Kitchen Sink Smoothies

Smoothie

Smoothy

Smoothee

TomEHto, TomAHto.

Regardless of how you say or spell it, smoothies are unequivocally delicious and definitely one of my favourite foods. I often make one post-workout and sip it in delight as I figure out what I actually want to eat for dinner. I usually like to stick to one of my favourites, but as I am currently out-of-town, away from my soy milk, ground flax seed and other  'rabbit foods', compromises must be made.

I like to call the smoothies I've been making with my cousins Kitchen Sink Smoothies, you know, like Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cookies? Except smoothies instead of cookies, obviously. These smoothies have been breaking some of my smoothie rules (i.e. No juice allowed), but they've been delish nonetheless. Here's a no fail way to refreshing, fruity bliss.

Kitchen Sink Smoothies

Inspired by my smoothie rule breaking cousins

• Frozen fruit/vegetables
• Liquid (milk, 'milk', juice, water)

1. Toss your frozen fruit into a blender
2. Pour in liquid until all fruit is covered
3. Blend and serve

Mint Chocolate Chip Green Monster

My grandfather was a passionate cook and lover of food (I think that's where I got it from) and I have many childhood memories of his kitchen. One in particular involves  my mother using a fancy juicer. I must have been 5 or 6 because I don't really remember it clearly.  I don't know what season it was, and I have no other memories of fancy juicers in my childhood, so maybe this was a dream instead of a real experience.

I remember the Apple-Carrot juice my mother made for my grandfather. I remember having a very clear distinction in my mind that only fruit belonged in juices and smoothies, and vegetables were for soup. This was very apparent to me, in the same way that I was certain that there were 'boy colours' and 'girl colours' (yellow is girl colour in case any of you expectant parents out there are wondering.). My mother had violated my most basic dogma at the time and obviously I refused to try her 'juice'. She made me some pure apple juice instead, and I happily gulped it down.

In case of you've never heard of a Green Monster, it's a spinach smoothie that's been catching on in the, um, smoothie-enthusiast world. A smoothie that's filled with the most vegatable-ey vegetables of the vegetable world? No wonder I was afraid of the big bad Green Monster.

...until I saw this.

And found a huge bag of prewashed spinach in my fridge; It was a sign. So I took out my magic bullet proverbially bit it ('bite the bullet', get it? Ok I tried). And that's when my new life addiction began. 24 hours later, I made another, a whole blender full so I could share with my roommate AG (sort of).

Dogma broken.

Mint Chocolate Chip Green Monster

Adapted from Peppermint Patty Green Monster

Yield: 1 ~16oz smoothie

• 1 cup 'milk' (I like soy)
• 1-1/2 small or medium frozen bananas
• 1-1/2 cups raw spinach
• 1 tablespoon ground flax (optional, but it's a great source of omega-3's and fibre)
• Peppermint extract (start with 1/8 teaspoon and add a few drops at a time until desired minty-ness)
• 1 square dark chocolate, grated or chopped

1. Blend all ingredients except chocolate
2. Garnish or mix in grated chocolate

Almond Joy Smoothie

I am old. It feels like just yesterday that I arrived on campus, sleep deprived from the red-eye flight, knowing no one and extremely lost. But today I officially finished my last class of third year, thereby making me a little old lady, minus the little part. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but right now I think I just want to be in undergrad forever because the real world seems pretty scary.

Does the real world have cafes that offer 5 different types of dairy to put into your coffee? How about state-of-the-art gym's that I can enter with the swipe of my student card, gyms with smoothie joints with half-price Tuesdays? And professors that defer deadlines on 'compassionate grounds' when you drop your laptop and shatter the screen? I like my current world.

I think its best to brush away these panicky thoughts until at least halfway through fourth year by going to said card-swiping gym. Gyms are sacred places where you get to run, swim, elliptical away all that's concerning in the world. At the gym there are no exams, interviews, rejection letters, or the 'real' world to freak out about. At the gym it's just me, my 'Cardio <3' (I keep the <3 from my high school days for nostalgia) playlist, and the treadmill. I can handle that.

