My Favorite Green Smoothie Go To

Wait. Where have I been?

Are green smoothies no longer considered cool?

Yeah well, it sorta looks that way. What was once considered edgy and avant-garde (what? raw GREEN vegetables in a DRINK? scandalous! too healthy! yucky! no thank YOUUUUU!) and exclusively for the nutritionally elite has since (d)evolved into something about as pedestrian as… a hamburger. Not that I don’t love me a burger now and then but throw a rock and you’ll find a green smoothie on the menu of at least a zillion coffee shops and fast-food joints nationwide.

Packing more fruit and fillers than anything particularly leaf-like, these corporate blends can serve up to 100 whopping grams of sugar in ONE smoothie! Now that is just KrAzIE! No wonder they are so dang tasty……..yet this kind of kills the charm of a green (as in = good for you) drink in the first place. Which is really too bad.

So I’m bringing leafy back.

This green giant is loaded with an avalanche of anthocyanins, carotenoids and flavonoids, which is to say all of the powerful antioxidants that help protect our cells against nasty free radical damage. That means they inhibit tumor growth and decrease inflammation and can help ward off or slow down several types of cancer, and that’s the tough stuff!  Just generally speaking this baby provides 75% of your Vitamin A, 29% of Calcium,18% of Iron and 296% of your Vitamin C in just one serving! Less than 220 calories, people. COMe on!

This emerald gem can even help to clean out that overworked liver of yours. Yes, you – don’t look so innocent.

And I’m telling you, it is just so amazingly GOOD; super refreshing, and not even slightly as gross as it may look (unless of course you’re INTO muddy green sludgy water). And with just five ingredients to gather up, too simple. 

Are you ready to get green, mean and CLEAN (ok, on the inside, at least)? This is the one I go to when I am craving something quick, easy, and actually good for me.

This looks suspicious already you might say……..but hang in there with me!

Do you own a NutriBullet? I love mine so here’s a good reason to get yours out. A mac-daddy Vitamix would of course be awesome here; pull out your regular blender if that’s what you have.

The star of the show of course is the mighty king of cruciferous KALE, which in and of itself contains 45 different flavonoids…..each with a variety of antioxidant and anti inflammatory effects! Don’t even get me started on the vitamins and fiber. Of course you want to be sure your greens are really well washed. I dunk mine into a bucket in my sink. Just swish the kale a bit as it floats on the top and any dirt will head to the bottom.Then what I like to do is tear the leaves from the stems, just get it all done at once…..and store the whole lot of it in a big baggie in the fridge. Smoothies today, smoothies tomorrow!

Start with a PACKED handful of kale; if you were to measure it out it would be about two cups. Get that into your blender du jour and add 1/4 of an organic apple (very important so that we can use the skin, okay?), 1 slice of lemon, and 5 cherries. Why not the whole apple? An apple has a LOT of sugar and what we are trying to get here is just a hint of the sweetness. Now make sure your cherries are frozen….that helps to chill this concoction, and a big fat lemon slice is MANDATORY to really brighten everything up and not taste so GREEN (there, I said it). Just slice it carefully away from its peel and pop it on in (no seeds, please).

If you are good with nuts, you can add in a handful of walnuts for the omega 3 fatty acids and a little more heft. This is completely optional, you don’t actually even know they are there.. 

Into the mix goes approximately 12 ounces of cold unsweetened coconut water, to get this all loosey goosey. If you are unsure of the whole coconut water idea, I can assure you, it doesn’t really taste super coco-nutty in this. It does add a hint of sweetness and pulls the whole drink together nicely though, so give it a try.

Now hit GO. And buzz this up into a super energizing breakfast, lunch, or snack! Listen, there is no bad time to put this into your body. This makes about 2 1/2 cups so if you’re feeling generous, you can even share.I like to pop a couple of ice cubes in after the fact, just to keep it super chilled as I slurp it down. Clearly no sharing going on here as I like to have my way with it straight out of the blender. 😜

Super green, super refreshing, super good.

RECIPE BELOW: This makes enough for ME…..or 2 1/2 cups. Totally share-able. Besides prepping the kale which is sort of slightly annoying, the only other thing you have to do is quarter an apple and a lemon. Boom and boom. I put the remaining pieces of fruit together in a baggie (the lemon helps keeps the apple from getting weird) and sock ’em in the fridge along with my leftover kale for easy peasy smoothie pickins the next day. You want to consume this fairly soon after you blend it up…..otherwise it separates and just gets kinda…..grassy. Not really the plan. But this is a quickie for a quickie and it is pretty much perfection for that! Many thanks to my friend Sharon for the gorgeous home grown kale!