Green Smoothies Here I Come!

People have been talking about green smoothies for a while now. I'm an open minded person, willing to give most things a try so I did not write off this phenomenon. Yes they sound strange and if you are a greens hater they might even sound revolting. Luckily I am not a greens hater. In fact, I think I've liked all the greens I've tried so far. After posting the Vegan's Hundred I knew it was time for me to take the green smoothie plunge.

Yesterday at the farmers market funds were a little low so I had to be very careful of my choices. Tomatoes are always irrisistable, local plums won't be around for much longer, with my final $3 I picked a bunch of beets. The greens looked pretty good so I could eat those too. Of course this morning the greens looked less than good but I cut them from the beet root, picked out the yuck ones and placed the rest in a clean sink of cold water. After about 1 hr they looked new, bright, beautiful. What an amazing transformation. Now was the time for my first green smoothie.

Into my blender jug I tossed:
1 ripe banana
1 lemon, rind cut away but the white pith left (I hear it has some good bits) cut into chunks to pick out the seeds.
2 dried dates, pitted
6 medium beet greens
1/2 cup frozen chopped mango
1/2 cup water

I started up the blender on low quickly turning the speed up to high and as I watched the mixture blend together I hoped for the best. Could this be good? Will I need to add something else to make this edible?


The answer, luckily, was no. This came out to taste slightly creamy and sweet from the banana and dates. A little lemonade like from the whole lemon with the added roundness of mango and just an ever so faint taste of greens. If I had added fewer greens you would probably not even know they were there except for the green color of the finished product. I did not mind the light green flavor though. It just added to the bright alive over all feeling of the smoothie. I will be doing this again.