It’s 5:00 somewhere . . .

kdemo posted a pic said Mon, Mar 7th 2016 at 7:37pm ET

Time for a drink!
Received my Nutri Ninja today, now I need to shop for ingredients. Looking for recipes for healthy drinks/smoothies. All kinds, including some drinks with more veggies than fruit that avoid spiking blood sugar too much. Anyone have some favorites?

5 comments, 11 replies
Comment

kdemo said Mon, Mar 7th 2016 at 8:41pm ET:

Oh, alcoholic drink recipes as well. Blended cocktails aren't my favorite, but others like them and it would be fun to experiment.

1
- Reply
- Whisper
brhfl said Mon, Mar 7th 2016 at 9:20pm ET:
A coworker and I made two smoothies a day for at least a year (and then one a day for maybe another half a year) using a Nutribullet. We pretty much always used banana, a really green green, and a pile of nuts and seeds. Other than that, we just kind of brought in whatever we had that was on the cusp of going bad, and threw it all in without worrying too much about taste. Some days were great, some days were crap, but it was all food. That said, here are some things I picked up…
- Once you do follow some successful recipes, you should get an idea of liquid:thickener. This is important, as it's easy to make a weak juicelike thing, or a banana-flavored guacamole. Bananas thicken; avocados thicken. Ice/frozen fruit does some strange thickening stuff, but we didn't do this often enough that I can really offer much of an opinion.
- Silken tofu gives it a bit of a creamy, smooth body without really contributing (or removing) much flavor or thickness. It's a nice touch, and while I don't like cooking with the (cheap) boxed, non-refrigerated tofu… it works great in a smoothie.
- Mint saves almost any smoothie. It adds a lot of sweetness, and just… goodness. We actually planted a bunch of mint in the office, it was such a nice addition. Unfortunately we bought tainted soil and the bugs destroyed our mint plants right quick!
- Cucumber is oddly overpowering.
- Apple is oddly… underpowering. Bit of a nothingburger.
- If you just have a really good suspicion that somehow your limp-kale-and-fizzy-blueberry smoothie isn't going to taste great, raw oats just suck up flavor. You can make an otherwise nasty smoothie pretty mild by just oating it up.
- When you peel/cut up beets at the office, your hands look like you just murdered a coworker, or had a bad run-in with a copy machine. That said, beets are nice, they're kind of juicier than you might think, and sweeter, and they make your liquid lunch beautiful.
- Raw carrots are basically sand. Cooked carrots are pretty good.
15
- Reply
- Whisper
- Wow, @brhfl - This is really helpful, exactly what I needed. You have probably saved me many months of experimentation. lol. And I have a pot of pineapple mint growing near my door.
  
  I'm really excited to get started now, Thank you!
  
  kdemo said Mon, Mar 7th 2016 at 9:57pm ET
  - 2
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @KDemo No problem! I thought of a few more things since this thread is a bit quiet…
  - Mangoes are awesome. Add a bit of thickness (probably close to banana), with a very creamy texture. Bonus points for tasting awesome.
  - Guava is a terrible idea. I assume the chopping prowess of the Ninja is about the same as the Bullet, which was able to smoothie the crap out of things like small, unpeeled, whole oranges and watermelon rinds. But guava has all these rocklike seeds in it, which makes for a pretty unpleasant smoothie. At some point when you're poring over the fun fruits section at the grocer, you'll be tempted… fight it.
  - About a quarter of a meyer lemon or a lime adds a nice zing… too much of a sour citrus really messes with the other flavors in a profoundly bad way. Lemon zest is nice also. Actually, this is a pretty refreshing basis - quarter lemon, bunch of mint, decent handful of cucumber. Don't think any of that is too terribly sugary, but it will provide a tasty starting point that should be capable of overpowering however much spinach/kale you throw in after it.
  - Speaking of kale, the flat sort works better than the curly, and while the chopper is pretty good at chopping, it's probably worth it to bisect the leaves to get rid of that thickest stemmy bit.
  brhfl said Tue, Mar 8th 2016 at 1:53pm ET
  - 4
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @brhfl - Thanks for that as well - agree about the flat kale (Italian kale?). I also appreciate the info about whole unpeeled ingredients. Can't wait to play with all these different ideas, I wouldn't have thought about oats if you hadn't mentioned them, and that opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
  
  kdemo said Thu, Mar 10th 2016 at 11:39pm ET
  - 1
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @KDemo The reality re: unpeeled ingredients, raw grains, etc. is that you can blend a lot of things… it's up to you to figure out your tolerance for what you actually want to blend… :)
  
  brhfl said Fri, Mar 11th 2016 at 12:50am ET
  - 2
  - Reply
  - Whisper
galmaegi said Tue, Mar 8th 2016 at 1:39pm ET:

@KDemo Mean Green Juice is my favorite, if you're okay with ginger. You'd need:
- 2 cucumbers
- 8 celery stalks
- 4 apples
- 16 leaves kale with stalks
- 1 lemon
- 2 in piece of ginger

4
- Reply
- Whisper
- @galmaegi Oh, ginger is excellent in smoothies! Adds a lot. Definitely works well with apple.
  
  brhfl said Tue, Mar 8th 2016 at 1:55pm ET
  - 4
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @galmaegi - Thank you! I tried this today - only a fraction of the ingredients fit in the nutri ninja, but I added some of all the components, then threw in a small carrot for sweetness and a drop of vanilla and some water. It was good and very filling.
  
  kdemo said Thu, Mar 10th 2016 at 11:32pm ET
  - 3
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @KDemo Oh, nice! Did it wake you up?
  
  galmaegi said Fri, Mar 11th 2016 at 8:15pm ET
  - 0
  - Reply
  - Whisper
Kevin said Tue, Mar 8th 2016 at 2:56pm ET:

Peanut butter, bananas, and strawberries with milk

5
- Reply
- Whisper
- @Kevin
  Can you do a smoothie version of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup? The heathly kind, of course.
  
  f00l said Wed, Mar 9th 2016 at 4:34pm ET
  - 2
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @Kevin - Wouldn't have thought of peanut butter, sounds awesome!
  
  kdemo said Thu, Mar 10th 2016 at 11:44pm ET
  - 0
  - Reply
  - Whisper
- @KDemo yeah, it thickens up the shake too
  
  Kevin said Fri, Mar 11th 2016 at 9:42am ET
  - 1
  - Reply
  - Whisper
Bingo said Tue, Mar 8th 2016 at 3:45pm ET:

My very regular go-to is frozen strawberries and frozen blueberries, kale, spinach and a banana. Add a little water (Up to 1 cup if you're using a full pitcher size) and spin away. With some practice on the amounts, it comes out nice and almost milkshake consistency with my Vitamix. Bonus - Publix has a bag of wild maine frozen blueberries. The wild ones are much smaller but supposed to be much healthier from what I've heard)

4
- Reply
- Whisper
- @Bingo - There are you-pick blueberry farms around here where I can stock up in season, and I have seen wild ones for sale in the stores at times. Sounds so good, Thanks!
  
  kdemo said Thu, Mar 10th 2016 at 11:43pm ET
  - 0
  - Reply
  - Whisper