Cherry Pineapple Swiss chard

Here’s a slight twist on my favorite cherry smoothie. This one is a bit creamier from the coconut milk that tends to mellow it out. It’s really easy if you’ve already prepared the pitted cherries!

  • 1 to 1 ½ cups coconut milk with vanilla flavoring
  • About 1 inch pineapple (in this case 2 but only half the round)
  • A few small dates (in this case about 6 to counter the pineapple)
  • About 2 cups cherries (the more the better!)
  • One bowl fresh garden Swiss chard

If you’ve got a great high powered blender, stack it all up like this:

And then give it a whirl for about 60 seconds. That is, after you’ve used the tamper to press the greens down into the blades and the entire mixture is turning on its own. Eventually, you’ll have a bit more than a quart to enjoy!

If you find a cherry smoothie combination that really stands out, I’d like to hear about it. I’ve always got a few extra little cherries sitting around just waiting to be enjoyed in a great new taste senstation!

Have a great day!

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!

Tropical Chard Smoothie

I think I’m really starting to like Swiss Chard! Especially when it’s used to color this smoothie green. The combination of all the ingredients seem to come together with just the right texture to make this one stand out.

I know, I know, you’ve heard that from me before, but this time I’ve gotten feedback from a couple other people that have tried this one and, most of the time they kind of shrug their acceptance, yet this time they perk up with a – wow! That’s good!

For three days now I’ve made the exact same smoothie and its better each time. I love it when I can find enough ingredients to make good smoothies for multiple days.

Swiss Chard, Coconut milk, probiotic, banana, mangos, dates and Pineapple

Here’s what I used

If you remember from the Masking the bitters out of a lettuce smoothie article, I’m using a slice of pineapple that really adds to the tropical flavor. The mangos where also a great deal at Wholefoods. They were ripe but not overripe.

Ingredients:

  • 2 mangos
  • 1 banana
  • Slice of pineapple (about 1 inch thick)
  • Four or five little dates (got a great deal on these little dates)
  • 1 – 1 ½ cups Vanilla flavored Coconut milk
  • 1 probiotic
  • And, of course, 1 bunch Swiss Chard.

When I bought the Swiss Chard at WholeFoods, I commented to the woman at the checkout that this was the dirtiest Swiss Chard I’d ever seen (been raining for what seems like forever) and she responded “we won’t charge more for the extra earth.” Ha. What a great spin on things.  So, wash the Swiss Chard well.

Ok, build from the liquid up. Add Coconut milk, Mango, banana, pineapple, dates, probiotic and then pile in the Swiss chard. Looks pretty cool all stacked in the blender.

All stacked up

Start off at lower speeds because you’re going to have to use the ‘plunger’ on this one.

Starting the blend

I love how the colors separate during the grinding process. After you hear the dates and greens grind up, flip it on high and start counting. Because the mango and banana is going to give this some texture, you want to make sure to not spin it too long. It will quickly heat up.

In the end, this is what it looks like.

Finished product

I highly recommend giving this one a try. That is, if you’ve got a good deal on mangos and pineapple when Swiss chard is in season.

Have a great day!

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…