Another one of my favorite cure-all's are smoothies. There's really nothing more soothing than an icy drink that tastes like dessert. I had an epiphany yesterday afternoon that coconut, almonds and chocolate would make the perfect combination for one. You know, like an Almond Joy? Except I've never actually had an Almond Joy before, is it an American thing? Because if so, I'd like to know so I can grab a few on my next cross-border shopping trip. I'm hoping it'll taste like this so I don't have to rename my recipe and because this is delish!

Almond Joy Smoothie
Yield: 1 ~16oz. smoothie

• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1/2 cup unsweetened dried coconut
• 1 small frozen banana
• water to adjust consistency
• handful chopped almonds
• Almond extract (I don't have any but I imagine it would be delicious)

1. Blend all ingredients except the almonds, it might take a while to get the coconut smooth
2. Top with almonds
3. Sip away the 'real' world

Carrot Cake Smoothie

On Monday I ran 7 miles, or 11.3K. That's more than I had ever run in my life and yet I breezed right through it. Contrast this with the 1.6K we used to run in middle school, I would be huffing and puffing like it was the most difficult run in the world. It's amazing where dedication and ambition can get you.

But all this running means that I'm in constant search for new food ideas that can do a good job of fuelling me while still being healthy. Not to mention that they have to be delicious, it's a tall order indeed.

I started writing this blog to help me keep track of all the baking 'experiments' and that's all I thought it ever would be. But this new hobby has introduced to a whole world of other blogs out there and bloggers that have similar interests to me. I can't believe this wealth of information and community were out there all along without me knowing!

My blog-reading-school work -procrastination has brought me to amazing blogs with new food ideas that I'm always eager to try. Here's what I've been munching on of late:

Jillian Michaels did a great job of kicking my butt today, but at least I had this delicious smoothie to look forward to afterwards.

Carrot Cake Smoothie

Adapted from ohsheglows

Yield: 1 ~16oz smoothie

• 1 cup shredded carrots (If you have a fancy blender you can probably put whole carrot in, but I, do not)
• 3/4 cup soy milk (or any non-dairy/dairy)
• 1 frozen banana, cut into chunks
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• drizzle of maple syrup if you like it sweet
• water to adjust consistency

Blend until smooth. This might take a while as the carrot is kinda grainy.

Dinner was delicious Indian curry chicken compliments of my roommate PB's mother. Just a tip, pick as ethnically diverse roommates as possible ;). She tells me that it's supposed to be served with a side of plain yogurt because the dairy fat will help relieve some of the spiciness. That's great advice, except my plain yogurt was fat-free. It was still amazing, in a painful sort of way.

PS. These are fantastic, and that's an understatement. I'm definitely baking raspberry brownies once they're in season and hoping they taste as good as this nutrition bar.

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

Week 2 of half-marathon training is going just swimmingly. I did some speed work today so that I'll be able to finish in my goal time of 2 hours. The plan was to do a short warm up and then eight repetitions of 0.25mi. at 6.0mi/hr and 7.5mi/hr which seemed really daunting. If you add up the 8 repetitions alone without the warm-up that's already 4 miles, but I guess I was working off of some runner's high because I breezed right through it!

I usually go to a 60 minute Hot Yoga class Sunday evenings to sweat away anything stressful I encountered throughout the week. It's a great way to start fresh and be ready to dare Monday to give you its best shot. If you haven't tried hot yoga before, you must; the first time I went it was, sort of, life altering. It's like I had never felt so peaceful in my life before, really. But my schedule is doing funny things again so I went tonight instead.

