Blending your smoothie is something you’re going to do with every recipe. So naturally I am giving you those instructions here so that you don’t need to read the same instructions on every page.
- Put your ingredients into the blender.
- Blend until your smoothie has the consistency that you like.
That all seems simple enough! I actually have a one-touch ‘smoothie program’ on my blender and because it’s quite a short program, sometimes I have to put it on a second time in order to incorporate everything well.
There will be times when you want your smoothie ultra-smooth and other times where you like a little something to chew or feel under the tooth. A change inconsistency will happen with the different recipes.
How Much Will Each Recipe Make?
Each recipe in this book makes, in general, somewhere between 1 ½ to 2 ½ big glasses of green smoothie. Rather than try to get the same volume out of every recipe, my aim is to give you recipes that have a good balance between the 2 cups minimum of greens in every smoothie and the other ingredients.
Reminder 1: What Greens To Use?
Remember you can do a ‘greens exchange’ on most smoothies. When your recipe says to pop in 2 cups of mild greens, consult your fridge (!) and your mild greens list.
There will be times you get a specific recommendation. That’s more likely to be when you add a strong green (see the list) as there is more of a difference in result between watercress and mustard leaves (both strong) than there is between using say, cabbage, chickweed, spinach or mizuna lettuce.
Reminder 2: Adding Water And Ice
Each recipe will have at least 1 cup of fluid in it. It will be either water, coconut water or nut/seed milk (or nuts/seed and water).
How much ice you add and how much extra water you add to your smoothie will depend on your personal preference for temperature and consistency.
The temperature of your smoothie will also be dependent on whether you put frozen or fresh fruit in. The more frozen fruit in will probably mean less ice added.
Just know that if you are new to making green smoothies that you will have fun experimenting with getting the balance right for you. Smoothie making is not an exact science (because of the variables of natural produce) and it really is hard to make mistakes. This also means that each time a particular recipe may taste a tiny bit different to you.
Sometimes you can be a bit generous with a green or say with lemon juice. Whatever it is, check out Green Smoothie Rescue notes in the introduction if you need to ‘fix’ anything.
Reminder 3: Nuts And Nut Milk
If you have nut milk at home then feel free to use it. In my recipes I have opted for a simple approach that gives you the nutrition of the whole nut.
For best results you will soak the nuts or seeds to get rid of any enzyme inhibitors, to soften the nuts for better blending, and if present reduce any amount of glycosides that could be present.
If you don’t have time to soak then that’s OK. They will still blend well. Realize that even a short soak time is better than no soak time. Sunflower seeds for example need only 20-30 minutes while almonds are better soaked overnight. Know that you can still get some benefit from short soak.
You’ll get in the habit of having an amount of soaked nuts on hands. So here’s what to do ...
- Place the amount of soaked nuts or seeds indicated in the recipe into the blender along with 1 cup of water.
- Blend until smooth. This will vary depending on the blender that you use.
- No need to strain. This is a simple one-step way of including nuts without fuss.
Remember you can always simply use water or coconut water instead, or even commercial nut (or any other variety such as quinoa, millet, rice) milks.
Reminder 4: Adding Sweeteners
You’ll find some smoothies that recommend adding a little sweetness for balance (if it is not coming from the fruit components alone).
If you are adding for nutritional value then arguably you would firstly consider adding one of dried peaches, dried apricots, dried figs and raisins.
After that you would consider adding agave syrup, dates, honey and then lastly stevia. Unfortunately commercially available stevia can be quite processed and the natural herb can take some getting used to. Choose wisely.
You can add dried fruit by just chopping them up. Or you can soak them first to soften them. It really depends on how good your blender is and if you like to feel little specks in your smoothie or always like a silky smooth drink. If you do soak your fruit, cover the fruit with water. You can keep soaked fruit in the fridge. Use the soak water.
Reminder 5: Adding In Superfoods
If you have a stock of superfoods (those listed in the previous pages) then feel free to add them in. This book is filled with recipes that when thoughtfully made with good wholesome ingredients will give you excellent nutritional balance and are packed with nature’s ordinary superfoods.
There are plenty of inexpensive everyday items on that superfoods list (such as almonds, coconut oil, spirulina so you don’t need to go crazy buying the latest touted hyper-marketed product (unless you want to).
Reminder 6: Scoring smoothies
You’ll find on a few dozen smoothies I have given them a score. I don’t do it for all of them. I just do it because there are some instances where it’s worth knowing what others have thought of something. Don’t get hung up on what others thought. However, I did learn one thing from this whole experience. It’s better to let any unsuspecting subject know what’s in their smoothie so they can anticipate it. You see, when you go to a restaurant, you order according to your tastes and you know what’s coming. Robert (my hubby) finds it easier to score them when he can – in a way – pretend he ordered them from his favorite café.
Reminder 7: Have Fun And Enjoy Your Smoothie Adventures
Putting these smoothies together is different to adding ingredients into a pot for cooking. You’ll find many that tempt you because they have your favorite ingredients. You’ll also find some recipe combinations that may not even seem to work well together when you read them.
How adventurous you are is up to you. So, take a lesson from my 9 year old. As I have said before, giving anything to my daughter like a bowl of chopped cabbage, fennel and pineapple would simply NEVER work. But those ingredients in a smoothie worked for her and she lapped up every last drop.
Now it’s your turn ...
How To Use The Recipe Index
In the following section you'll find ALL the recipes 1-132 in no particular order. I pondered this and discussed it endlessly - "should we 'categorize' the recipes etc?" - in the end we decided that the best method is to be constantly inspired and surprised by reading through and not to fall into choosing something you "think" you will like just because it falls into a "category".
However, there is a dilemma here: The Kindle (and all the Kindle reading apps) does have a search feature - so if you really want to find a recipe with a particular ingredient, it can easily be done. But this can be clumsy and hard to see your chosen ingredient in a list of recipes ... so ... we made a "Recipe Index" which cross-references lists of recipes by major ingredient - think of it as a sub-table of contents.
So as not to complicate the book for new readers AND to keep the information and main Table of Contents clear, these are located at the back of the book. You can get to them from the main Table of Contents .
