Smoothie of the Week: Spinach Mango!
I L.O.V.E. this smoothie. And no, I’m not a glutton for punishment. Nor do I love it only for its nutritional value, which is pretty high. I actually truly enjoy the taste of this smoothie. At first, I was afraid to make and drink something so green. I expected to have to pinch my nose and guzzle the whole thing as quickly as possible. When I finally got up the courage to try it, I was pleasantly surprised by its not-so-green flavor. When I have this for breakfast, my mornings seem to get along just a little better than usual.
I try to use fresh ingredients whenever possible, but sometimes I run out. When it comes to mangoes, I don’t always have enough time or energy to deal with the mess of cutting them, either. If I’m out of fresh mangoes or I want to be quick, I use these wonderful mango halves that come in a jar from Fresh & Easy or Trader Joe’s. They come in mango or grape juice and are oh so convenient.
Ingredient #2: Boy, do I love this stuff. I always try to have a couple bags of this spinach in my fridge, and it’s the best-priced organic spinach I can find. I really should be a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s. I think this is about 2 buckaroons per bag, and the leaves are nice and small…which I really like.
For the smoothie, put one fresh mango or two mango halves out of the jar into the blender. Then, toss in as much spinach as you can handle. You might want to start off with less at first. I usually put in three honkin’ big handfuls. I say you still can’t taste the spinach…but Tim says you can. If this is your first green-shake, I would start with 1-2 handfuls.
Add just enough water (or juice from the jar the mangoes came in!) to make it blendable and drinkable. I don’t think I add more than 1/2 cup of fluid.
This is what my ratio of spinach to mango to water looks like. The strong sweetness of the mango covers up the spinach flavor pretty well. Spinach is a fairly mild green…I tried this once with that fancy lacy-looking lettuce called frisee, and boy was that spicy. That’s what I get for abandoning my spinach.
Now, blend ‘er up! If you don’t have one of those blenders with the fancy tamper that pushes stuff into the blades, you can CAREFULLY use a plastic spatula (is that what it’s called?) through the hole in your blender lid. I stress the word “carefully” because it’s really easy for the spatula to get caught in the blades, which could probably be dangerous. Even if it’s not dangerous, you don’t want little pieces of plastic floating in your drink. If you choose to do this, keep the spatula near the side of the blender while pushing down the spinach.
This is what a spatula looks like when you’ve used it to push down spinach a few too many times. It was actually worse before I cut off the top of the thing. I actually have a blender with a tamper now, but this recipe and these pictures wouldn’t have been as much fun if I used that one, right? I didn’t think so.
Once you get the spinach down, it blends up quite nicely. Let it blend long enough to get the spinach into super tiny pieces. How gross would it be to drink your smoothie and have a whole spinach leaf float into your mouth? gross. There are some benefits to drinking your spinach versus eating it. We tend to speed through our meals, which means we probably don’t chew our food enough. I don’t think I’ve ever chewed my spinach this small before…
mmm…the finished product. Somehow, I almost always make exactly enough to fill my cup to the rim, which I think is pretty awesome. If people see you drinking this, they might get grossed out or think you’re really odd. But I never will. You can come on over to my place and drink one of these any time you like!
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