Fruit Smoothie and Don't Throw Out Your Celery Root

One of the things that I find myself having a lot when I want to be health conscious is fruit smoothies.  I have made them many different ways and included things like protein powder when I workout really extensively.  This is my latest favourite.  It is tasty, easy, refreshing, and a great way to get your water in!  All you need is fruit, water, and some sort of blender.

The sweetness or tartness obviously depends on what you put in your smoothie.  I have a lot of grapefruit at the moment and I love the tartness so I peeled and segmented a grapefruit.  I seen a really easy trick to get the biggest segments out.  After you peel the fruit, use your knife to cut into a section as close to the membrane as you can get and into the center.  Now don't remove your knife, cut from the inside to the outside to free just the juicy pulp.  Repeat until all the segments are free.  Now if you aren't super good at this, like me, you will have missed some thin bits along the membranes.  Just use your knife and scrap from the inside out.  The bits will come off but you won't get any of the bitter membranes! Great right? I think so.  

This is what you will have left.

This is the reward of your efforts!  You should have just the tart flesh of the grapefruit and some juice like this without the bitter pith or membranes.

Get some ripe bananas, as many as you like.  They say you should always eat bananas once they have spots.  I hate the texture of bananas when they are this ripe so this is the best way for me to eat them.  If you don't want to worry about the long seed things inside, peel your bananas from the end instead of the stem.  The stringy bits tend to stay with the peel better this way.

Also, I also just learned a trick for keeping bananas ripe longer.  Apparently, if you wrap the stems in plastic wrap it will slow down the ripening.  They should keep for up to two weeks.  I'm definitely trying it with my next bunch of bananas!

Toss in the bananas and whatever other fruit you have.  I keep a bag of frozen berries for making muffins and smoothies.  I use at least a cup of berries.

Now fill up with water.  I have used milk, yogurt, and even ice cream.  They can get pretty calorie packed really quickly if you add dairy and also get too sweet and rich.  I like lots of water best.  If you want to use water but want it creamy then just add about 10 dates or as many as you want.  They really sweeten up the smoothie as well.

Now the easy part, blend until smooth.  I like my blender for this but I have used a hand emulsifier for years and it does just as well.  Be sure to leave room in the top for the smoothie to rise while blending or you'll have a smoothie explosion.

Doesn't that just look refreshing to you?  This is so nutrient rich, packed with vitamins, loads of water to re-hydrate you, and the frozen berries chill it all into a cool flavourful drink.  I just love these!  If you want to make more of a slushie just replace half the water with ice.

This is a great way to use up ripe fruit, get it all into your system, and have a great drink all at once.  In total there was 1 grapefruit, 2 bananas, and 1-2 cups of frozen blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries with about 4 cups of water.  I drank two cups full and Phoenix had one.

Due to laziness I just happened to have the bottom of a big hunk of celery in my fridge.  Before using my celery I soaked the whole bunch in cold water then washed the inside of the stalk ends as best as I could without taking the bunch apart.  I have been just using the tops off my celery instead of taking off entire stalks.  This makes for very quick prep as you just pull it out, chop off what you want, and stick it back.  It's already clean and there is no waste to deal with.

I have to thank my sister for this trick.  She seen somewhere that you can regrow celery so I tried it.  Look at my little celery shrub!  I should have used more of the celery before I put it into water but I was too eager.  You just put it in water, it is that simple.  I trimmed a bit of the dried stem off the bottom to give it the best exposure to the water and look at it go!  This has only been about three days in the water.

I love spring and watching things grow in the spring is very soothing.  It reassures me that the cold and snow are leaving and that the sun will be returning.I have garlic and ginger root that have started growing that will be getting planted today too.  Bring on the summer!

Chris and I will be planting all sorts of things once our yard thaws so stay tuned for how we do with a garden in a smallish space.  At least we have a yard now, before we were just planting on a long balcony.  I think we are both excited to have a garden this year!