Sides

Mean Green Smoothie

A healthy and tasty beverage
Prep Time10 minutes
Course: Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: celery, cucumber, ginger, Granny Smith apples, kale, lemon
Servings: 64 fl oz

Equipment

  • 1 Vitamix blender (or something equally powerful)
  • 1 cutting board
  • 2 32 oz protein shaker bottles (or something else that holds 64 oz and lets you shake the contents up)
  • 2 thick straws

Ingredients

  • 1 bunch curly-leaf kale (about 1 lb; lacinato or Tuscan kale works too)
  • 1 slicing cucumber (about 10oz)
  • ½ bunch celery (about 16oz or 1lb)
  • 2 Granny Smith apples (about 8oz each)
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 thumb ginger (about ½", or 0.15 oz)
  • 2 cups water (or 1 cup water and 2 cups ice, if you want it colder)

Instructions

  • Wash all the produce well
  • Put the water (and ice, if you want it colder) in the blender
    2 cups water
  • Coarsely chop the cucumber, such as by slicing it in half lengthwise, and then slicing it every inch or so crosswise
    1 slicing cucumber
  • Add the cucumber to the blender
  • Coarsely chop the celery
    ½ bunch celery
  • Add the celery to the blender
  • Peel the lemon, or cut the peel off
    1 lemon
  • Add the lemon to the blender
  • Chop the ginger into small pieces
    1 thumb ginger
  • Add the ginger pieces to the blender
  • Coarsely core and chop the apples, such as by slicing one big side off and then the other big side, leaving a disc with the core in it; then slicing off the two small sides from the core, and finally cutting the small sides in 2 and the big sides into 4
    2 Granny Smith apples
  • Add the apple pieces to the blender
  • At this point, the blender might be full. If so, add the apple pieces to one of the 32 oz bottles, and pour them into the blender as you blend the contents down, on the highest setting
  • On the cutting board, coarsely chop the kale
    1 bunch curly-leaf kale
  • Put the chopped kale in the blender
  • Blend for about a minute
  • Pour into the bottles
  • Refrigerate for 1 to 24 hours
    You can also freeze them. To thaw out leave them in fridge for a couple of days, use the microwave's defrost setting, or a combination of both.
  • When ready to drink, shake the bottle vigorously because the contents will have separated
  • Drink through the thick straw

Notes

This recipe is a modification of Joe Cross’ Mean Green Juice, in that it’s a smoothie so that all the nutritious fiber is left in the beverage.
The recipe is fairly forgiving, so don’t worry too much about the relative amounts.

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