The problem with that is that it means that I'm burning through a lot of calories today and need some way to replenish them. That would be easy except I coincidentally had a protein-full omelette for breakfast and wasn't all that hungry today so I needed another way to refuel. At least I know a delicious ingredient that will do the trick, peanut butter of course!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie
Yield: 1 ~16oz. smoothie

• 1 frozen banana, peeled and broken into smaller pieces
• 3/4 cup 'milk' of your choice (I like soy)
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (optional but it adds some nice texture and is full of omega-3's and fibre)
• water to adjust consistency

1. Blend until smooth and add water as needed

378 calories | 21g sugar | 18g fat (mostly healthy fats!) | 14g protein

Strawberry-Mango Smoothie

Maybe I was just famished after a long run and gruel would have tasted just as good, but this is deelish!

Strawberry-Mango Smoothie
Yield: 1 ~16oz. Smoothie

• 3-4 frozen strawberries
• 3/4 cup frozen mango chunks
• half a banana
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (optional)
• 3/4 cup soy milk
• water to adjust consistency

1. Blend until smooth and take out the twirly straw!

Per smoothie:

247 calories | 30.6g sugar | 5.8g fat

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

This post is a little late but I've been debating for a while now whether I want to include too many posts here that are not related to baking since this is supposed to be a baking blog. The thing is, smoothies are sort of their own food group in my diet and I'm always on the prowl for new recipes so I've decided that I'm going to use this blog to share them too. My smoothie recipes are usually inspired by a smoothie I've tried from an actual smoothie shop or a dessert.  On my way back home for the holidays, I had a brief layover in Toronto Pearson airport and was on the search for a small meal amid the plethora of over-priced junk food that was available. Without much success in the realm of solid foods, I decided to try a Chocolate Vivanno Smoothie from Starbucks. And then I got addicted . . .

I remember when Starbucks started selling smoothies a few years ago and had read a couple reviews saying that they tasted too banana-ey since an entire banana is added to the 16oz drink. That's not a problem for me because the concept of 'too much banana' is foreign to me. I actually have to deliberately buy overripe bananas to bake with as they never stick around long enough to reach the prime baking level of ripeness at my place.  I've watched very intently as the baristas make this and my recipe does have some differences. They make the Vivanno with a room temperature banana and just add plenty of ice while my recipe includes a frozen banana. Also as I will likely never have access to their top secret mocha syrup, I've replaced it with cocoa. It took me a couple tries to get this smoothie right, but here it is!

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Yield: 1 ~16oz smoothie

• 1 ripe banana (sliced and frozen)
• 3/4 cup soy milk
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1. Blend and enjoy!

Per smoothie:

223 calories | 19g sugar | 4g fat

Creamsicle smoothie

The thoughts running through your mind at the moment may be along the lines of "baked smoothie? eww". I assure you, the recipe below does NOT involve any baking but it is so delicious I just had to share.  Our campus welcomed the addition of a new smoothie joint this year, a nice 'healthy' addition to the many not-so-healthy options available to us.  The problem is, they only sell their smoothies in one size, a practically-need-both-hands 24oz size (though still not as large as the new 31oz Trenta) for about $6-7.

Ideally, they would just sell them in smaller sizes for less money, but that's no way to make a profit now is it? Which leads me to my creation this afternoon post-gym pre-running for the bus to get to class on time: The Creamsicle smoothie!  Although I never liked that fluorescent orange coated vanilla frozen treats as a child, I started to really like the combination of vanilla and oranges recently. Maybe it was the highlighter hue or unpronounceable ingredients that turned me off. . .

Creamsicle Smoothie
Yield: 1 smoothie; ~16oz

• 1/2 navel orange (frozen and separated into wedges)
• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt (it doesn't need to be fat-free but make sure it's plain, the flavoured stuff is full of sugar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (optional if you don't like omega-3's and fibre)
• a bit of cold water to adjust consistency

1. Blend all ingredients until smooth
2. Add more water if necessary
3. Serve immediately

Per smoothie:

235 calories | 24.3g sugar | 5.3g fat

compare that to the >90g sugar $6 version!