Friday, August 23, 2013

Salad Week: Salad in a Glass

I hopped over to Cass' blog earlier today and it looks like she and I had the exact same idea! Salad smoothies! And why not? In this day and age a smoothie is a perfectly acceptable substitute for a salad. Plus it is quick, easy, and delicious. The one I drank today was not only tasty and refreshing, but it gave me a total boost in energy!

One tip before I give the recipe: I like to use apple juice in my smoothies because it masks the taste of the vegetables and it balances out the tartness of the kiwis. My smoothies never ever taste like vegetables. If they did I would not be able to drink them.
If you are looking for specific fruits that are great at masking tastes try apples, kiwis and bananas. Basically you can add whatever vegetables or fruits you like to your smoothies. I have found that as long as I have apple juice and kiwi in mine I will always (no matter what else I put in) end up with about the same taste. This gives me room to throw in different types of vegetables depending on what I have in my fridge. You can use whatever you have. I have had smoothies with broccoli, spinach, kale, carrots, cucumbers etc. If this idea scares you, start small. Add just a small portion of veggies or one veggie and see for yourself if you can handle the taste. Later, as you adjust, you can add more until you are getting a decent serving (or more) size!

(Today's) Salad in a Glass

Ingredients: 
1 cup of apple juice 
2 kiwis 
1 apple 
1 carrot 
2 cups of kale
1 cup of spinach 
1 Tbsp of honey 



Just in case you are confused about kale (I was when I first started using it) there are different types, but nutritionally they are the same. I tend to use curly kale because I like the look of it and it is easy to prepare. If you use curly kale make sure to take the time to cut the kale from the stalk in the middle. You can discard the stalks and just use the curly stuff. 




Directions: 
1. Cut up apple, carrot and kiwi to bite size pieces 
2. Put ingredients that hold the most water in blender first. Ie. Apple juice, appple, kiwi. 
3. Add carrots, kale and spinach 
4. Blend: Every blender is different. It may take some experimenting on your part to find the setting that will work best for you and your smoothie. My blender has a "liquidfy" button and I have found that this setting creates the best smoothie for me. Not all blenders have this setting...so it is a matter of experimenting. Your smoothie should not have chunks of any kind. 
5. Pour in a glass, get yourself a straw (because everything tastes better with a straw) and enjoy! 





Don't forget to check out what Cass and Tracey are doing today! Thank you so much for joining us for salad week. Hopefully you found some salads (or created your own) that you can enjoy! I will wrap it all up tomorrow by posting some of the salads that you all shared with me. 

2 comments:

  1. haha! thought the same thing. Mine is drink your salad. Had so much fun with this week of salads. Makes me want to keep it going. Nothing wrong with having a salad a day. How did you like it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved doing it! I found it so easy to eat salad every day. It was quick and healthy and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I also really enjoyed doing the blog link. We need to plan another one down the road! :)

    ReplyDelete