Triple Berry Swiss Chard Smoothie

Seems that it’s getting harder and harder to find uniquely new green smoothies to post! But, it’s still possible and I’ve found another! This triple berry smoothie is a delight – flavorful and rich. You’ll want to give it a try.

A couple weeks ago, I started to cut down on coconut milk in my green smoothies. Sure, it provides great texture and flavor, but I wanted to remove a little fat – or, rather – move the fat consumption to later in the day. With the green smoothies, I wanted to get back to just greens and fruit.

But I still don’t recommend water as the base, thus for the last few days I’ve been playing around with “Help Nourish Your Brian” (lol) juice.  Not wanting to put the extra work into making juice for the base, I’ve taken the easy way out by using commercial juice. But what’s special about this juice is that it tastes like pomegranates. It actually has a pretty strong flavor.

And, well, that’s what I’m looking for! This particular juice accentuates the “Nature’s Three Berries” mixture (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries). When you use the strong dark juice, it adds to the berry flavor in this smoothie. This strong flavor definitely covers up the Swiss Chard flavor (beet flavor) that’s typically hard to hide.

I’ve made this one for the last couple days and it’s not getting old. I highly recommend it for you’ll find it easy to get extra greens this way!

Recipe:

  • 2 cups mixed berries (frozen)
  • 2 oranges (seedless)
  • 4 medjool dates
  • ½ berry flavored probiotic
  • 1 cup pomegranate juice
  • 1 large bowl Swiss Chard

Remove the seeds from the dates and peal the oranges and add all the fruit to the blender.

Give it a spin for 15 seconds or so. It will come out like ice-cream!

Be careful pressing in all the greens. It will take some muscle, but you don’t want to splash the mixture onto your clothes – this stuff is natural dye! Once the greens are packed in, blend until smooth. You’ll want to let this one run for a while in order to really break down the seeds. Because the seeds are frozen, you can run this one for a while. Feel the side of the blender. If you feel any heat, you’ve definitely run it long enough!

The recipe I list here makes 2 quarts. When they taste this good, I find a way to work the second quart into my day. Note that the oranges are ‘filler’ so if you don’t want as much, cut back on the volume of orange you add in!

There are so many great tasting green smoothies that I’ll bet I’ll be posting new recipes for years! I can’t wait for cherry season; it’s just around the corner. I’m sure it would do well as the berry mixture in this recipe!

Consume life, be life, give life – light is life!

Blueberry, Orange and Swiss chard Smoothie

Here is another combination that works well together but rocks if you include the Orange Peach Mango juice! There is something about this particular juice that sets off this smoothie combination. The flavor is full and you are forced to savor it just a little longer because of the blueberry seeds. This one is fast and simple and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Recipe

  • 1 cup Orange Peach Mango Juice
  • 1 ½ to 2 cups fresh frozen blueberries
  • 2 juicy seedless oranges
  • 2-4 small dates (I used organic Halawy dates)
  • 1 bunch Swiss chard with the larger stems torn off

Optional:

  • 2 Tbs Fresh ground golden flax seed
  • 1 probiotic

Add juice, oranges, dates, blueberries and get it to spin. Add the Swiss chard and grind it up. Let the mixture spin on high for somewhere near 60 seconds (I feel the side of the blender to make sure it’s not heating up). Afterwards, mix in the ground flax seed and probiotic. Spin for a second to mix up and serve!

For some reason, the hint of peach draws your curiosity into the drink to bring out the other subtle flavors. Swiss chard is also a nice mix here because it’s such a mild green. I’m sure spinach would do well too – and I’ll have to give that a try before too long!

Bottom’s up!

Strawberry Mango Swiss Chard smoothie

Now that winter is upon us (me that is), I don’t feel bad about using frozen fruits in my smoothies! Normally, I advocate using fresh fruits rather than frozen for the molecular structure of the fruit has not been altered by low temperatures. But when it gets cold outside, I like to bring back the feeling of warm season fruit in a way that warms me up. Nothing fits that bill better than Ice Cream!

Ice Cream it is! At least for the first few seconds of the life of this drink. Well, ok, I give, it might not really be iced cream (diary), but it sure does taste like it. And, if it doesn’t, I keep working it until it does. Ultimately, I LOVE to experience great tasting smoothies, thus I’m always working to bring out the best flavors.

So, here we go, a creamy strawberry surprise.

Recipe:

  • 1 ½ cup Coconut milk with Vanilla flavor (ok, ok, it’s not raw, but it isn’t dairy!)
  • 10-12 frozen strawberries
  • 1 banana
  • 1 ripe (if you can find them) mango
  • 2 Medjool dates (don’t eat the seeds)
  • About 1 large Tbs Flax seed
  • 1 probiotic

And, of course, you can’t forget the greens:

  • 1 bunch Swiss chard

When I did my shopping the other day I weighed the Swiss Chard before bagging it. Each bunch came in just under a pound. Yep, that’s right. I use the full bunch and get the biggest ones that I can find. The green smoothies are all about re-mineralizing your body and sweeping out the toxins. So, even though you see all the fruit, it’s balanced by all the greens.

When putting this one together, I combine the coconut milk with all the fruit and blend. The Strawberries take just a few seconds to break down and you end up with something that looks like this:

If you were to look straight down on this, you’d notice that it’s more like a milk shake than ice cream. I probably should have added another few strawberries. That would have thickened it up. Never-the-less, it tasted like a strawberry milk shake – which was close enough for me.

The next step is to grind the flax seed. I love this function for me coffee grinder. Since I gave up making latte’s, that little grinder had sat unused. Now, it’s my flax seed grinder and it works great.

To the ‘milk shake’ I add the rest of the ingredients: ground flax, probiotic and Swiss chard. When I add the Swiss chard, I remove the main rib from the leaf. It’s got some great properties to it, but I don’t want anything in this drink that will distract from a smooth texture.

Now blend. If you’re using a vita-mix, you’ll most likely have to use the plunger to get the greens broken down, but once you’ve got it spinning, flip it on high and give is a whirl.

But don’t stop there! Because we’re using frozen strawberries, we can let the blender run longer and the heat is dissipated into the frozen fruit. And, because we get to let it run longer, we get a creamer feel in the end product.

You won’t get a strawberry seed as you enjoy this one.

Note that this makes about 6 cups!

Light is Life!

Swiss Chard, pineapple coconut ice smoothie

This is the Swiss Chard smoothie that I wanted to add to the multi-greens smoothie but didn’t. At the time, it seemed more important to get through the ripe bananas then continue with the smoothie experiment. This is a good smoothie, but in a way, I wish I’d mixed in grapes rather than the bananas. Oh well, maybe next time I’ll cut the grapes and simply go bananas!

Recipe:

  • 6 young fresh Thai Coconut water ice cubes
  • About 1 inch ripe pineapple
  • 2 bananas
  • Bowl garden Swiss chard (washed and ready)
  • ½ cup water.

Pile everything in starting with the soft fruit. Blend for 60 seconds (or more) and serve.

You’ll notice that you’ll get a bit more than a quart. Lori got to enjoy the extra. Swiss chard is a pretty smooth green which mixes well with the banana. The young fresh Thai coconut ice cubes give it a really fresh flavor that you don’t want to leave out. The pineapple seemed to be a bit like filler. But it was good RIPE filler.

This will be a great recipe to revisit come mid winter. I’m not looking forward to buying greens again, but, doesn’t look like I’ll have much of a choice before too long.

Take some time to put this one together, you won’t be disappointed.

Enjoy!

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!