When you find something you love, it’s hard to think of life before it came along. For years, I have been wanting a stand-alone blender so that I could make my own smoothies. I used to buy smoothies for lunch when I worked downtown. A large smoothie is surprisingly filling! I loved the fresh flavour of fruit smoothies to keep me going throughout the day, but the cost really began to add up. I swear with the amount of smoothies I have made so far, with my new blender, it has already paid for itself.
When I was visiting my mom in Calgary, I made smoothies there with her blender. I got the chance to try out different flavours, using a variety of fruit. I especially liked the mango smoothies I made with strawberries, bananas and whatever other fruit was around. I’ve grown accustomed to making a smoothie every morning for breakfast, to go along with the toast or whatever else I am also eating first thing in the morning.
What are your favourite smoothies to make?
It’s almost summer now, and I’m really excited to try out different smoothies with local seasonal fruit. I know a lot of people enjoy vegetable smoothies, especially green smoothies. Maybe I need to work myself up to spinach smoothies – I tried one at my mom’s house and found that I didn’t care for the texture of it. I’d rather have spinach as a salad, really.
So, what’s in this smoothie that I have been making myself everyday?
It’s so easy, it doesn’t really feel like a recipe – Super Simple Strawberry Smoothie recipe:
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup pineapple juice (or apple or any mixed fruit juice)
1 frozen banana
EDIT: {{ One of my readers asked me about how to freeze the fruit I mentioned.
My quick freezing tips:
Strawberries: Wash strawberries and remove stems. towel dry the strawberries and either put them on a baking sheet in the freezer until frozen and transfer them to a freezer bag. Or be lazy like me and put them in the freezer bag and make sure it is laying flat (no strawberries overlapping).
Bananas: I’m sure that you could cut up bananas and freeze them – but I just put the whole, ripe, banana in the freezer. When I need to use one, I cut it in to 3 pieces and cut off the peel with a sharp knife. Be careful – you don’t want the banana slipping, and end up cutting yourself!
I should also mention that if you are going to use frozen fruit (which I recommend for better smoothie texture, plus the fact that you can freeze fruit that is bought on sale to use when it is out of season), you will want to use the “ice crush” feature on your blender, if you have one. Just pulse the “ice crush” feature for a few seconds and then liquify for the remaining time, until your smoothie is. . .smooth. 🙂 }}
I like having a banana a day in my diet, but I know others may not like the strong banana flavour as much as I do. 1/2 a banana would work well. I like freezing bananas and strawberries, bought in bulk when they are on sale, because the smoothie gets really nice and frothy.
I’d love to hear about your favourite or go-to smoothie in the comments!
OR – if you have a smoothie recipe you think I should try, please leave me a link!
How do you freeze them just throw then in or is there a special way
Hi, thank you for your question! I will edit the post to include that – but, for strawberries, just wash them and remove the stems. Let them dry a bit and then put them in a freezer bag laying flat if you can in the freezer. For Bananas, I just put them in the freezer when they are ripe or just before ripe. I use a knife to cut the banana in sections and then cut off the peel.