A friend of mine got me started on "Nutri-Blasts" made with a Nutri-bullet (like a small specialized blender). I was pretty sceptical at first, as it's a form of dieting and every drink (to start) is made with 1/2 baby spinach leaves. When you start out (if you follow the "program") - you stuff about a cup of baby spinach leaves into the bullet. The cup/holder is marked for max amount of everything you put in... To the spinach leaves - you add one bannana, other fruit as desired, some protein such as shelled sunflower seeds, pepitas, pumpkin seeds, almonds, walnuts, cashews or chocolate - either chips or powder. Or you can add a protein additive and water or soy milk or almond milk - varies - 1/2 cup or so...
Surprisingly - I like the drinks! So far, I've had very few turn out not green - so I call htem my "Popeye drinks" and usually have them for breakfast. Even took my bullet on the road with me last year - some folks were really grossed out by that! But it makes a fast and satisfying breakfast or even a snack when you need a pick me up instead of junk food. Instead of frozen fruit, I've used fresh fruit (recommended), and also the single serve container fruits. LOVE pineapple...
If you follow the whole program - w/i about 8 weeks you change out the spinach to spring greens or chard or some other greens. Most are pretty bitter and take a bit to get used to. You can add a natural sweetener. I'd gotten away from it earlier this year and now find that I'm missing it, so will be starting back up and doing this again. YUM... Even made one with carrots and tomato - then heated it up like soup for lunch... Since I'm so used to canned soups - I ended up adding lots of spices to get it to taste "right",
I think my favorite was simply the spinach, bannana, frozen mixed fruit which was pineapple, peaches, strawberries (about 1 cup). 2 TB of pumpkin seeds and water (about 1/2 cup - may be more - would have to check).
My daughter copied some of the recipes I have for the "drinks" and uses a regular blender. It takes longer to liquify the indgredients but does do the same thing.
For a smoothie - I freeze bannanas. I take one or two broken into a couple of chunks (I break them when I stick them into the zip lock bags to freeze - a large one will be three chunks), add about a cup of orange juice, a handful of stawberries. Blend and drink/eat. It's pretty thick - you can make it thinner by adding more juice. You can use other juices, but orange actually works best for me (and this is about the only way I can drink orange juice as the acid makes my stomach upset if I drink it plain).
I've never used yogurt or icecubes in my smoothies... If I use bannanas that are frozen. Thankfully, my grandchildren don't seem to have any food allergies and we keep bannanas, and frozen fruit on hand all the time.
Thanks!
