Oh yeah, you saw it right. THIS is Smoothie Central. You get four recipes in one post! Mostly because I figured you’d all hate
getting a single smoothie recipe for four days.
Don’t you agree? This also marks
the first time I did not make each of the recipes. My husband blended the smoothies (and
continues to make these on a daily basis) so I essentially watched and interviewed
him as he was making them. Yes, even a
guy who doesn’t cook can complete these recipes!
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© You Want Me to Cook?
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Gingery
Berry and Oat Smoothie recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – January 30,
2011
For a
commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.
Gingery
Berry and Oat Smoothie recipe originally published
in Real Simple, February 2011.
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© You Want Me to Cook?
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Spiced
Pumpkin Smoothie recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – February 2, 2011
For a
commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.
Spiced
Pumpkin Smoothie recipe originally published
in Real Simple, February 2011.
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© You Want Me to Cook?
|
Banana-Cashew
Smoothie recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – January 29, 2011
For a
commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.
Banana-Cashew
Smoothie recipe originally published
in Real Simple, February 2011.
 |
© You Want Me to Cook?
|
Strawberry-Flax
Smoothie recipe modified by You Want Me to Cook? – February 12, 2011
For a
commentary-free and printer-friendly version of it, please click here.
Strawberry-Flax
Smoothie recipe originally published
in Real Simple, February 2011.
I hate breakfast. I’ve never been a fan of breakfast food and often
I wake up feeling less than stellar. For
those of you who don’t know me personally, I have fibromyalgia and my pain
manifests itself as migraine headaches and severe nausea – especially in the
morning. My husband, who lost 130
pounds, knows that I need to fuel my body in the morning to jumpstart my
metabolism. So we began searching for easy-to-make
breakfasts that look yummy, appeal to what foods I do enjoy in the morning and
that I can take with me on the run. Around the same time Real Simple had their smoothie issue, my husband asked me
about making them for breakfast. We
picked out a bunch and my husband made one each day.
Assessment:
for more details about what my
ratings mean, go to Gretchen’s Rating System
Mess: NADA –
for the most part, everything is contained in one cup and there isn’t any prep
to the ingredients. A couple of the
recipes have messy ingredients, like blueberries, but nothing that is going to get
out of control.
Start-to-Finish Time: UNDER 10 MINUTES – a couple of the recipes
have soaking that needs to be done, but the actual hands-on time is 10 minutes
or less. No worries – I’ll warn you if something
needs soaking time.
Prep Work: ALL
FINGERS STILL HERE – everything goes into the blender and you’re
done. If you’re like me and use a single
serving blender that you can drink directly out of.
Ease of Recipe: COOK IT IN MY SLEEP – if you know how to turn
on your blender, then you can make a smoothie.
There isn’t any “cooking” necessary.
Overall: SORRY HONEY, NO LEFTOVERS – for the smoothies
that went well, I drink them down like water and feel great afterwards.
Gingery Berry and Oat Smoothie
My husband eats oatmeal almost
every day for breakfast and he usually eats it with some kind of fruit. So, he went on a solo trip to Costco and
bought 5 pounds of frozen blueberries and 10 pounds of oatmeal. My first thought was “what the heck am I
going to do with all of that!” Out of
the recipes we selected, this was one of those that I was most excited to try
so it ended up working perfectly.
My finished product:
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Picture published with recipe:
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Our smoothie had the same gorgeous
purple color and same consistency. Now
all I had to worry about was the taste.
Recipe Information:
Hands-on Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 1
Nutritional Information
- Calories 297
- Total Fat 4g (Saturated Fat 1g)
- Cholesterol 7mg
- Sodium 100mg
- Protein 10g
- Total Carbohydrate 58g
- Sugar 42g
- Fiber 4g
- Iron 2mg
- Calcium 261mg
Even though all you have to do is
throw everything in a blender, there is an extra step with this particular
smoothie. The 20 minutes includes
soaking the oats to soften them before blending. We had all the intentions of making one of
these for each of us, but it produced A
LOT of smoothie – around 14-16 ounces worth. The next time we split one serving in half
and it filled us up.
