it's easy (and yummy) being green

I've been reading about green smoothies online for ages, but when we were living in Japan we didn't have access to the organic ingredients we wanted, and we couldn't actually afford to buy all the loads of fresh fruits and veggies that go into these puppies (each blenderfull is packed!). We were waiting till we moved to the States to go for it - and go for it, we have!

There are plenty of high-powered, professional-grade blenders out there on the market that green smoothie advocates will tell you you need, but actually, my hubby read reviews for all of them, and our new KitchenAid came out on top in all the ratings. We LOVE it.


We also ordered Victoria Boutenko's Green Smoothie Revolution, mainly for the 200+ recipes. I followed them to the letter for exactly one week but have moved on and do my own thang now. They were a good jumping-off point, and I will go back to them again from time to time, but Mamatouille (my alter ego) kicks in and I just can't help adding whatever floats my boat right at that particular moment.

Today's conjuring led to a blender full of organic spinach, cilantro, purple butter lettuce, frozen bananas, frozen mixed berries, fresh tomatoes, clementines (mikan), V-Fusion tangerine and pomegranate juice, and plain yogurt.

Our favorites always include clementines - they just seem to add the right tang to the greens. We made a Costco run the other day and also have fresh mangoes, pineapples, apples, pears, navel oranges, and organic baby spinach. It's fun to add parsley or cilantro, apricots, and the kitchen sink as well.

And the beans DEVOUR them, ask for seconds and thirds, and beg me to make the smoothies at all hours.

It's great because they are getting all kinds of goodness that they wouldn't normally eat loads of - all packed into a slurpilicious cupful (or three).

The only drawback to green smoothies: green diapers.