That calls for a smattern of pattern!

You are reading an article written by someone who killed three blenders in a week. Was doing a raw vegan diet for a while there and every morning I would have a smoothie. It’s a good way to start the day packed with vitamins, easy to drink on the road, and was mighty tasty.

I guess I went a little hard on the ingredients, hard meaning frozen. The strawberries I think, yeah that’s what killed the 3 blenders in one week. Been chopping them ever since when I feel like making a smoothie. At least until I get a blender worthy of blending everything…except Chuck Norris that is.

Anyways, a smoothie can be a very nice start to the day, especially if made with quality ingredients. Also, going raw vegan on the recipe seems to cut down on the calories as well. And if you make a large enough batch you can have enough leftovers for another interesting snack, although for about 16-24 hours later (will explain later).

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All sorts of ingredients can be used. Besides the common fruits, some people put vegetable juice in theirs, milk, yogurt, etc. Also stuff like peanut butter or flax seed.

I have even had a purely green smoothie a few times, all vegetables. One of them was at The Grass Root, I think it was called The Hulk or something, and one over at Rollin’ Oats in St. Petersburg, Florida. Both were surprisingly tasty and refreshing.

The smoothie I like to make has:

• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Bananas
• Watermelon
• Cantaloupe
• Honeydew
• Avocado
• Pineapple
• Juice consisting of carrots, apples, and oranges

If you don’t have a juicer you can always leave out the carrot part, unless you like chunks. If looking for a juicer, I would suggest the Breville Juice Fountain Plus, as it has served me well and was a pretty good price vs quality. You can even fit a whole apple in the top of the thing and it juices right through it, core and all.

You can always be more adventurous though, like adding some cucumbers or celery into the juicer, adding some wheat grass juice or green tea extract, or even some protein powder. But the more raw and organic the more energizing it will be. Like pure liquid energy.

Don’t worry about the avocado, it really won’t be something you can taste. The healthy fats in it just add to the creaminess so it is a good replacement for dairy.

I never really measured everything out, just kept adding things until I filled the blender. If I had to guess I would say that the rough measurements would be:

• One large banana
• Half a cup of blueberries
• 1-2 cups of strawberries
• One large slice each of the melons
• One thick (2-3 inch) slice of pineapple
• 1/4 cup of avocado chunks

The juice would have a whole apple, orange, and about 5 or 6 medium carrots.

I would keep the blueberries, strawberries, and bananas frozen so after chopping up the bananas a little, and the strawberries after learning my lesson with broken blender #3, I wouldn’t need to add any ice into the mix. I have seen some add organic raw sugar to the mix, or honey, but it seems like adding pineapple into the mix makes it sweet enough, for my taste anyways.

Pouring into a huge 36oz insulated mug I would sip on that bad boy for hours. Usually would carry me through breakfast and lunch. When on a raw vegan diet your body uses the food differently. Everything burns pretty fast, so the calories almost weren’t an issue at all. But for a standard diet, or any cooked food diet, I would suggest the serving be a 12oz glass instead. Freeze the leftovers in ice cube trays for re-blending later.

And here’s another idea for the leftovers mentioned above, where it can get really interesting. I picked up a Nesco Food Dehydrator a while back and one of the inserts is a large, flat surface that can hold fluids. So I would pour some of this smoothie inside, set it for 110F, and let it run for 16-24 hours.

The 110F is important to ensure that the result will be raw. By raw I mean according to what raw foodists consume. I will be doing a more in depth article about raw foodism down the line along with my experiences with it, but basically it is based on taking in only raw foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts that have not been heated above 115F. This preserves the  live enzymes in the food making it easier to get the nutrients from.

This is also where the avocado comes in as well. Without the fats from the avocado one is hard pressed to have the result, a raw vegan fruit roll-up, be pliable enough to actually roll. I made one once that came out half rollable but mainly it kind of folded/crumbled.

Once the big old sheet of dehydrated smoothie is removed, just cut with a pizza cutter, roll up, and store in wax paper or Ziploc bags in the fridge.

This fruit roll-up like no other does not stretch like the ones we had when we were kids (or still have now I guess). It comes out more like a fruit leather, or fruit-jerky. The first taste is an interesting experience as the different fruits seem to re-hydrate at different times. So it may taste a bit off on the first 1-2 seconds…then the other fruit flavors just explode and it beats any mass market/high fructose corn syrup concoction you may have tried in the past.

So there it is. With one simple, if flawed in the lack of actual measurements, recipe you can make an awesome smoothie to guzzle down during these hot summer months or to use the leftovers to make an alternative to the usual mass-market fruit roll-up snack.

Good, if not essential for making things easy and quick, for a raw diet or just for having a healthy treat. Packed with vitamins and nutrients like pure energy.

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