Tales of the Culinary-Challenged: Green Smoothie - First Try

Green goodness!

I tried making a green smoothie for the first time yesterday! My friend Clang got me to use my mom's ancient Osterizer blender again, and to my surprise, it still works. I've started making smoothies with it, and it has been such a joy to have fresh fruit shakes for dessert after dinner with the husband. While grocery shopping last weekend though, I thought I should try making green juice with the trusty blender. I'm no stranger to it because of Juju Cleanse, and though at first the taste was hard for me, it grew on me eventually.

Green juice love!

I also watch It's Judy's Life on YouTube - a vlog by beauty guru Judy - and the entire family's always having green juice. Her husband, Benjie, has his own healthy food channel called BenjiManTV, and he posted a green smoothie recipe a while back that was done with an affordable blender (he usually uses a Blendtech or a juicer). I've been wanting to try it for ages, so I finally did yesterday.

Green Smoothie How-To (Affordable and Quick) by BenjiManTV

I modified Benjie's recipe a bit. I left out a few ingredients and only chose those that were immediately available to me. Here's what I used:

• spinach - 2 cups
• celery - 1 stalk
• Fuji apple - 1/2
• lemon - 1 piece, put one thin slice (rind included) in the blender, squeeze out the rest
• cucumber - 1/2
• grapes - 10 pieces
• water - about 2 cups in the blender
• ice cubes

Throw it all into the blender (try to put the lighter ingredients in the bottom so that the heavy ingredients hold them down), and blend! The recipe is good for two large servings. 

All in!

Check out my old skool blender, passed down from my mom.

Done in a few seconds!

I was surprised by how nice it turned out! It was a bit sweet, a bit tart, and doesn't taste too leafy at all. The lemon, grapes, and apple really made all the difference. I felt compelled to say "Green Juice!" and "Salad in a cup!" out loud like how Benjie does it in the vlogs haha.

It is a bit chunky and foamy though like a proper smoothie. Next time I'll try to liquefy it more and see how it turns out, though I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it super smooth like juice. I'm satisfied with what I got though. The husband, who doesn't like things that taste "leafy" (like tea and milk tea), took a sip and actually liked the taste. Score!

His scared face before tasting

I have a bad cold today so the green smoothie was perfect timing. It's a great way to give myself a vitamin boost, since I'm not a big salad person and this packs in a ton of fruit and veggie goodness in one cup. I'm so glad I can do this at home now. 

Do you like green juice? Have you tried making some?