Future Freezer Smoothies: a plan

It’s certainly not the case that you need someone to tell you how to make a smoothie.  Put a melange (this is my word of the week) of fruits into a blender, add a liquid, find the blender lid, hold onto your hat (figuratively, mostly), and blend the mixture up.  Pour into a glass. Convince yourself you’re about to drink a milkshake.  Place the blender in the sink, fill it with water, and neglect to clean it for two days.  Decide you want another smoothie, curse yourself for leaving the blender in the sink for so long, wash, and well… do the hold dang thing over again. 

So. Now that we have that mutual understanding, I want to introduce you to the VERY low-tech meal-planning happening that’s going down in my kitchen these days. It involves freezer bags, a little time, about 11% of brain power, bananas and berries that are about to lose their cool and go bad, nut and seeds, and a podcast to pass the time.  

There are a lot of prohibitive factors when it comes to making smoothies. Mostly it’s the fact that I’m often out of one very important ingredient:  no banana, no almond milk, no desire to actually drink a smoothie. You know.  The best intentions can go sideways pretty quickly.

By combining smoothie bags made of single-portioned fruit, nuts, and butters, and  keeping them in the freezer- all you need in the refrigerator is your milk or juice of choice and you’re smoothie bound.  

I swear it’s simple! 

Here’s how this goes: 

• Grab several sandwich-size sealing freezer bags. Earth-friendly note:  consider using freezer-safe tupperware OR stick with sandwich bags, rinse them and reuse them several times.  I reuse my bags and really they stay very clean once the fruit and veggies come out! 
• What sort of fruit do you have that’s going bad?  What do you like in smoothies? Bananas and berries are a great place to start.  I chose bananas, strawberries, and blueberries.
• Pick a green. I chose spinach. 
• In each bag place a handful of greens, a handful of sliced strawberries or whole blueberries, and half a banana (sliced).
• Add a dollop of almond butter, if you’d like.
• Add a few raw cashews or walnuts, if you’d like. 
• Add a sprinkle of whole flax seeds or chia seeds (these buggers will thicken a smoothie when blended so go easy).
• Fold and seal the bag, label the outside with the date and ingredients using a permanent marker, and store in the freezer until ready to use!

When you’re ready for a smoothie… well, first things first, you’ll feel like you’re a real genius who is lookin’ out for yourself.  Place the frozen fruit in a blender, add a cup of milk or juice (you might add more depending on how thick you like things to be). Blend and… tahdaaah! Frozen fruit makes for the best smoothies and you’re a success.

Here are some of the extras I add to my smoothies:

• flax seeds – get the whole flax seeds, not the meal.
• chia seeds
• Garden of Life – Raw Proteins and Greens
• Vital Proteins (this version with why, banana and vanilla is very compelling to me.) 
• maca powder
• coconut oil
• almond or peanut butter 
• raw cashews and walnuts
• matcha powder

To our great smoothie success.

xo