Smoothies

The mister has been on a health kick lately. By “health kick” I mean he talks about eating good food but still stuffs his face with red meat, cheese, and Taco Bell. But he’s decided he wants to start every morning with a smoothie.

Since I had visions of him coating my pretty butcher block counter top with sticky juice and crushed up berries, or doing that thing where he forgets to put the top on the blender and sprays smoothie all over the place, I decided I would make him his breakfast smoothies.

(Who’s a good housewife?)

Enter the Magic Bullet. My parents got me one of these for Christmas a couple of years ago. I might have laughed at them for it a little bit. It’s handy, though. I’ve used it to make hummus and salsa a couple of times, and it does a good job.

I’d never really bothered to read the instruction manual, though, and all the extra pieces, well, I stuck them in a basket and forgot them.

In preparation for smoothie making, I pulled all the bits and pieces back out of the basket and actually read the instructions and, holy shit, this thing acts as a juicer! I live for fresh-squeezed orange juice, so I immediately ran out and purchased a huge bag of oranges at Sam’s Club and made myself a pitcher of orange juice. Tastes like Mexico!

And it makes AWESOME smoothies. It gets all those little ice chunks broken up way better than a blender and it gets the whole thing nice and smooth, which, for those of us with texture issues, is key. Getting a weird chunk of fruit would gross me out.

I start with the important parts of the Magic Bullet: the base, a blade, and a top.



Then, into the top, I throw 1/4 to 2/3 cup (depends on how hungry I am) each of whole milk yogurt and kefir, both purchased at The Wedge Co-op. Then I pour in a splash of the orange juice I made using the Magic Bullet’s juicer attachment.


Then I throw in the fruit. The mister likes a mix of all kinds of berries. I prefer just one kind. We used fresh today because I just went to the store, but frozen works too. Frozen peaches with a couple of raspberries is a really, really good combo.



Then, in a smoothie for the mister, I add a little honey and some milk to thin it out, and a scoop of protein powder. In a smoothie for me, I add a splash of vanilla, some ice cubes and a little water, and sometimes, depending on the state of things, a little fiber supplement.

Then, I screw the blade to the top, upend the whole thing and press it into the base to mix. Ten seconds later, smoothie!

The mister drinks his right out of the top (which has a handle like a coffee mug, just for this purpose). I prefer to put my in a glass, though.



End result: breakfast in a cup, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 calories.