However, on the topic of smoothies, I'm going to linger a moment on my longing for a Vitamix 5200 blender. You know, the high speed, industrial blender you see demonstrations of at Costco? Why, you may wonder, spend $500 (or $375 if you're a Costco member) on a BLENDER?
I wondered this too. (Pause to remove small chunk of wood from my mouth.)
I spent a ton of time reading reviews, thinking about how often and how I would use it, and if I was just being market-washed. (mmm, more wood!)
I've come to the conclusion that for a vegan family trying to make raw foods the dominant foods in our diets, there is no better investment than a high speed blender. I hope to ultimately be using it 1-2 times daily, and be grinding foods that are not a part of a typical diet (seeds, pits, and other things that would either not be processed in or would break a normal blender).
Besides the fact that the cooler kid is pretty and shiny, I've already experienced 2 extremely annoying things about owning a cheap blender, before even consuming smoothie #1.
Let's start with point 1: the flax seeds. I spent, oh, probably 30 minutes cleaning my coffee grinder with white rice, wiping it out, getting in all the little nooks and crannies, and scrubbing the lid with soap and a toothbrush, again scraping out the tiny corners with a toothpick. Then, I took my flax seeds (important because they are a vegan source of omega-3s), ground them into flax meal in tiny batches, and had to start the entire cleaning process over in order to ready my coffee grinder for coffee yet again. Odds I'll skip adding flax meal for awhile when I run out? Pretty high. With a high speed blender, I can just throw tiny seeds (or huge avocado pits) in whole, and I'm good to go.
Point 2: my cheap little Oster we snagged on sale at Target will do for now. But it doesn't move the ingredients on its own at first--you have to find a way to kinda shove the solid chunks down into the liquid part to really get it going. My genius idea for accomplishing this? The end of a wooden spoon! (Why, there's yet another piece now, as if on cue!) So yes, I ended up blending a few tiny chunks of wood in the rest of my green smoothie, which was unfortunate. And could be avoided altogether with that coveted Vitamix. For now I'm going to have to figure out an alternate solution... but hey, extra fiber?
My green smoothie is pretty good for a first try. Here's what's in it:
1/2 cup orange carrot juice (any juice will do)
1/2 cup purified water
1 tbsp flax meal
1 cup loosely packed chopped dino kale (spinach would also work)
1 fuji apple, cut into chunks
1/2 cup pineapple chunks (frozen would probably make the texture nicer)
1/2 banana (again, I'm going to try frozen next time)
a pinch of wood (I suggest omitting this ingredient)
It's really surprisingly tasty. Very fresh.
Tomorrow is gardening day here at the M&M homestead! We're decently sure that we experienced the last frost this week, so in go those summer fruits and veggies...sweet M has been working so hard building planter boxes and prepping the soil, and I love him for it. Planting carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, beans, strawberries, watermelon, and a few other things I forget right now. I'm really excited as I've only ever grown tomatoes in the past (though very successfully!). M has the garden experience, and I'm so glad and looking forward to feeling very accomplished tomorrow.
For today: I'm taking down the Christmas tree. It's time. And then making a summer squash and cherry tomato dish with quinoa for dinner!
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