Sunday 15 January 2012

Smoothies

I've been experimenting a bit with smoothies recently (again), but the ones that you end up putting in a bowl because they're way too thick to drink.  So far, I've made:-
  • Peach and raspberry (with spinach)
  • Banana, chocolate and peach (with lettuce)
  • Chocolate, peanut butter and banana (with avocado)*
  • Salad vegetable smoothie (avocado, pepper, tomato, celery and avocado with olive oil and balsamic vinegar)
And they're all gorgeous and full of vitamins and minerals in an easy to deal with form that's relatively natural (so the combinations for absorption are there, rather than the isolated vitamins and minerals in pill supplements).  But.  Tricky to eat in that they get quite fluffy and aerated.  When you're in a hurry, that sucks quite a bit.  On weekday mornings, it won't work for breakfast as there's just not the time.  However, in general we should all be taking a good length of time to eat our meals, mostly to allow the body to figure out that we're eating and release the relevant satiety chemicals and then react to them etc. so it can really help with that as the texture forces you to slow right down.  The icing on the cake is that they taste pretty good.  OK, so they're mainly sweet flavours and I've not got a huge sweet tooth so I'd like to work out some more savoury ones.  So far I've managed to make a very thick version of V8 in the savoury flavours; pretty limited imagination there on my part.

I'm not likely to be making and eating smoothies a couple of times a day, or even every day; it's just not convenient time-wise.  If I could make one in the morning and have it still in a good state for an afternoon snack at work that might work, but it seems to me that they're best consumed within an hour of making at the longest.

Anyone of the smoothie making crowd out there got any suggestions or experience in keeping them fresh for a few hours or longer?  And any ideas for more, distinctly different savoury smoothies to make?

* - recipe added on request:-
  • 1 scoop chocolate whey protein, or 1tsp good cocoa powder
  • 1/2 frozen banana
  • 1/2 fresh avocado
  • 1/2 fresh peach (do not peel!)
  • 25g crunchy peanut butter
  • 2x ice cubes
  • 150ml skimmed milk
Blitz the lot in a blender/with a hand blender.  Add ice to thicken more or water to thin out if it's too thick.

6 comments:

  1. I think savoury smoothies tend to err more towards raw soups? There are quite a few of those over at Choosing Raw, or you could try adding oats/nutritional yeast to the combination you've already tried for something more sustaining? I'm a sweet tooth person myself so I'm afraid I'm stuck for other savoury ideas!

    Could I plead with you for the chocolate, peanut butter and banana/avocado smoothie's recipe (and calorie number if you have it?) Hopefully it's not too much of a cheeky request given my lack of inspiration on the savoury smoothie front.

    I know you're off the caffeine, but I tried this smoothie yesterday and loved it (I used decaf coffee): http://www.juliegolean.com/2010/05/blackberries-so-hot-right-now.html

    xxx

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  2. That looks like a great recipe, avocado adds so much creaminess. As Jess says I know that choosing raw has some more 'blended salads' - actually when I think about it the raw soup recipes I posted on Friday could be good too - I guess they are kind of just savoury smoothies!

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  3. Thank you so much for posting that recipe :D

    xxx

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  4. I'm something of an anomaly since I don't like smoothies much (I only tend to have them if I'm ill and can't stomach anything else)! However, for savoury smoothies I'd start with something like a basic gazpacho recipe, since that is a cold uncooked blended soup and therefore arguably a savoury smoothie! Ajo bianco (cold almond soup) might give you a starting point for recipes too.

    Loads of cultures do cold soups, so it might be worth a bit of googling (although many of those are cooked but served chilled). I do remember a French friend feeding me chilled butternut squash soup, which I think was primarily cooked squash with parsley, lemon juice and cream cheese...

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  5. Of course; a savoury smoothie really is a soup!

    Yes, I started with a gaspacho-style thought for the savoury ones... it just needs extrapolating to other cold soups really. Ajo bianco and the squash one sound really quite interesting @wonky_monkey. I'll be taking a look for inspiration around those for sure.

    @laura and @~jessica~ I'll pop over to Choosing Raw for a look there too, thanks!

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