OHMYGOD it's Pink Strawberry Starburst Smoothie

I have to confess, I am not even sure the pink Starbursts (in the traditional pack, I think there were red, orange, yellow, and pink in there, but they've got all kinds of themed packs/flavors now) are strawberry flavored? Maybe they were strawberry-lemonade? Whatever. Almost everyone I knew when I was a kid liked the pink ones best, followed closely by red, and wished they sold packs of JUST the pink ones.

A 2nd confession, I haven't eaten a Starburst in years, as I'm just not really into fruity candy, and I also tend to avoid things of that consistency to avoid ripping out expensiveass dental work.

But when I made this smoothie a few weeks ago (and again today) and sipped it for the first time, I immediately remembered Pink Starburst! So here you go- end of the indulgent reminiscing and reasoning for the smoothie maybe not tasting EXACTLY like a pink Starburst; you've been warned.

PINK STARBURST SMOOTHIE

1/2 - 3/4 cup water
2 big handfuls of spinach

1/2 scoop Vega vanilla flavored nutritional shake powder

1 banana
Some squeezes of lemon juice
3 handfuls of strawberries with the tops on (unless the tops are crunchy/dried up)
2 handfuls of frozen grapes

Yeah, I know, none of these measurements are exact. You can taste as you go and add more of things as you please- I don't measure when I make a smoothie, I just try not to overflow my blender cup.

In a hand blender: Add the water, spinach, Vega, banana, and lemon juice. Blend it up!
Add a few of the strawberries and blend, a few more, blend, etc. until you've added all of the strawberries.
Then add the frozen grapes and blend again.
You can use frozen strawberries, depending on how cold you want it.

If you're into fruit water, you can soak strawberries and lemons together, and when you're done drinking the water, use the strawberries (and squeeze the lemons) from the fruit water into this. That's how I made it the first time, but I get that not everyone has that just sitting around ;)

Elope with a Cantaloupe Smoothie!

YUM, yum yum! This one came out very good!

I thought by now I would be getting sick of smoothies TWICE a day. Believe it or not, I still look forward to them. Probably because they are always easy and almost always very tasty. And even with 2 scoops of protein powder per smoothie twice a day, I'm more than halfway through the 30 Days to Feeling Fit and still on my first bag. I still have lots of powder left and lots of smoothies in my future.

I love buying new fruits and playing around with combinations.

Ingredients:
1/2-3/4 cup cold water
2 scoops vanilla Arbonne protein powder
1/2 scoop Arbonne fiber boost
1 cup (a few fistfulls) of spinach leaves
1 tsp bee pollen (not necessary for taste but add it if you appreciate the nutritional benefits)
1/2 tsp orange extract
1/2 cup Simply Orange fortified orange juice (you can probably sub more orange extract + 1/2 cup water if you don't want the 55 calories from this)
1/2 cup frozen grapes
about 1 cup cantaloupe- we had it cut into slices of various lengths and 3/4" tall; I used 5 of them.

Directions:
I do this in a hand blender with a stainless steel cup....
1. Add water, Arbonne powders, spinach, bee pollen, orange extract, and OJ (or extract + extra water if you're using that) and blend.
2. Add the frozen grapes and blend.
3. Add the cantaloupe and blend, and let it go for a minute or two even after you don't see chunks- just to get it as smooth as possible.

This one is definitely a keeper and one of my favorites! And I'm not even really a fan of cantaloupe. I bet this would be good with a carrot mixed in, too.

Grape, Banana & Berry Smoothie

Some of my smoothies were getting sort of boring... I guess when I'm always using the vanilla Arbonne, that will always tend to have a certain taste, and then always mixing with fruit... well, you get the idea. I've tried some varieties with apples and cinnamon, and they're ok, but so far nothing to write home (or blog) about.

