Apple/Carrot/Cabbage Power Smoothie!!!

Rating: ****o

Eating well is just one strategy out of many that we can employ together to live well.   Yesterday I discovered cool TED talk on the idea of “Power Posing”- privately assuming a powerful pose for a few minutes to change the way we think and feel.   Everybody knows how body language affects other people, but the novel idea behind power posing is that our body language has power to affect our *self* too!  I tried it out this morning in front of a mirror.  It’s silly, but I don’t mind feeling silly.  I have to say- I did feel different after just a few minutes;  better, less stressed, more confident.   I’ll report more on this new life-hack after I’ve tried it out for a few weeks.

For today’s smoothie, I went back to an old recipe and followed my own advice to tweak it up.   The result was delicious!  My 2nd daughter, the one who is by far our pickiest eater, actually asked for more after I gave her a sip.   Now that is saying something!   I like to go for color themes in smoothies, not for any scientific reasons, but purely for aesthetics of taste and appearance.   I went for red today and got pretty close, but was probably muted by the blueberries.   If I had some strawberry yogurt on hand, I probably would have use that.

Here’s the recipe:

1/4 C  Flax
1/4 C  Walnuts
1      Medium carrot
1/2    Fist-sized chunk of red cabbage
6      Big Frozen strawberries
1      Apple
1 C    Blueberry Yogurt
~3 C   Kiwi Strawberry juice
2 T    Lemon Juice (optional)

The first part of the smoothie is always working down the grit/lumps, so I first put in the flax, walnuts, carrot, and cabbage, since these ingredients are the toughest to blend.   I added about a cup of juice and let the blender go for two minutes.  Remember to add just enough juice to get the mixture to circulate since thicker mixtures get smoother faster. 

Next I added the frozen strawberries and blended those in with a little juice.  Last, I added the apple, yogurt, and more juice and blended for about 30 seconds.  I added lemon juice as well and I like the tang it adds to the smoothie, but it can be omitted.

The reason this smoothie is not a 5-star is the cabbage, plain and simple.  Cabbage contains sulfur - it’s not the best flavor, and it is easy to notice and hard to cover.   I cut back on the cabbage and increased the apple in an attempt to soften the sulfur, but was only partly successful.   Nevertheless, the smoothie was really good and I enjoyed two glasses this morning.  YUM!!!!