Smoothies

Making All-Fruit Smoothies

Our current smoothie strategy is to buy fresh fruits (peaches, mangoes, bananas, berries) when cheap and chop and freeze them.

Almost any smoothie can be made with frozen bananas which can be a way to use really ripe bananas before they go bad. Bananas, especially when frozen, have a very mild flavor and serve as a thickener. All of our favorite recipes end up using one or two frozen bananas, despite all tasting very different.

We then use a small to moderate amount of fresh citrus juice or orange juice on the cheap to "lubricate" the frozen fruit so the blender does not seize up with the thick paste of the fruit. (The blender cavitates around the blades, creating an air bubble at the bottom and running the motor against nothing, which requires turning off the blender, and carefully pushing down the solids with a spoon in order to continue blending.) But we do make it fairly thick. Sometimes a small amount of cold water is necessary.

Sometimes we add ice, and sometimes sugar or water if the lemon juice necessitates it. We don't seem to need ice cream, milk, yogurt, sherbet, or whatever people think they need to get a smoothie to work (that is what the frozen fruit is for).

We sometimes add a heaping tablespoon of Chia Seed for nutritional value, if available. This is optional and does not affect the flavor.

Some of our favorite flavor combinations include—but every smoothie is unique!

• Peach Mango Banana Lemonade and Orange Juice Smoothie
• Strawberry Banana and Orange Juice Smoothie
• Pineapple Strawberry Banana Mango and Orange Juice Smoothie
• Mixed Berry Banana and Lemonade Smoothie (Blueberry, Strawberry, Raspberry and/or Blackberry)
• Strawberry Pineapple Limeade Smoothie

Really any combination is possible.