Citrus Spinach Smoothie – Delightful!

Rating: *****

Today I was recovering from a late night of watching the BYU Young Ambassadors perform at the Everett Civic Center.  It was a delight to watch all those young, energetic performers, especially for my daughter who was raving about them this morning.

Feeling interesting in something with a little extra zing to it, I decided to go for a citrus smoothie today.   I used spinach as my green vegetable because it’s mild flavor is compatible with anything. Same goes for celery.  I decided to leave out yogurt, apple, and avocado, because I felt these flavors would compete too much against the citrus.   I used salted roasted nuts instead of raw nuts because that is what I had on hand.  It’s hard to guess if raw nuts would taste better.

Ingredients: 

1/4 C     Flax meal
3/4 C     Salted, Roasted Cashews
1         Orange
1/2       Grapefruit
1/2       Frozen Banana
1         Stalk Celery
1/2 C     Frozen Pineapple
3-4 C     Spinach
2-3 C     Orange Juice

As usual, I started with the flax and nuts to keep the shake from being too grainy.  I blended them together with the orange and grapefruit  for two minutes.  Any time that I open up the blender to add more ingredients, I sample the mixture to check the flavor and texture.  The flavor helps to educate me on what tastes good and if the texture is too rough, I’ll blend some more before adding more ingredients.   When I sampled the cashews mixed with the orange and grapefruit, I could tell this was going to be good!  The cashews blended very smoothly and the flavor had great citrus pizzazz.

Next I added the Celery, frozen fruit, and 1/2 cup of orange juice.  I like the frozen fruit because it cools down the temperature and makes the smoothie thicker.   I blended the new mixture for about 30 seconds. (I sampled here and the taste was getting even better!)  Finally, I filled up the blender with two big handfuls of spinach and a cup or two of orange juice and blended until the spinach flecks were mostly gone (about a minute). 

What came out of the blender was smooth, zippy, and left a very pleasant taste in my mouth.   Some people (like my daughter) like their smoothies sweeter than I do, and those folks might find this one to be a 4-star because it’s not as sweet as other smoothies, thanks to the grapefruit.   No matter, you can always add a few teaspoons of sugar, brown sugar, or honey.