This smoothie is quite different from the others I’ve posted so far. I’ve been meaning to do more with mint, and it delivered on this one. This mint smoothie is sort of like a virgin mango mojito. The mango and chia seeds give it a bit of body or “creaminess,” and the spinach boosts the green color. The mint makes it particularly refreshing for a summer day. Continue Reading →
A Vitamix blender makes smooth soups easily. This is a similar idea to the broccoli soup that I posted a while back, but this time I used asparagus. We’re well into asparagus season, so if you want to try this before the good asparagus runs out don’t delay! I’ve taken to steaming the vegetables, and then blending them with the steaming water in the Vitamix. You can substitute a variety of vegetables. This is a vegan recipe, but you could obviously use some cream if you so desired. Continue Reading →
It’s cherry season, and I love cherries, so here’s a simple smoothie that highlights their great flavor. Cherries can go well with many combinations, but in this recipe I didn’t want to dilute their flavor. I just used cherries, almonds, and vanilla extract. You could make this with frozen cherries, which would save you the work of pitting them, but I used fresh cherries. I have an old cherry pitter that looks like this one that makes pitting easy. I also used peeled almonds to make it smoother. Continue Reading →
The weather is starting to warm up and we’re fast approaching summer, so it’s time for a Vitamix sorbet recipe. This is ridiculously fast and easy to make, and it’s light and refreshing. To make a Vitamix sorbet you blend an approximate ratio of 3 parts frozen items with 1 part unfrozen. In this case I used only three ingredients: frozen strawberries, frozen mango, and coconut milk. Continue Reading →
I came across some good looking purple sweet potatoes, so I couldn’t resist turning one of them into a purple smoothie. This is similar to the previous recipe I listed for a sweet potato smoothie, except this time I added cinnamon and substituted blueberries for cranberries. The combination of apple, sweet potato, ginger, and cinnamon flavors makes it reminiscent of a pie, and it’s hard to argue with the purple color.
4 oz water
1 purple sweet potato (cooked and cooled)
1 apple
1 Tbsp chia seeds
¼ cup frozen blueberries
small piece of ginger
a few shakes of cinnamon
6 ice cubes Continue Reading →
This may sound weird at first, but I’ve found mustard in cool vegetable soups/savory Vitamix drinks to be surprisingly good. I personally prefer the kick of a Dijon mustard over the more mild yellow/American mustard. After a fair amount of trial and error with vegetable blends, I’ve settled on consistently using a few strong background flavors, one of which is something sour. Previously I used lemon or balsamic vinegar, but mustard also works well, and it adds an interesting new flavor. You can use the mustard on its own, or alongside vinegar or lemon. Besides sour, I like to add salt. After that I often add something savory like bouillon or nutritional yeast, and also often a healthy fat like nuts, olive oil, or avocado. You can play around with the ideas I posted in my original V8-inspired blend, but I recommend trying other vegetables as well. The main guideline is to make sure you have the sour and salt. As the weather starts to warm up I’m glad to see decent tomatoes starting to come back. Here’s a random combo using mustard if you’re looking for recipe guidance: Continue Reading →
I came up with this recipe to satisfy a chocolate craving when there was no chocolate in the house. Luckily we almost always have cocoa and sugar on hand, and I also had some soaked and dried walnuts in the freezer. Using soaked walnuts is important because it removes the astringent bitterness of the walnuts that I don’t think goes well with dessert. In principle, this recipe is similar to the nutella I previously described because we’re mainly just blending nuts with chocolate, but the result is different. Continue Reading →
Coconut butter: Another use: coconut lime rice. After cooking rice, mix in some coconut butter and lime juice. It tastes really good! On a different note, I’ve found that for general smoothies just adding shredded coconut works pretty well. The coconut butter might be marginally smoother, but the difference is minimal, and if you have a smoothie with fibrous things that have a little texture (such as kale), the difference in coconut texture is even less noticeable. If you want something maximally smooth I think you’re better off using coconut milk that’s had the fiber removed (you can make it yourself by blending coconut with water and then straining it).
Lettuce soup: Substituting in butter lettuce (aka Boston Bibb) and/or Meyer lemon makes this taste amazing (butter lettuce is less bitter and Meyer lemons are sweeter). We had great success with the “living” butter lettuce that still has the root attached.
As I mentioned before in my bright orange smoothie post, even though I don’t usually care what a smoothie looks like, sometimes it’s nice to make a strong visual impression. In this case I was curious if I could make a naturally blue colored smoothie.* Blue foods are quite rare, but I had an idea that I could turn red cabbage blue by shifting its pH. Red cabbage (aka purple cabbage) contains anthocyanins that are blue at basic pH. I did a little research into the pH of various foods, and unfortunately I quickly found that most foods range from slightly acidic to moderately acidic. I found a few candidates, but as you can see from the picture, I did not succeed in getting a naturally blue palatable smoothie. I did however discover a surprisingly tasty combination: cabbage and corn! Continue Reading →
This smoothie has totally different flavors from the ones I’ve previously described, which are often based on berries or ginger. Sourness from the kiwi complements the mango, and cilantro gives it a surprisingly delicious extra kick.
½ cup yogurt
1 orange (peeled)
1 kiwi
small handful cilantro
handful frozen mango chunks
Blend on high until smooth. Makes a single ~16–20-oz serving. Continue Reading →