My tropical smoothie

http://tinyurl.com/nezb8ft

Long ago I posted my two main smoothie recipes here, but I’ve slowly played with it and come up with another recipe which I’ve been stuck on for quite a while.

Leigh’s Tropical Smoothie

• 1-3/4 cups orange juice
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh apple cider
• 1-2 fistfuls shredded carrots
• 1 fresh (peeled and quartered) or 1 fistful frozen sliced beet
• 1 fistful pineapple
• 1 fistful cranberries
• 1 fistful mango
• 7-10 strawberries (depending on size and taste) or fistful blueberries
• 2 bananas
• if you don’t have issues with raw greens and thyroid (I do) add a fistful of spinach, kale or other leafy greens
• optional:  add milk of your choice (I use unsweetened almond) to thin it as needed or to taste

Put it all in blender and liquefy.  I put everything but the milk first and liquefy, then add milk (or if needed pour a bit out and add milk to thin the rest) and blend.  This makes about 48 oz and I use half one day and the other half the next.

If you’re missing one or two items you can obviously make do with just the rest.  I do variations, like replacing strawberries with blackberries, adding flax seeds, using yogurt instead of bananas if I’m out, or switching the cider/orange juice amounts, etc.

I quit putting raw greens in after I realized they tend to suppress thyroid, which is already a problem for me.  They’re okay cooked, so I use them copiously in soups and frittatas, etc. instead.  The main idea, as mentioned in the previous post, is to use the eat a rainbow theory for the smoothie.

It sounds like a hodgepodge, but it really tastes yummy.  Even my mother– whose main rule of eating is, I’m pretty sure, “nothing nutritious shall pass my lips”–loves them.