It’s the end of January and my craving for fresh greens is kicking in strongly right about now. My fix? Kale is a winter green, citrus is in season, avocados, celery, apples & pears are all colder weather crops so I feed my desire on these things.
Last night while dinner was in the oven I made my go-to green smoothie that will last 2 days for a quick grab and go snack – see recipe below.
After roasting veggies and a turkey meatloaf in the oven, I cleaned, dried and seasoned kale and roasted it for about 40 minutes in a 225° oven, two batches to be exact. I found an easy way to season kale for chips: add kale to a bog bowl, drizzle with olive oil or another light oil, add garlic powder, lemon juice, and massage into the leaves then lay the leaves in a single layer on a parchment paper lined baking sheet – sprinkle with nutritional yeast for a nutty-cheesy flavor and bake.
These two items are terrific midday or after dinner snacks. Have you ever tried making your own kale chips or green smoothie? I know a lot of folks like fruit smoothies; those are fine on occasion, but they lend to a good amount of unnecessary sugar too. Mixing 1-2 fruits in a green smoothie sweetens it up enough to taste less earthy without a sugar load.
Try each of these recipes for yourself and share your experience & opinions with us.
Kale Chips: prepare as written above, nothing was measured, just drizzled & sprinkled.
Green Winter Smoothie
Clean all ingredient well before using! I soak them in vinegar & water or hydrogen peroxide & water for 10-15 minutes then rinse and drain well.
1″ piece of ginger
small handful of parsley
1 very large handful cleaned organic kale – organic ensures no pesticides were used
1 apple cored – peeling isn’t necessary
1 peat cored – not peeled
3 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
1 avocado
juice of 1/2 lemon or squeeze of lemon juice
juice of 1 orange
1-2 Tablespoons chia seeds
2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds good sprinkle of cinnamon (adds sweetness without sugar and is a blood-sugar stabilizer
Add all ingredients to blender carafe, add filtered water within 1″ of top of carafe, cover and blend on low first then on high…blend it for a good few minutes. I take this time to clean up and get my bottles ready. I use small glass bottles so one can be taken with a homemade lunch and I put the rest into a quart bottle for glasses of goodness at home. When it’s well blended, pour into prepared bottles and refrigerate until used. Should last up to 3 days…more is okay but using it at its freshest is best.
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