you get to the core, the stronger the bitters. I’ve been looking for something that will tame that taste, but the old tricks didn’t seem to work. Normally, if you get a bitter green, you add in lemon; sometimes lime. Yet when you do that with a lettuce smoothie you just get the full taste of bitter and the tart lemon or lime.

Yesterday, in the process of ‘throwing in the kitchen sink’, I think I found a working mix. A palatable lettuce smoothie that you’ll really want to drink. I think the secret is pineapple. It cuts through the bitterness and lets all the flavors shine through.

So, what did I make?

Ingredients
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 oranges pealed (seedless)
  • 1 inch pineapple pealed and cored
  • 4 small dates (or 2 large dates)
  • 2 bananas
  • 1 probiotic
  • And, of course, 1 head crisp green organic leaf lettuce
  • (Optional: 1 heaping scoop Reliv classic and one heaping tablespoon SunWarrior ORMUS supergreens)

Place the water in the blender first. Add dates, probiotic, pineapple, oranges and get it all to spin. Next add lettuce a big handful at a time and get it to turn. Eventually, after the lettuce is all added and ground up so that it turns, you’ll add the banana and then flip it on high to really break everything down.

After it’s run until smooth, taste it. Is it too bitter? Is it too sweet? I’m guessing that you’ll find it’s just right.

Volume, about seven cups

As you can see, this recipe makes about 7 cups. If you want to make a little less, cut out a banana, an orange and include a little less pineapple.

At this point, if you have any super-food powders that you want to add, do it. The ORMUS greens take the beautiful light green color and turn it into a dark leaf green earthy tasting mix. The Reliv gives it a little more fullness.

The end result is something that you’ll actually enjoy drinking! Lettuce is good and it can taste that way if you whip this up.

Breakfast!

Doesn’t breakfast look great?  Lol…

Green Smoothie Tangy Cherry Twist

Makes a little more than a quart

Green Smoothie Tangy Cherry Twist

I have to admit that one of my favorite green smoothies is a cherry based spinach smoothie. I made one again this morning and the flavor is subtle while the texture is creamy. I took a look in the freezer again, and it looked like I’ve still got 4 bags.  Those will be tasty treats. While the supplies last, this one is on the top of the menu!

One of the things that I have to admit about this smoothie is how simple it is. There really isn’t any preparation that has to happen because the bulk of it has been done ahead of time!

So here we go.

To make this smoothie, you’ll need to really plan ahead. Last spring, ok, I guess it would be early summer when the cherries are in season, I bought a large box. We ate cherries for days, but before they could sit around long, I prepped them for a deep freeze. I have to admit that it was somewhere around 40 lbs or so which is a lot of berries. 

About the same time the cherries showed up, so did a cherry pitter. I believe it was a father’s day present (Thanks Arielle!). You might be able to find one for about 20 bucks.  Here is the one that I have:

What’s nice about this one is that the little tray holds about 20 berries and they nearly jump off the pitter shaft when the spring extends the piston for another berry. The drawback is that it doesn’t successfully remove every pit, so you have to double check your berries afterwards. Generally, it works well and for twenty bucks, it’s definitely worth the time and money.

In any case, I processed nearly 40lbs of berries (so they were pit-less) and then fill quart size Ziploc freezer bags. Each bag holds a few cups each. If you plan ahead too, you should end up with a dozen or more bags with pit-less cherries ready to add to any smoothie for the next year (if they last that long).

When you’re ready to make a smoothie, remove the bag from the freezer and use just the amount that you want without defrosting them and return what’s not used back to the freezer.

Now for the recipe:

  • 1 ½ cup apple juice
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 large dates
  • ½ lb spinach
  • 2 cups frozen cherries
  • (Other things as the spirit moves you!)

Add the liquids on the bottoms, throw in dates, pack in spinach and top off with frozen cherries. Blend on low until the mixer starts to turn. Turn to high and blend for a minute or more. The frozen cherries will help keep the mixture from overheating so you can blend it longer. The longer you blend it, the smoother it becomes. I like ‘em really smooth.

Now notice at the bottom of the recipe, there is an ‘other’ section. If you look close at the picture of ingredients, you’ll notice that I’ve got a can of Reliv Classic, Sun Warrior ORMUS greens and a banana. What you can’t see in the picture is a probiotic pill. The probiotic doesn’t take up much space and I like to keep the intestinal flora strong, so in it goes. Likewise, the Reliv Classic is a good protein additive, and because I haven’t been recovering from my yoga workouts fast enough, I add this for the help. And, lastly, the ORMUS green powder. That’s just something that will make your head ring (See The Bell Rock Buzz article).

I figure that in a few days, I’ll be harvesting fresh mint from the garden and at that point I’ll be looking for raw cacao mint smoothies – which I also love. When that starts happening, I’ll post those recipes.

If you didn’t think ahead and you don’t have a stash of frozen cherries, I’m sure the you’ll be able to find some at your favorite health food store. If not, just wait a couple weeks and those stone fruit will come to a roadside near you!

Enjoy!

Now for the recipe:

  • 1 ½ cup apple juice
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 large dates
  • ½ lb spinach
  • 2 cups frozen cherries
On high speed, notice the frosting on the side of the blender

Add the liquids on the bottoms, throw in dates, pack in spinach and top off with frozen cherries. Blend on low until the mixer starts to turn. Turn to high and blend for a minute or more. The frozen cherries will help keep the mixture from overheating so you can blend it longer. The longer you blend it, the smoother it becomes. I like ‘em really smooth.

(Also note that I’ve made this smoothie a couple times in a row. It’s nice having ingredients that allow for this. So, on the day that I took the pictures, I figured I’d use a banana, but there were enough cherries to do the job. Thus, the picture shows a banana, yet I didn’t use it in the smoothies.)

You can make this smoothie with fresh cherries but it doesn’t get as smooth. But, that’s ok, for the fresh cherries are better for you.

Enjoy!