Thursday, May 10, 2012

Green Smoothies

I am not usually a big cooking gadget buyer. If I can make do with what I have, I do. Because how many of us have purchased a bread machine, juicer, or other amazing appliance only to find it stuffed to the back a few months later. But this has really been one of my best purchases. I was really leery about forking out the money since it is pretty pricey, but we use it at least daily. It is my new Blentec



And yes, I bought it in the Red. It is a thing of beauty. My sister-in-law was traveled a few hours up north to buy it at Costco because they were running some sort of special (she was buying one for herself also). I figured if I didn't like it, I could always return it to a local Costco. After the first smoothie we have never looked back. It has the power of the commercial blenders at Jamba juice. It also has a counter and to date we have made over 200 smoothies (and we have only owned it for a couple of months). AND we are eating more fruits and veggies because of it. So I will be sharing some of our favorite smoothie recipes (and hopefully Wendi and Steff will join in and add their favorites). We are having a smoothie off at our Butler family reunion in July, so we might not share our best ones until then. 

This is one that Wendi said she liked and we really like it too. It isn't really sweet, but is a great way to get spinach into your kids. Yes, you have to get past the green color, but give it a try.



Green Smoothie


Serves 1
Ingredients:

1 frozen bana
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup almond milk (or other kind of milk)
4 cups baby spinach (more, or less)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth

Nutritional stats:
350 calories, 10g fiver, 21 g protein


Here are a few health benefits:


  • Spinach is fat free, cholesterol free, low in calories and very low in sodium
  • Spinach is an excellent source of vitamin A, C, K, iron, fiber, folate, and lutein
  • Leutin is an antioxidant that promotes good eye health, and may help prevent cancer of the liver,ovaries, colon and prostate, and even dementia.
  • Dole lab tests found spinach juice has twice the chlorophyl, eight times the calcium, six times the magnesium, 10 times the potassium, 15 times the vitamin C and 43 times the vitamin A of wheatgrass juice!

SCD YOGURT - For my daughter we used SCD yogurt, which is yogurt you make yourself. Make sure when you purchase yogurt that it has ACTIVE CULTURES. Most yogurt is crap (excuse my language). It really doesn't do anything to help your gut. Active cultures re-introduce the good bacteria into your digestive system which we lose through medications, eating processed foods etc. Making your own yogurt gives you  700 billion good bacteria per cup, lots of protein, vitamins, minerals, amino acids in an easy to digest. It is also fermented for 24 hours as apposed to commercial yogurt which is 4 hours. The 24 hour process gets rid of the lactose and makes it easier to digest. If you are interested in the directions... look HERE. I will probably do a post about it later.

ALMOND MILK - You can purchase the almond milk you buy in the store, but it isn't very hard to make your own. And all it has in it is almonds.... imagine that. The store bought Almond milk has things like cane sugar and carrageenan. HERE are the simple directions to make your own. If you dry the leftover almonds it becomes almond meal or almond flour depending on if you used blanched almonds or not.






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