watermelon – Page 2 – Genuine Observations

Kale, Peach, Watermelon Smoothie

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 by Dave

Kale is one of those amazing garden plants. You can plant it just about anywhere and you’ll get something that stands up big and strong. I’m sure it’s got ‘weed’ in its ancestral tree somewhere. The plants that came up in my garden this year took a while to come on, but when they did, a hand full of leaves really was all that it took.

But look at that, I’m writing as if the plants are dead and gone. Far from it! I just pick the bottom leaves and let the plant keep growing. They are all three feet tall now and still pumping out leaves. I fully expect that these will be the last greens that I get out of the garden this fall. Next year, I’m going to put in MORE and get enough to make kale chips. But that’s a posting for another day.

Recipe:

2 peaches
Juice of 1 lemon (no seeds)
1 inch wide slice of watermelon
8 to 10 Kale leaves
1 probiotic (optional)

I don’t like to add lemon seeds to my smoothies so I cut them in half and squeeze them over a bowl. Once I’ve extracted all the juice, I remove the seeds with a spoon before dumping the juice into the blender. It seems that life is just easier that way.

Notice that the watermelon has nearly filled the blender. I spun the fruit for a few seconds before removing the top to add the kale. When adding the kale, I pick off the leaf and leave being most of the steam. But I’m willing to bet that the stem is where the bulk of the metals are, for it’s a pretty stiff stem and, for some reason, it reminds me of bone.

In sixty seconds, the blend makes easy work of this chewing concoction. The lemon juice if a must here. It counters the bitters in the kale with the acids from the citrus. Once these two balance each other out, it’s just a matter of adding a little sweetener – dates!

I’m sure I’ll have more of these come this fall when the weather really turns cold. If I had a little more gardening room, I’d grow a plant for you two.

Beet greens Peach and Watermelon Smoothie

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 by Dave

Every year there’s one crop that stands out better than all the others in the garden. This year, I’ve been blessed with beets! What a wonderful veggie. Most people grow them for the wonderful bulb, but I put them in specifically for the greens! I like the fact that the greens are not really bitter and the pests don’t like them like lettuce of spinach. They are also pretty hardy. You can take off for a week and know that your plants will still be alive when you get back. They may have wilted a bit, but a gentle watering brings them right back to life.

Another great part about beets is that you can pinch off leaves while the plants growing and you don’t have to worry about losing the ‘bulb’ crop. As long as you get sunlight hours, the plant will keep pumping captured sunlight into the bulb so you can enjoy the juice (mixed with carrots and celery) later in the year.

But for now, I’m getting smoothie after smoothie with nutrient rich leaves that look like this:

Recipe:

3 peaches
Watermelon (about 1 inch slice ½ way through)
5 to 6 little dates
Probiotic (optional)

You’ll have to notice that I didn’t add any water or juice to this smoothie. The watermelon is going to provide all we need.

Just make sure you place the watermelon on the bottom for it’s not until that gets ground up that anything else starts. I love just being able to through watermelon in as the base without having to juice it before hand. Normally, I’ll juice up a watermelon and get 4 quarts that last a few days. This way, I get just what I want when I want it. It’s like juice to order.

The beet greens always give off a redish color, thus the end result is nearly always brown. If you look closely at this one, you’ll see that it’s pretty creamy. The smoothie is standing up just a little at the top of the jar. I love these drinks thick. Most people don’t. To make it runnier, just add ½ cup water or a bit more watermelon (like a full ½ inch slice).

Peach, Watermelon, Beet greens Smoothie

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 by Dave

I love it when I can harvest a half dozen beets the size of baseballs and get enough greens for two smoothies. I also love 24 lbs peaches for $7.50. What a screaming deal. The abundance this year looks to be peaches and beet greens.

Even through the base ingredients are the same, the smoothies don’t have to all taste the same day after day. In this case, the difference between this smoothie and the previous day’s smoothie is that I’m adding sesame milk to make it more like a milk shake.

Recipe:

3 peaches
1 inch slice watermelon ½ way through the fruit (seedless)
4 to 5 little dates
Big handful beat greens from the garden
1 ½ cups sesame milk (with pulp)

Combine all ingredients into the blender with the wettest items on the bottom.

Turns out that when putting this one together, I had to spin the fruit before adding the greens.

If you look closely, I like to spin the fruit just long enough to get it turning and then stop. The less you time you spend running the blender, the less heat you generate. Thus, I want to turn the greens for a minute so I spend as little time as possible getting the fruit to turn.

The end result, once again, looks a bit muddy. This is beets we’re talking about even if it’s just the tops!

When it really comes down to it, beet greens are really good for you. They have a metric butt ton of vitamin A and K along with Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium. Even if the greens are not the ‘stored sunlight’, they are the chlorophyll factories. And as we’ve seen before (Is food another form of light?), the chlorophyll molecule is a great molecule to consume.

Mango Watermelon Lettuce

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 by Dave

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!

Peach Lettuce Watermelon smoothie

July 25, 2010September 20, 2010 by Dave

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!

IMG_7903_watermelon — 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:

IMG_7906_ingredients — 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.

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!