Dare I say it? I miss my Spirulina. Wait, let me clarify… I miss my breakfast smoothies, even the green ones.
Back at the stick house, we made fruit smoothies for breakfast just about every morning. But we don’t bring a blender with us on the road.
While I prefer my smoothies more berry in color, I got to liking the green variety we started making. I didn’t need a green smoothie challenge to acquire the taste either. All it took was one batch we made with spinach to discover there had to be a better way – better tasting at least.
Leave it to the wannabe vegan wife to come up with the Spirulina idea. But now that we are blenderless, I sure miss the smoothies – taking the stuff in a shot is like taking medicine. But I digress once again.
When looking up my Nü Hawaiin drink recipe in the NüRVers forums, I realized it was Sarah to whom I owe for turning us on to the green smoothie idea. But I will pass on the spinach and celery. Spirulina Powder does the trick, with just a couple teaspoons.
Having operated a print shop or two, I can tell you the stuff is identical to cyan ink toner. Don’t get it wet! But when handled with care, it delivers a potent mix of vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Spirulina has been found to strengthen the body’s defense mechanism. After all, it is the richest source of vegetable protein available (over 60%). Rich in beta carotene, iron, vitamin B-12 and the rare essential fatty acid GLA, it really is the super green food health nuts will lead you to believe it is.
Did I mention it tastes much better hidden in a fruit smoothie than taken in a shot glass of apple juice!? Both methods deliver the same healthy benefits, the former is just actually enjoyable.
And for the record, I prefer to add Spirulina to light colored smoothies. It tends to turn dark berry smoothies black. Here’s a suggestion for a vibrant bright green smoothie that will help you start your day feeling good about what you had for breakfast. (Shown above topped with Rene’s scrumptious homemade granola.)
Super Healthy Green Muck Smoothie
Serves two. (Not vegan, modify at will!) Blend together in blender until smooth:
- Two Ripe Bananas
- 1 Orange
- 1/4 Honeydew Melon
- 1/2 Cup Vanilla Yogurt
- 1 Cup Soy Milk
- 2 Tablespoons Agave Nectar
- 2 Teaspoons Spirulina
Please note that I don’t “do” recipes, preferring much rather to wing it – to taste – by trial and error. Results may vary.
Well, I don’t know where to begin on this one Rene cause when it comes to food and creativity you deserve a big medal for just getting past the appearance of the above concoction. And to be fair, a pork chop would look pretty ugly if not unappetizing if it were casually tossed into that thick and Mojito ready tumbler. And maybe that’s the problem, appearances.
Remember the film “Soylent Green”? Well your above viscous sea and fresh water borne goo shares a similar tale. If you’ll recall in the film, Charlton Heston learns that soylent green is people, spiced up with nitrates or MSG quite possibly but still at it’s core it was people, that’s peeps in today’s speak. But fiction is as reality doesn’t so I’ll not be the one to say “spirulina” is people but rather little people, little microscopic blue-green alga people. Spriulina is the high level name for aquatic organisms capable of photosynthesis so in essence this is plant stuff. But as a food supplement how can you say no? Well, turns out you can say no cause most protein looks and tastes a whole lot better than the above puddle of slime (take no offense, this is good slime).
But what makes Mr. Spirulina such a potent protein formula for well intentioned vegetarians on a mission to prove everyone else is on a senselessly cruel to animals diet is it’s high protein content. To the vegans and vegetarians on this planet reading this blog I have to concede, you got it right this time! Spirulina is equally as high in protein as that pig belly I’m going to eat in 30 minutes (or less), but that doesn’t make it tasty and tasty is important.
We marry people because we find them attractive and like minded and compatible on other levels right? Well we eat because it satisfies the cravings borne of our dietary instincts as well. For the gentle folks who believe the lion will lie with the lamb (oh man, mint sauce all the way) I say chuck the compromise and know your body cause not everyone would do well under a no meat diet.
My ex wife was a vegetarian but that’s not why we separated – though that was enough of reason at that time – but rather because we were both compromising on our diets way too much and loosing our sense of happiness along the way. Diets are the same way. Making a statement with ones tastebuds is about being honest with what our bodies need. If we “need” steak, then steak it is. If we “need”pork, then power to my porky friends. But I digress, Spirulina is cool it’s just not pretty.
But we don’t marry pretty people for the sake of pretty now do we, we marry because they’re good partners who we work well with despite their peccadillos and so goes food.
Though I’ve always known Rene to be a sincere vegetarian (lefty politics aside), I have acknowledge that she has batted one out of the park in terms of dietary legitimacy on this one – congratulations Rene!
Long live the oozy and poopy looking goo that’s better for you than a porter house, but long live the meat whose qualities gave our parents the strength to raise us to become vegetarians and carnivores.
Enrico strikes again!
Why is it the Amazing Enrico always gives Rene credit for my posts? Has he forgotten i write on this blog too? Are his eyes too glazed over with pork fat to read the byline? Mmmmmm… pork fat.
I’ll take my lamb medium rare please, with a port wine reduction sauce thank you. And maybe some Spirulina jelly. Not!
“we were both compromising on our diets way too much and loosing our sense of happiness along the way.”
Saw that one coming Enrico, I shouldda said something!
Long live the Ooze!
I want to second the use of the magic bullet. We carred one around with us for over 3 years. It doesn’t take up much room and they are very powerful. I love smoothies for breakfast! Thanks for the recipe.
Good to know that the mini-blenders don’t use a lot of juice, we’ve always wondered abut that. We do carry a hand blender for times when we’re hooked up and need to make Wyatt’s food, but never thought it would be usable for smoothies. Might have to give it a try, thanks!
Have you seen a magic bullet? We use a hand mixer (the crank kind) or a whisk for our blending needs, but last year at The Slabs, we used a friend’s magic bullet to make whipped cream. It normally takes at least 5-10 minutes for us to crank up homemade whipped cream with the hand mixer. With the bullet it was done in less than 10 seconds. It did use electricity, but the amount was minuscule.
Not that we have bought one ourselves…. yet.
It’s on our list! 🙂
The magic bullet is very sweet!
Our biggest issue with it however was that none of the cups stack, so the total storage space was almost as much as a regular size blender, if not more. Of course, you could just ditch the cups you don’t need on a regular basis (or put them in deeper storage as back-up/replacements).
We ended up cutting the handles off a few of the cups because of this non stacking thing.
Better solution to the blender and the subsequent cleanup is a hand held blender to mix right in that 21 oz glass. My blog entry several years ago: (http://www.wandrin.us/blog/index.php?/archives/194-Morning-Shake.html)
Bamix (http://www.bamix-usa.com/) or Google Bamix for other sellers.
We too got hooked on green smoothies at NuRVers.. yum. Love making them with spinach, kale, parsley.
We found it extremely worthwhile to get a small blender to continue our new morning yum. We got a Hamilton Beach personal size one (less than half the size of a typical size blender) and less than $15, and it’s a perfect fit for our tiny space. The blender cup doubles as a drinkable personal size cup – less dishes to wash too. It doesn’t draw a huge load off our solar system.