What juices to use in homemade smoothies?

[Lifted]

1 cup of kefir in either strawberry, peach, or blueberry flavor.

1 cup ice

1 banana

handful of frozen raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, etc., is good too.

blend for 30 seconds.

drink.

mmmmm. super healthy too with the Kefir.

Too much frozen fruit instead of ice (such as frozen bananas) will KILL the motor in your blender unless you have some super industrial blender that is made for handling that.

 

[dullard]

My favorite receipe:
2 bananas (the more ripe the better, but if they are fully brown just use one)
16 oz pineapple in its own juice (not the crappy heavy syrup stuff)
1 cup dry milk (far thicker result than using regular milk)
A squirt of lemon juice (or lime if you don't have lemon)
1 tbsp benefiber (I like the thickness it adds and the fiber is quite healthy)
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
1 raw egg (good protein and really makes the drink better)
Ice until you reach 52 oz (48 oz if you like more intense flavors)

It makes enough for three large glasses, and I drink one and freeze the other two. For variety I add frozen berries and use less ice.

I think the Salonella fears are way overblown. Only one out of 10,000 eggs have internal Salmonella (CDC Source). Meaning if I drank one large glass a day for the next 82 years, I'd likely come across ONLY ONE contaminated egg. Even if I assume that I will get infected by that egg (unlikely since I'm healthy), I'll have to do this for 389,041 years to have a chance of getting a life threatening case. But since I'm young and healthy that is more like 3,000,000 years until this raw egg poses a threat. Driving to work is far more likely to cause harm than drinking daily raw egg in this receipe.

I use a $30 plastic smoothy maker. It chops rock-hard ice and frozen fruit far, far better than even $500 blenders. And it has a rod that you can use to push the ice down to the blades when the smoothy is too thick to otherwise do so (avoids the chunky-smoothy problem).

 

[DestinyKnight]

oatmeal smoothie ftw.

 

[silverpig]

My wife makes good smoothies. Don't use ice.

Frozen fruit + yogurt + a little milk + fresh fruit = win.

 

[JDub02]

This one looked really good. From Good Eats:


• Soy milk – low fat, enriched with protein + B12
• Frozen fruit – blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, peach, mango, bananas (peeled, wrapped, frozen)
• Acai or pomegranate juice
• Blender

4 oz each (by weight) of four fruits, soy milk, juice. Stash in fridge overnight to thaw the fruit a little. Blend on low 30 seconds. Boost to vortex stage. 30 seconds. Go to high for 1 minute. 24 oz (by weight)

 

[zylander]

This one looked really good. From Good Eats:


• Soy milk – low fat, enriched with protein + B12
• Frozen fruit – blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, peach, mango, bananas (peeled, wrapped, frozen)
• Acai or pomegranate juice
• Blender

4 oz each (by weight) of four fruits, soy milk, juice. Stash in fridge overnight to thaw the fruit a little. Blend on low 30 seconds. Boost to vortex stage. 30 seconds. Go to high for 1 minute. 24 oz (by weight)

haha, that episode of Good Eats is what got me interested in making smoothies.

 

[vailr]

Bananas for smoothies taste better by first freezing the banana.
Skin the ripe banana, place on cookie sheet & freeze.
After several hours, place frozen bananas in Ziploc bag to prevent freezer burn.
Use Stevia powder for sweetener, + 1 TBSP rice protein powder.
Don't use cow milk or soy milk, which are unhealthy.

 

[Jeraden]

My current favorite is a Pumpkin Pie smoothie. Milk, some canned pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, splenda, scoop of whey (vanilla or cinnamon flavor).

 

[Miramonti]

soy milk
frozen fruit (I like strawberries and/or blueberries)
protein
Sometimes some sweetener (I use artificial sweetener.)

No juice needed.

 

[PepePeru]

I haven't done this in a while now that I think of it... get a big bag of frozen fruit at Sam's or Costco similar to this:

http://www.dole.com/EatRightLanding...Details/tabid/601/Default.aspx?contentid=1383

just a handful or two of the fruit, around a cup of OJ, blend.

its really easy and pretty tasty.

You could always sex it up a little bit, but that tasted fine. I'd tried some more complicated recipes with milk, unflavored yogurt, honey etc, it was more of a PITA than it was worth.

 

[Daishiki]

a good tip that took me awhile to figure out is to simply use frozen fruit in place of ice. The smoothie texture will be alot more homogenous. Blending up frozen ice just causes little ice chunks in between the pieces of fruit.

That's exactly what my friend did. He would usually skip fruits and vegetables in college, so his mom gave him frozen fruits and he would make smoothies with them.