When you look at the nutritional
information, a drink that has 297 calories is pretty steep. Of course, considering that it is mostly
fruit, oatmeal and no-fat yogurt, it isn’t the same as drinking a sugary soda. Since we shared it, our breakfast was half
that and still filling.
Ingredients:
Changes denoted by red text
¼ cup old-fashioned rolled oats
½ cup frozen blueberries
½ cup plain low-fat yogurt
½ cup ice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
pinch of ground ginger
Ingredient Notes:
Blueberries – blueberries have a mystical juice that even when frozen seems to get on a lot of stuff. If it gets on your cabinets, wipe it up immediately to prevent it from staining. If you get it on your clothes wash it off immediately.
Brown Sugar – normally brown sugar is “packed when it is
measured.” I reminded my husband of this
when he made it.
Ginger – the original recipe called for ¼ to ½ teaspoon of fresh grated
ginger. Since I didn't want it to go to
waste, I opted to use the ground ginger I already had. If you choose to use fresh, Real Simple gives
the tip to use a Microplane or fine holes of a box grater.
Equipment Needed:
Glass Measuring cup
Blender
Equipment Notes:
Glass Measuring Cup – the original recipe had you soaking the
oats in the blender. That just didn’t
make much sense to me since the oats were stuck to the sides, so my husband used a glass
measuring cup to soak them.
Blender – We have a single-serving blender that has a cup you blend
directly into. It is really handy for small
jobs like this.
Directions:
(1) Place the oats and ½ cup water in a glass measuring cup.
(2) Let soak until the oats have softened,
about 15 minutes.
My advice is to get them ready when
you first get up (when you start the coffee maker perhaps?) and let them soak
while you get ready. A little extra time
won’t hurt them.
(3) To the blender, add the ingredients in the following order:
yogurt, blueberries, sugar, ginger and ice.
The order is very important. The first time it was made, my husband put
the ice nearest the blender’s blades and it seemed like it didn’t blend
well. So he put all of the other
ingredients in first (minus the oats) and placed the ice on top to kind of
weigh them down. It ended up blending
much nicer the second time.
NOTE: If you are using a blender like ours, you put
the ingredients into a cup and then flip it over to blend it. You want the ice the furthest from the blades
in order for it to work the same way.
(4) Add oats to the blender.
(5) Blend until smooth and frothy.
This smoothie tasted like
blueberry oatmeal. Some people on Real Simple's website commented
that the oats gave it a grainy taste, but we didn’t feel that way at all. It was smooth and delicious and we’ve made it
several times since.
Spiced Pumpkin Smoothie
So I used to work at
Starbucks. I LOVE almost all of their
frappuccinos and the Pumpkin Spice frappuccino was up there at the top of the
list. I also LOVE pumpkin! When I saw this smoothie recipe, I had
visions of never having to go to Starbucks again to get my beloved PSF and have
a much healthier take on the drink as well.
My finished product:
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Picture published with recipe:
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The pictures are very similar; although
I’m not sure they tasted the same. I’ll
give you my exact take on this recipe in a few moments, but I’m surprised it
made the cut.
Recipe Information:
Hands-on/Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 1
Nutritional Information
- Calories 165
- Total Fat 4g (Saturated Fat 2g)
- Cholesterol 12mg
- Sodium 53mg
- Protein 5g
- Total Carbohydrate 29g
- Sugar 26g
- Fiber 3g
- Iron 1mg
- Calcium 153mg
I'm not sure that it even
took 5 minutes to make this. There is
nothing to soak or chop, just toss it into a blender and go. Our lesson with the Gingery Berry & Oat
Smoothie told my husband that he didn’t need to make one for each of us.
The nutritional information is
pretty impressive, especially since we shared the drink. Of course, there really isn’t much to it with
the bulk of it being ice. My husband
used skim milk, so that probably dropped the fat and caloric content even
further.
Ingredients:
Changes denoted by red text
1 cup ice
½ cup skim milk
1/3 cup pure pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon honey
pinch of ground nutmeg
Ingredient Notes:
Skim Milk – skim Milk is what we drink, so we didn’t see
the need to buy whole milk to make a single smoothie. Besides, skim milk has zero fat, a very small
amount of cholesterol and a third-less calories. Even 1% has half the fat and cholesterol in
it.
