Drink Fri Aug 21 2009

Facing the Smoothie

It is intimidating. The blades from which it will undoubtedly be a pain to scrub leftover fruit pulp. The noise. Are we sawing down trees or making a delightful breakfast treat? The overwhelming number of possible ingredients. These are understandable drawbacks to making a smoothie. Yet, this summer, I made the decision to face these fears. It started a couple of weeks ago, and now I would consider myself a full convert. Smoothies are not as hard as they seem. Buy some earplugs, allow yourself the luxury of leaving the blender in the sink to clean in a few hours, think of the smoothie as an art project, and you will be surprised with what you can create.

I don't have the perfect smoothie recipe to share. What I am supplying here is the confidence to move forward on that lingering desire you already have. The basic elements I would suggest for a healthy and tasty indulgence include flaxseed, plain yogurt, frozen berries (of any variety), banana, frozen peaches, cranberry juice and honey. My basic philosophy is to throw it all together, mix it up, taste, adjust. The frozen berries and peaches can be replaced with the fresh thing if in season. Though, I would recommend always having some frozen goods for back up as they are especially nice when you want a smoothie fast (no cutting of stems/pits required leading to limited clean up). The trick to the flaxseed is putting it in first and grinding it into a fine powder thus allowing it to fully infiltrate the smoothie with its healing powers. Once the flaxseed is ground, just starting loading it in. Don't be scared. Most fruit really does taste wonderful together.

So take a deep breath. Go get your smoothie on.

— Jessica Gingold / Comments (2)