Happy Green Smoothie Challenge - Update and Tips

We are chugging along at this over here (pun intended). I LOVE these green smoothies. I have more energy than before and my skin seems to be looking great lately. I have missed a couple of days in the last few weeks and I can tell a difference in how my body feels on the days that I don't have one. Ella still downs these with me and Spencer will once school is out (I make them after he leaves for school). I'm pretty sure we will be doing this long past the end of the challenge - they are just THAT good. So I thought I'd share some tips if any of you are contemplating doing this.

If you missed my original post on the subject, you can read about it here.

Tip #1 (Spinach) -

Buy spinach at Costco. You get a monster bag for around $5. I use about 2-3 cups of spinach per smoothie so it can get expensive fast. I bought the Costco bag about a week ago and I'm not even halfway through it yet.

Tip #2 (Favorite Smoothie) -

We make this one almost every day: 2-3 cups spinach, 2 handfuls blueberries, 1 handful blackberries, 1 banana, 1 celery stalk, 8-10 ice cubes, water to taste.

This one is so yummy! However, it's not green. The blackberries turn it purple. Celery has a very strong taste so if you don't like celery, leave it out.

A variation on this is to leave the blackberries out and add pineapple. Super yummy and it's green!

Tip #3 (Blender/Food Processor) -

My old blender died about 2 days into the challenge. So I am now using this:



I LOVE it!! Costco has these for $59 right now which is a steal. I can't believe how quickly it does everything and clean up is super easy (which makes or breaks an appliance for me). I do spinach, celery, apples, carrots in the food processor and everything else in the blender.

Is anyone else trying these? I would love to hear your results, recipes, etc.

More Green Smoothie Info

One of my favorite message boards was talking about green smoothies today. There are some tips for making them cheaper, great recipes, and good advice. Click here if you're interested.

We are loving our smoothies over here!

Happy Green Smoothie Challenge - Day 1

Holy moly these things are good! I might have actually found a way to get more vegetables in me. We experimented with our first green smoothie today and I was pleasantly surprised.

Here are the raw ingredients:



I used -

1 banana
Handful of blueberries
Handful of pineapple chunks
4 mint leaves from my garden
Approx. 2.5 handfuls of lettuce mix (romaine, iceburg, red cabbage, carrots)
1 handful of fresh spinach

If you decide to try this, you can add anything you want - you just want to keep it about 60% fruit and 40% leafy greens.



Once it was in the blender, I added 4 ice cubes and about 1.5 cups of water. Out came these:



It was nice that they were actually green, I read that most "green smoothies" are really brown. It tasted just like a banana pineapple smoothie. Couldn't taste the vegetables at all. I think the greens actually sweetened the smoothie. Most fruit smoothies I make have honey in them because they are too tart for me. This was really sweet without anything added to it.

KID TEST: Ella loved it. This was no surprise coming from the girl who eats bell peppers and cucumbers for breakfast. Spencer tried it (which is a miracle in itself). He said he didn't hate it but he didn't love it either. He said he'd drink it if he had to. He loves apples so the smoothie tomorrow will probably be something with apples, kale, and celery. I think he'd enjoy that more.

DOWNSIDE: Money!! To do this for a month will be expensive! I have got to find some ways around the cost. I think I'm going to get frozen unsweetened strawberries from Costco instead of using fresh ones. I used a package mix for some of the greens today but I couldn't resist the 10/$10 deal that Safeway had going on. Iceberg isn't the best choice for lettuce but it was mixed with Romaine, carrots, and red cabbage. If you have any other money saving ideas for fruits and veggies, pass them on!