Pure Pumpkin Puree – Real Simple says if you can’t find pure
pumpkin, you can use pumpkin pie filling and omit the honey and nutmeg.
Equipment Needed:
Blender
Equipment Notes:
Blender – We have a single-serving blender that has a cup you blend
directly into. It is really handy for small
jobs like this.
Directions:
(1) Place the ice, milk, pumpkin puree, honey,
and nutmeg in a blender.
Unlike with the Gingery Berry and
Oat Smoothie, this blended easily when he added the ingredients as specified in
the recipe.
(2) Blend until smooth and frothy.
This smoothie tasted like
watered-down pumpkin puree. It was not
impressive at all. At first I thought it
may have been the skim milk, but I can’t imagine it being that much thicker or
more flavorful with whole milk. We tried
to “fix” it by adding ¼ cup of yogurt and then ¼ cup of vanilla soy milk. When that didn’t help the taste, we added a
teaspoon of cinnamon and a little more nutmeg.
The nutmeg was a HUGE mistake because it became grainy. The other things didn’t punch up the pumpkin
taste – it just made it taste like more dairy.
We haven’t made it again since, even though we were tossing out
suggestions on how to make it differently from scratch the next time.
Banana-Cashew Smoothie
This smoothie was “numero uno” on
my list to try. My husband, on the other
hand, didn’t seem to be as enthused.
Since I feared he wouldn’t select it, I decided to not give him a choice. Before he got home from work, I started
soaking the cashews and announced that he would be making it the next day. Oddly enough, I’m not the biggest fan of
bananas mixed with other fruit, but this really appealed to me.
My finished product:
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Picture published with recipe:
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The smoothie appeared to have the
same color and texture as the one that was pictured. I was hopeful that it was going to be just as
flavorful. There is NO DAIRY in this
dish and I was incredibly skeptical that it was going to have a smoothie
texture and taste.
Recipe Information:
Hands-on Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 6 hours 5 minutes
Servings: 1
Nutritional Information
- Calories 301
- Total Fat 16g (Saturated Fat 3g)
- Cholesterol 0mg
- Sodium 11mg
- Protein 6g
- Total Carbohydrate 38g
- Sugar 21g
- Fiber 3g
- Iron 2mg
- Calcium 35mg
Again, you have to soak the
cashews for at least 6 hours. I did mine
overnight, because who wants to wake up in the middle of the night to start the
next day’s breakfast. As I said before,
these smoothies make plenty for two people, so we split the smoothie for our
breakfast.
I was actually shocked at the
calories, but then I realized that we were using cashews. Luckily, nuts give you healthy fat, so I wasn’t
as alarmed at the numbers. I did use
unsalted nuts to keep the sodium level in check.
Ingredients:
Changes denoted by red text
¼ cup raw unsalted cashews
1 cup ice
½ banana
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
Ingredient Notes:
Banana – Real Simple says you should “keep the remaining half of the banana
in the freezer & add it (still frozen) to your next batch of smoothies.” My husband cut up the rest of his into his
oatmeal, so we didn’t have that problem.
I’d even go further though. I’d
say at the same time I got the cashews ready, I’d peel a banana and throw it in
the freezer. It will keep the smoothie
cold and like a thick milkshake instead of watering it down. P.S.
That’s what we did at Starbucks.
Maple Syrup – Make sure you buy 100% maple syrup and not
pancake syrup that is maple flavored.
Trust me, it tastes different.
Yes, it is a little more expensive, but I found a generic brand that was
100% pure maple syrup and reasonably priced.
Equipment Needed:
Blender
Plastic Wrap
Equipment Notes:
Blender – We have a single-serving blender that has a cup you blend
directly into. It is really handy for small
jobs like this.
Plastic Wrap – I am pretty skeptical just leaving a cup
full of water and cashews sitting out without being covered. I added some plastic wrap over the cup in
case it fell over.
Directions:
(1) Place ½ cup water and the cashews in a blender.
