Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Smooth and Nourishing and Good for the Soul

So the Mr. and I are on a bit of a health kick lately.  We've upped our veggie intake. Decreased our carbohydrates. And increased our fruits. We have both also been exercising more. I love spring because I start feeling like I should eat lighter, get moving, and the combination of those always makes my clothes fit better. 

Its quite fabulous really. 

And this year.... we have this wonderful new machine in our home. 
It chops, dices, liquifys, and best of all: it SMOOTHS!

Its called a smoothie maker!! (OR some people might call it a blender).

I mentioned the other day that we bought bananas and frozen fruit the other night at the grocery store.

And we have so much frozen fruit in our freezer now that you won't find anything else in there. Just kidding, but we have frozen: mixed berries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and pineapple. We also have fresh peaches, fresh bananas, fresh strawberries and fresh apples. 

Some combination of these with some sort of liquid has revolutionized my fruit intake. Because I typically have in the past had the best of intentions about eating more fruit... but what happens is that I buy it, bring it home, eat it when it isn't ripe, get grossed out, wait a few days for it to ripen, forget about it, and then find it mushy or squishy or moldy a week or two later when I'm scavenging for a healthy snack and end up having to throw it out (which sort of drives Handsome bonkers: you know something about wasting money on food that gets thrown out and starving malnourished children in other parts of the world).

And then I repeat the same process or you know, sacrifice my body's nutritional needs for the sake of getting along with my man.

But this: 


photo credit: Oster's website.

.... has completely changed our LIVES!


I have been making smoothies like a machine. Well, actually, that machine has been making the smoothies like a machine, but I've been combining cold berries and soy milk and pomegranate juice and peanut butter and yogurt and chocolate soy milk and have been sucking in the nutrients.  Oh, and I haven't so much been putting all of those together at the same time, but some combinations of different ingredients. 

These are a few of my favorite recipes so far:

Berry Berry Delicious Smoothie:

1/2 c. soy milk
1/2 c. pomegranate juice
1/2 c.ish of frozen blueberries. 
1 handfull-ish of frozen strawberries.
1 whole banana. 

De-thaw in the fridge overnight. Smooth away in the morning. (Oh and put the liquid in the bottom first. Then the chunkier stuff in second).

CBPB Smoothie (that would be the Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie)

1 c. of Chocolate Soy Milk
1 whole banana
1/4 c.ish of creamy PB
A few spoon-fulls of yogurt (or vanilla yogurt) or whatever you want. 

Smooth. And put it back in the fridge so it gets really cold. And plan on eating a light lunch, because this little smoothie is some kind of filling.

These aren't really my own recipes. But they aren't really anyone elses either. They are sort of me trying different things and seeing what I like after reading others smoothie recipes. And of course, compromising based on what we have. Unless of course its Saturday night and we need to get bananas on the way to the Red Box. 

Enjoy!
Photobucket

7 comments:

Annie said...

all of these smoothies sound delicious!!!
i'm on a health kick right now as well! love it! :)

have a great night/rest of your week hun!

Brittney Galloway said...

YUM! That CBPB sounds like dessert!

Kelley said...

yum!! I may have to pull out that blender!

Q, La, and Gooner said...

Add some spinach! Green monsters are the best and then you can be all kinds of healthy! We love smoothies over this a way!

Virginia Belle said...

Maybe I should try to get on a smoothie kick too. I tend to go days without eating fruit and this may help. The Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie sounds delicious and I can't wait to try it! I'm a new follower by the way :)

Meagan said...

Interesting. We might need to get one. Our current one is pissing the Hubby off lately, I think.

Callie said...

Oh, I love smoothies! Thanks for the recipes.