Today's was pretty simple and spectacular though.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup water
2 scoops vanilla Arbonne protein powder
1/2 scoop Arbonne fiber boost
1 cup of spinach leaves (that's a guess... I take a few fistfuls and shove it in there).
1/2 cup Simply Orange fortified orange juice
1 tsp bee pollen (not necessary but it's good for you)
1/2 medium banana
1/2 cup frozen green seedless grapes
1/3 cup frozen blackberries

Directions:
Add water, arbonne powders, bee pollen (if desired), orange juice, and spinach to your smoothie cup or blender, an blend until smooth. Then add the banana and grapes and blend again. Add the black berries and blend until smooth, then another minute or two for good measure.

I don't usually add fruit juice to smoothies because I feel like it's sort of a waste of calories. Isn't it better to just add the real fruit? More nutritious and whatnot? With the case of oranges, though, I honestly found that as far as taste is concerned, the juice- to me- is better. I haven't compared different ones, but my husband bought Simply Orange to make mimosas recently, so it's just what we had around. 1 cup of it is 110 calories, which can be a lot depending on what else is in your smoothie. Cutting back to 1/2 cup gives you only 55 cals and still a good dose of the flavor. Considering my orange and banana smoothie was a total miss, and two oranges equaled a LOT of calories (I added an extra when I tasted it with just one and it had hardly any orange flavor at all!), I like the idea of getting more intense orange flavor with fewer calories with the OJ. I also recently bought orange extract, but I haven't tried any yet. If you don't want the calories from OJ, that is probably another good option.

Orange and Banana, take 1

And add another check into the "meh" category.

Orange and Banana Smoothie

Ingredients:
1/2 c water
1 Arbonne vanilla protein powder packet
2 oranges
1 tsp bee pollen
1 handful of spinach leaves

I just threw everything into here and blended it together.... pretty boring.


I really wanted to try and duplicate the taste of a dreamsicle here. It didn't happen. At all. Oranges have a lot of flavor, right? I thought using TWO would DEFINITELY up the orangey factor- negative. The Arbonne vanilla powder kind of overwhelms things, which is odd since vanilla is such a mild taste. That's the reason I got the vanilla... so that I would taste more of the fruit.

I probably could have added either a handful of strawberries or mango and this would have been a PHENOMENAL drink. But I was in the mood to be somewhat of a purist this morning, so in my mind, orange = orange and I wasn't going to add anything to "fake" a flavor I was going for.

The result is little flavor at all.

Andplusalso none of my ingredients were cold today, so this was another warm one. Which isn't TERRIBLE but a little bit of chill is nice.

Wanna-Be Pumpkin Pie Smoothie that is bland as hell

Tried another new recipe last night. A few days ago I had looked at Arbonne's "30 days feeling fit" guide and they had some smoothie recipes in there. I was trying to remember one of them last night when I made a 2nd smoothie for the day, but I was lacking some ingredients. The recipe calls for vanilla yogurt, which I didn't have. But then I remembered the guide saying to avoid dairy, and isn't yogurt dairy? So I figured maybe it was best I didn't have the yogurt anyway? I don't know.

Wanna-Be Pumpkin Pie Smoothie that is bland as hell

Ingredients:
1/2 cup water
Arbonne vanilla protein powder packet
1/2 cup Coconut milk
1 teaspoon bee pollen
1 1/2-2 tablespoons honey
2 handfuls of spinach
dash of vanilla
1/3 can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling, just pumpkin)
like a teaspoon or more of cinnamon
generous sprinkling of nutmeg

I blended all of this together in hopes it would taste like pumpkin pie.... but not quite. It wasn't terrible, just... bland. Oh, and kind of warm, since the only cold items were the liquids and spinach.

I was sipping it and kept adding more cinnamon and nutmeg, then tried to imagine I was actually eating pumpkin pie, or maybe just a pumpkin spice drink from any number of coffee places. I tried to think what would make my drink taste more like those, and it hit me: Sugar. Lots of it. It seemed counter productive to add sugar to something that is supposed to be healthy though. I was sort of generous with the honey, but that wasn't enough. If I had had the yummy vanilla greek yogurt that I usually keep around OR some vanilla ice cream, I think this drink would have been AMAZING.

