Smoothie Season is Upon Us!

For those of you who know me, it won't come as much of a surprise, but smoothie season is here again. Tonight I bought all the ingredients for a week's worth of smoothies, and almost instantaneously my diet will be more than 26 times better per day. Literally. I went from eating about 4 pieces of fruit a month to about 3.5 servings a day.

The best morning smoothie recipe (Serves 2):
2 bananas
Half a pound of frozen strawberries
4 ounces frozen raspberries
3-6 ounces frozen blueberries
Some orange juice
In this order, put bananas, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Pour OJ into blender until it comes 2/3 of the way up to the strawberries. (More OJ will make the smoothie thinner, less will make it thicker). Blend. When a cyclone starts in the middle of the smoothie, it is perfectly blended. Pour smoothies, rinse pitcher, repeat.

Dessert smoothie recipe (Serves 2):
1 banana
Half a pound of frozen raspberries
4 ounces frozen strawberries
2 ounces frozen blueberries
Even less orange juice
Chocolate chips
This smoothie is created about the same as the breakfast smoothie, but it's got a higher raspberry percentage. Mix the smoothie and pour half into each cup. Put a layer of chocolate chips into each cup and pour the rest of the smoothie. Top of with a few chocolate chips. This smoothie is not only tasty, but fun to eat also. The chocolate chips add a little texture and activity to the normally docile smoothie.

Other things I've learned about smoothies:
The trade off between fresh fruit and frozen fruit is with the frozen stuff, you don't need to water your smoothie down with ice. More tang for the buck.

Chocolate syrup is a good add-in for giving a regular smoothie a little kick.

Milk works instead of OJ if you want it to be even creamier.

The creamiest smoothie can be had by adding a big dollop of plain or vanilla yogurt to either of the recipes above. This is how JR likes it, but since I do all of the smoothie cheffing, I make the rules, and she gets yogurt only on special mornings.

Blackberries are the lowest of all suitable smoothie berries. They're cheap, sweet, and give the smoothie a dark purple color, but the seeds are giant and always get stuck in your teeth.