Four Colorful Smoothies

Josh: What is something good to drink when you’re on-the-go or when you just want to relax? Smoothies!

Kandice: Smoothies aren’t something you would normally think about making during the dead of winter, but they’re a great way to jump-start your morning or brighten your day. They bring vivid colors and fresh flavors to your kitchen.

Josh: Normally when I think about having a smoothie, I think of the summer, but I also find that they provide a nice way to cool down and relax after a good workout. The added bonus is that the fruits and/or veggies within the smoothie will provide me with a renewed boost of vitamins and energy.

Kandice: I like to have a smoothie in the mornings for breakfast. Usually I’m not a big breakfast person and unfortunately I’m allergic to eggs, so that makes choices for something to eat in the morning fairly limited. When I have the time, I will eat a small bowl of Special K or Life (totally my favorite!) cereal. But when I’m busy, which is most of my time, I will make a smoothie.

Josh: Smoothies are fairly simple to make. All you really need to have is a blender and some fruits and/or vegetables. For making smoothies, it’s all about the combinations that you create. Some fruits have a strong taste to them while others don’t. The key to making them is to create it so that all of the individual flavors blend into one giant, delicious flavor that “wows” your taste buds!

Kandice: Everyone’s different and we all like different flavors. Josh and I really like our fruits so we decided to provide you with a colorful array of smoothies that all have their own unique taste. We hope and encourage you to try them out.

Acai & Fruit Smoothie

Ingredients:

8 oz. Acai juice

8 oz. Soy milk

1 Banana, cut in chunks

8 oz. (approx 14) Strawberries

1 Peach, seed removed

8 oz. Blueberries

Josh: This recipe came from the show Good Eats, hosted by my idol, Alton Brown. We altered it just a little because we unfortunately forgot to add the peach. Oops. Yet, in spite of our mistake the smoothie still came out very good.

Groovy Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 Banana, cut in chunks

1 cup Grapes

1 (6 ounce) tub Vanilla yogurt

1/2 Apple, cored and chopped

1 1/2 cups Fresh spinach leaves

Kandice: When I first came across the recipe for this smoothie I was like “OMG! It’s green … and it has spinach?!” Spinach is definitely not something I would have ever considered to include in a smoothie, but I figured that I would try it anyways. When Josh and I made this smoothie we combined all of the ingredients into our blender and mixed them until smooth. One thing that we had to remember to do, while we were blending everything, was to use a spoon to push down the spinach that kept sticking to the walls of the blender. Once it was done we had a taste test. I found that the smoothie is actually pretty good. It’s clearly a way to disguise eating your spinach for those of us that don’t particularly care to eat it. : )

JK's Mango Delight

Ingredients:

1 cup Soy milk

1/4 Papya, seeds removed

1 Mango, peeled 

1 Banana, cut into chunks

Josh: This one we decided to go tropical. It turned out really well, and It's definately one of my favorites. If you wanted to, any tropical fruits such as Kiwi, Nectarine, or passionfruit would make a great substitiution or addition. Make sure to pit the mango and deseed the Papya. I'm sure this is common knowlege, but just in case.

Strawberry Oatmeal Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 cup Soy milk

1/2 cup Rolled oats

1 Banana, cut into chunks

14 Frozen strawberries

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp White sugar

Kandice: Out of all of the smoothies I’d have to say that this one and JK’s Mango Delight are my favorites. I love this one because it’s a terrific “on-the-go” breakfast treat. The oatmeal within the recipe makes it truly filling. The only thing that I could recommend that would improve this recipe would be to use more strawberries.

Josh: You can't go wrong with smoothies. It's basically endless possibillities.

Kandice: Like bananas and blueberries? Put them in a smoothie and build flavors around that.

Josh: Or something mroe tropical, like we did.

Kandice: We really hope you'll try some of these, and make some of your own!

Josh: We'd love to hear about your smoothie recipes. Feel free to comment, or send us an E-mail at jkdailyspecial@gmail.com!

Thanks for reading!