But what do vanilla yogurt and ice cream have in them that my smoothie didn't have? ...Sweeteners. I'm not sure why I was so against putting some sweetener into my smoothie, yet if I had put the yogurt in there that would already contain some sort of sweetener, I would have been okay with it.

Maybe part of it is just avoiding the habit of adding sugar to things.

ANOTHER green smoothie

Still working on ideas for Arbonne shakes... I've signed up to do a "30 days to feeling fit" which means drinking 2 shakes a day!

Ingredients:
1/2-3/4 cup of the Cucumberade I made yesterday (for reference.... basically it's lemon juice, lime juice, cucumber)
1 package Arbonne vanilla protein shake mix
1 teaspoon pee pollen
1 1/2 teaspoons honey
2 handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 can of pineapple chunks, including 1/2 of the juice(the small can... about 1 1/2" tall)
2 small handfuls cucumber slices
2 bigass strawberries, including the green tops
2 handfuls of grapes

I added everything but the strawberries and grapes, blended it up, then added the strawberries, more blending, then the grapes. Keep blending til smooth. This one was really yummy!!!

Another green smoothie

I try to write these down in case I'm ever needing ideas...

This morning I made the "Cucumberade" from my Cool Waters recipe book.

Part of this recipe involved pureeing a cucumber along with a cup of water, juice from a lemon, a lime, and a teeny sprinkle of salt. (I used a key lime from my lime tree.) After you puree the stuff, you run it through a sieve into a pitcher with more water. (There is more to it than that... but I don't want to infringe on copyright by accidentally publishing their whole recipe here!)

After extracting the liquid, I obviously had all this citrus-flavored cucumber pulp left. I thought that'd be pretty tasty in a smoothie!

Ingredients:
About 1/2 cup water
1 package Arbonne vanilla protein shake mix
Then dumped in another 1/2 cup water on top of that
1 quantity leftover pulp from making Cucumberade
2 handfuls of baby spinach
An apple

I blended everything minus the apple together first- it didn't have much flavor at that point, so I looked around to see what we had and spied an apple that's been sitting around for a couple weeks. I added the apple to give it a little extra... something. It's not a super sweet smoothie or very strong, so the flavor is quite mild in this one. But the cucumber and apple went surprisingly well together- this was a red delicious apple, not a tart one, which may explain why the pairing worked?

I think this could also work with coconut water versus plain water.

Green Smoothie 1

I've been trying to drink more smoothies lately as a lunch replacement. It's a great way to get more fresh fruits and vegetables into your system, especially when you add greens and make a Green Smoothie.

Here's the 2nd green smoothie I made, and it was fantastic. The first one sucked. I used mustard greens. DON'T USE MUSTARD GREENS IN A SMOOTHIE EVER, EVER, EVER.

Ingredients:

• 3 handfuls of green grapes
• 2 big handfuls of baby spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 pear
• 1/2 green pepper
• About 1/2 cup vanilla greek yogurt
• Some water & some ice cubes

You even get a picture of this one in all it's neon-green-glory. Check out the Mr. Hankey glass.... classy!

Usually when I make a smoothie, I start by putting in whatever liquid I'm using (water, fruit juice, coconut water is also great) and a handful or so of fruit. I blend that all up until it's smooth and then I add other stuff, one or two things at a time, blend some more, and keep stopping and adding more until either the blender is full or until I've used up all my ingredients. If it gets too thick you can add more liquid. Then I set it on "Food Processor" and let it go for a minute or two.

The cool thing about smoothies is you can sort of just start throwing in whatever crap you've got sitting around in your fridge that you need to use up. Like the 1/2 green pepper in this one? It was in the fridge for a couple of days and I was afraid we'd forget about it, so I tossed it in. The grapes were also not in great condition for eating- they were getting a little soft- so in they went. The baby spinach was also sort of starting to go...
See where this is going?

This smoothie was just a product of trying to empty out all of the produce in the fridge and not let it go to waste.