Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Green Smoothies

My self-improvement project this winter has been to eat more vegetables. I've added one or two servings of veggies to my daily diet. So far, the main effect I've noticed is a drain on my wallet, BUT, I have also had the opportunity to play around with new recipe concepts.

One of those is ways to eat greens. I know greens are healthy but I hate salad and cooked greens are slimy (except for kale in soup). I love smoothies, though, so when my sister mentioned green smoothies, I was intrigued. Here are my results so far.

1. Chard: Produces a juicy, smooth smoothie and has a mild, nutty taste. Top choice.
2. Kale: Tastes good, but takes forever to grind. I'm going to try it in the food processor and see if that works better. Also has a little bit of an odd metallic taste.
3. Boston lettuce: Now, normally, this kind of lettuce is sweet and good, but in a smoothie it was disappointingly bitter and mineral-y. This is better as a salad.
4. Red leaf lettuce: I chose the specific lettuce head by tasting little bits of the leaves on every lettuce in the store (yeah, I'm that guy) in order to find one that wasn't bitter. Each shipment of lettuce can taste different! But I found a good one, and blended it up, and it came out surprisingly creamy, with a rich mouthfeel.

Recipe #1:
1 head Swiss chard leaves, no stems
1 cup prepared banana-strawberry juice
Juice of 1 lemon
Sweetener to taste

Recipe #2:
1 head non-bitter leaf lettuce
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 orange
Sweetener to taste

Good luck!

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