Our small single-serving blender
was perfect for this. I certainly wouldn’t
have wanted to put my entire blender’s pitcher into the refrigerator. If you run into that problem, you can soak
them in a liquid measuring cup and add them first to the pitcher when getting
ready to blend.
(2) Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate
until the cashews have softened, at least 6 hours (and up to overnight).
(3) Add the ice, banana, and maple syrup.
(4) Blend until smooth and frothy.
As I said before, I was really
concerned about this recipe since there was a lot of water and no milk/yogurt
added to the recipe. In fact, I got out
all of the ingredients the night before so my husband wouldn’t have to look
around the kitchen (which means he would have gotten me out of bed). He looked at the ingredients, the cashews in
the fridge and then the recipe and said, “What, no yogurt?” I shook my head and he raised an
eyebrow. Then he asked, “But I’m
supposed to drain the water, right?” I
think he was completely expecting the worst.
We were both surprised at how light and yummy this smoothie turned
out. Definitely one we’ll keep.
Strawberry-Flax Smoothie
Several weeks after the giant bag
of blueberries had been bought, and not even half eaten, another trip to Costco
yielded a 5-pound bag of strawberries. I
looked around in the smoothie recipes and pulled out this one. I had never had “flax” so I wasn’t sure what
to expect. My husband didn’t
either. In fact, the first thing he
asked me was, “What’s flax?” Honestly, even
though I had seen it in the grocery store with the flour, I had to Google it.
My finished product:
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Picture published with recipe:
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This was the final smoothie we
had made and I have to admit, I was a tad jealous of my husband’s ability to
make his creations look exactly like those in the picture. But would it taste as yummy as it
appeared? We shall see.
Recipe Information:
Hands-on/Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 1
Nutritional Information
- Calories 334
- Total Fat 7g (Saturated Fat 2g)
- Cholesterol 11mg
- Sodium 134mg
- Protein 14g
- Total Carbohydrate 58g
- Sugar 49g
- Fiber 6g
- Iron 2mg
- Calcium 391mg
Same as before, you simply dump
everything into a blender (no prep work) and blend. It doesn’t get much easier. Also, we shared the serving again, which
makes the calories a little easier to bear.
Of course, the sugar and calories are coming from the fruit. I was happy with that.
Ingredients:
Changes denoted by red text
1 cup frozen strawberries
¾ cup plain low-fat yogurt
½ cup fresh pulp free orange juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
Ingredient Notes:
Orange Juice – even though
my husband made the smoothies, I still had to do the grocery shopping. I bought “pulp free” to make sure there were
no variables added to the drink. The
recipe didn’t specify that though.
Flaxseed Meal
- I found flaxseed with the flour but bunched with the other organic flours and cornmeal. I did have to go to a large chain to get it. I was shocked that, even though they carried some of the same organic flours, that my local stores didn’t have it. From what I understand, you can also find it in health food stores too.
- Real Simple takes the time to remind us that flaxseed is “packed with heart-healthy omega-3s & fiber” and then tells you to store it “in the freezer to keep the oils from turning rancid.” We read the package and it told us to store it in the refrigerator, so that’s what we did.
Equipment Needed:
Blender
Equipment Notes:
Blender – We have a single-serving blender that has a cup you blend
directly into. It is really handy for small
jobs like this.
Directions:
(1) Place the strawberries, yogurt, orange juice, flaxseed meal, and honey
in a blender.
My husband learned the hard way to
make sure the honey is not resting on the bottom of the blender. It stuck to the sides of the glass and had to
be scraped out without being properly blended into the smoothie.
(2) Blend until smooth and frothy.
This was a fairly tasty smoothie,
however we both felt the orange juice completely overpowered the
strawberries. If it was ever to be made
again, we’d cut the orange juice in half and see if it made a difference.
My husband enjoyed his chance at
being the chef even if there wasn’t a lot of cooking involved. These were easy enough to make that he makes
them all of the time, without me asking.
In fact, he usually will bring me a smoothie when I sit down to check my
morning e-mail, play Farmville and watch The Price is Right. I’d say that’s “winning” Mr. Sheen.
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