 

[ElFenix]

Wish I could favorite this thread (not "subscribe") like on FuseTalk, I have a blender coming in in the next few days and want to try some stuff.

create a new folder in subscriptions and move this thread to that folder. i do it for my fs/ft thread. that way only handful of threads are in there rather than every thread you've posted in (which is annoying as hell)




for smoothies i use frozen fruit and little to no ice. better than ice because ice melts and then your smoothie separates (i work in large batches and don't drink it all at once). frozen strawberries, frozen peaches, frozen bananas (great to do when bananas start to get over ripe), frozen raspberries, etc. plain yogurt and some orange juice for lower viscosity.

 

[zylander]

Since we are on the subject; anyone have some blender suggestions?

 

[Ksyder]

Since we are on the subject; anyone have some blender suggestions?

i got a kitchenaid, works well. if you are rich you could go for a blendtec or a vitamix

 

[GTaudiophile]

I use...

OJ (No calcium, with pulp)
Fat-free yogurt (sometimes the vanilla kind)
Flax seed
1-2 Bananas
A few scoops of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. (The frozen kind.)

 

[darkxshade]

2 strawberries
1/4 cup blueberries
3 strips of bacon
2 waffles
a slice of pie/cake
1 mentos
1/2 cup coke
3 cubes of ice

blend to perfection

 

[Strk]

haha, that episode of Good Eats is what got me interested in making smoothies.

Heh... I was about to say "Thanks, Alton Brown"

The only part about that episode that sucked is when I found the blender online, it turned out to be $500.

I'm still trying to justify a $300 stand mixer!

 

[zylander]

Heh... I was about to say "Thanks, Alton Brown"

The only part about that episode that sucked is when I found the blender online, it turned out to be $500.

I'm still trying to justify a $300 stand mixer!

I KNOW!! I went on the food network store and found his blender for $499. Then I thought they probably mark it up and that it must be cheaper on amazon or somewhere else...NOPE!

 

[dullard]

Since we are on the subject; anyone have some blender suggestions?

I personally have hated every blender that I've tried for crushing ice/frozen fruit. They just can't do the job very well. They have the wrong blades, the wrong speeds, the wrong shape of container, and no good tool to push stuck items down.

But, my smoothie maker is fantastic. I don't remember the model off the top of my head but it looks exactly like this and cost about $30. I've used it for hundreds of smoothies, daiquiris, and margaritas without any problems at all. The thing doesn't blend or chop; it isn't a blender. What it does is pulverize frozen things and get a nice vortex going so that ice chunks are a thing of the past. If you happen to make something too thick, the rod can be used to push the ice/fruit down to the blades while it is running.

My only complaint is that the spigot is a pain to clean and too small to pour really thick drinks. So, I just pour out the top like a blender would. But for $30, I don't complain much.

 

[Ika]

Got my new blender today!
http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach...4626621&sr=1-1

And expecting to go to the gym later, so I made a trip to the grocery store and bought some bananas and yogurt in anticipation. Can't wait to see how it'll turn out! (hopefully good...)

 

[JulesMaximus]

Just be careful you don't buy a bunch of juices with sugar in them.

 

[zylander]

Just be careful you don't buy a bunch of juices with sugar in them.

Thats why I dont want to use regular old OJ because it has too much sugar in it.

 

[zylander]

I personally have hated every blender that I've tried for crushing ice/frozen fruit. They just can't do the job very well. They have the wrong blades, the wrong speeds, the wrong shape of container, and no good tool to push stuck items down.

But, my smoothie maker is fantastic. I don't remember the model off the top of my head but it looks exactly like this and cost about $30. I've used it for hundreds of smoothies, daiquiris, and margaritas without any problems at all. The thing doesn't blend or chop; it isn't a blender. What it does is pulverize frozen things and get a nice vortex going so that ice chunks are a thing of the past. If you happen to make something too thick, the rod can be used to push the ice/fruit down to the blades while it is running.

My only complaint is that the spigot is a pain to clean and too small to pour really thick drinks. So, I just pour out the top like a blender would. But for $30, I don't complain much.

I may try that one out just because its so cheap. If I dont like it, Ill be out $30, oh well. Thanks!

 

[dullard]

I may try that one out just because its so cheap. If I dont like it, Ill be out $30, oh well. Thanks!

I hope it works for you. I wasn't impressed by the cheap looking plastic parts, but the performance hooked me.

 

[zylander]

Got my new blender today!
http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach...4626621&sr=1-1

And expecting to go to the gym later, so I made a trip to the grocery store and bought some bananas and yogurt in anticipation. Can't wait to see how it'll turn out! (hopefully good...)

How did that blender work out for you?