Saturday, May 24, 2014

Adventures With Our Vitamix































In our continued effort to add in more fruits and veggies to the daily eating plan, I have enlisted an ally in our kitchen:  our Vitamix.

It chops up veggies to a very fine consistency, so that they can be added to sauces or soups without noticeable chunkiness that might get detected more easily by picky eaters.  Stealth veg is my secret weapon at the moment. While we continue to work on just eating the veggies outright, I am not content to wait and try to sneak extra veggies into just about everything where I can.

When I have time, anyway -- this week has been so insanely busy that I have been grateful to just get any home-cooked food into all of us at the end of the day.  I hate it when we have that week, and am looking forward to the slow-down that the end of school brings to our house.

But my favorite use for our Vitamix is for smoothies: I just toss some juice or water, assorted frozen fruits, spinach or kale, and some protein powder into the Vitamix and whir it around to make a delicious smoothie that is bursting with antioxidant goodness.  I have found that if you use enough frozen blueberries or cherries in your fruit mix that no one will ever know the spinach or kale is in there once things are well blended.

I swear that you cannot taste the spinach or kale at all, but the healthy goodness is in there for an extra vitamin kick. 

I love that we can get 3 or 4 servings of fruits and veggies in a big glass of milkshake-tasting yumminess.  If I toss in a variety of fruits, which I normally do, we get a whole spectrum of antioxident goodness in a glass.


The unfortunate truth is that I have fallen off the smoothie wagon the last few weeks, though. 

Teaching every day takes a lot out of me, and the tradeoff of an extra 20 minutes of sleep versus getting up super early to make smoothies and then clean out the Vitamix...well, I've been choosing the little bit of extra sleep.  It is most likely a choice that is making me more tired in the long run, but it cannot be helped.

School ends next week, though, so I'll be back on the smoothie wagon for summer meals.  I plan on taking full advantage of smoothies all summer long and will continue to do so going forward.  I just feel better when most of what I am eating is plant-based, and that is the truth of it.

I'm always looking for a good smoothie recipe or fruit and veg combo, so if you have a favorite, please share in the comments!  My latest favorite is frozen cherries, spinach, chocolate whey powder, and a small handful of frozen blueberries, strawberries and half a banana.  Yummmmmmmm...

Some extra ideas:

--  Healthy smoothie recipes
--  20 Super-healthy smoothies
--  Quick and healthy smoothie recipes
--  Breakfast smoothie recipes
--  Clean eating juices and smoothies

(Photo via kris krüg.)

1 comment:

Pegleg said...

Excellent idea, using your Vitamix! When making smoothies, I use unsweetened apple juice as my liquid with my fruit and veggies. It provides some natural sweetness, but in a good way. If I don't need or want the sweetness, I sometimes used carbonated mineral water instead.