Green Smoothie

Photo by Joanna Slodownik / CC BY

I hate leafy green vegetables. They’re boring, largely flavourless, and my lips inadvertently purse into a weird scowl when I have to buy them at the grocery store (fun fact – this appears to be not entirely psychological, since apparently my brother & uncle have the same reflex, but they LIKES them).

I’ll eat an interesting salad (ideally ones with spices nuts & some sort of strongly flavoured cheese crumbled in) but it’s always an effort of will. Which is Bad, of course, because leafy green vegetables fall clearly in the Good category.

A couple of years ago, on a lovely hot summer day, I was walking around trying to decide what to have for lunch. I wasn’t very hungry and I definitely didn’t want anything cooked. I decided to try a green smoothie at (what is now) LeafyBox.

It passed the first test: I didn’t go blind.

It ALSO passed the second test – it was actually quite pleasant! But I have no idea what they put in it, and I wouldn’t swear that it didn’t have a lot of sweetened juice in it as well.

[two years passes]

About a month ago I was at Costco with a friend and saw some GIANT bags of spinach. Me: “I should eat more salads!”. Cut to a week later and a bunch of very limp spinach in the drawer at the bottom of the fridge. I had a LOT of ginger in the freezer from Sunrise Market and thought “well, maybe that would make it more interesting.”

It does! I’ve now tried them with and without LOTS of ginger and the ginger makes a big difference – it’s fun to drink instead of just a slog. So here’s my new daily breakfast. Give it a try!

Kara’s Spicy Green Smoothie
  • 4c baby spinach & kale mix (~40 cal according to the bag, ~80 cal according to MyFitnessPal)
  • 1/2c regular yoghurt (100 cal)
  • 1/4c coconut milk (~80 cal according to MyFitnessPal)
  • 1c carrots (~50 cal)
  • 2c frozen fruit (~120 cal)
  • 1/2c ginger (~50 cal – I keep it in the freezer, which will affect when it goes in the blender)
  • ~1c water

Start by  blending the yoghurt & coconut milk with the greens until they’re well mixed.

Break the carrots into thumb-sized pieces & blend them in (‘chop’ is fine – we’re not going for ‘fully liquid’ yet.) If your ginger is not frozen, add it now.

Add the frozen stuff SLOWLY. I use the ‘crush ice’ setting on my blender, but if you put it all in at once, the liquids freeze and you end up creating a cave at the bottom of the blender that nothing falls into. If you add the frozen stuff in batches, you don’t have to poke the contents down into the blades as much. Add the water in batches as well when things start freezing together.

Once it’s relatively smoothly blending, step up the levels until you get the consistency you like. Me, I like ‘liquify’ – there’s always going to be a bit of fibrousness left from the ginger, but not much.

Makes about 2.5 SOLO cups of smoothie. So, that’s… what, 40 oz? And you’ve started the day with probably all the vegetables & fruit you need. I’ve now had more leafy green vegetables in the last month than I have in probably the previous 6 months. And it doesn’t feel like ‘work’.