fruit + smoothie

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Jen

Waking up to sun after a day of rain is so wonderful! And, mixing up a delicious new smoothie is also wonderful!

Kristen of Kristen’s Raw comes up with some awesome smoothie recipes. She created the Chocolate Cherry Bomb Smoothie that I am so fond of. Yesterday, she posted a new recipe for the Vivacious Princess Smoothie, so I knew that I needed to give it a try today.

It contains bananas, cherries, protein powder, cashew butter, and I added spinach. See the recipe here.

It is a gorgeous pink color, which makes it even more fun to drink! I think this is my new favorite smoothie. It is so different from the chocolate cherry bomb (except for the cherries!) and I love the different taste. You should give this a try! It’s nice to change it up with something new every once in awhile. I add peanut butter to my smoothie’s all the time, but I never would have thought to add cashew butter!

I took it to go, as usual. This smoothie makes 3 cups! Which seems like a lot, but it adds up to about 450 calories with protein, fat and lots of nutrients which makes it a perfect breakfast for me.

Backing up to last night…

As you know from the blog, I love dried fruit. I have probably talked about it on here 50+ times! Organic, unsweetened dried fruit is my favorite. Not only is it free of added sugars, but it tastes so much better. It tastes like the fruit, not like an artificial candy version of the fruit. I just love it.

My favorite dried fruit, however, is fruit that I dry myself…in my dehydrator! It tastes great and is cheap and easy to make. You could use your oven on really low heat to do this also, but the nice thing about the dehydrator is that I can leave it on overnight while I am sleeping…I’m not sure I would leave my oven on while I am sleeping! But, a day at home would be perfect for oven drying…

I like to try and dehydrate different fruits that you can’t find as easily…I have tried so many things and the majority of them work just fine! More watery fruits take longer. Last night, I cut of the following fruits and placed them in my dehydrator at 110 degrees overnight. Dehydrating at a low temperature keeps all of the fruits nutrients intact.

Canteloupe

Honeydew Melon

An apple and a peach

A pear and a few pieces of watermelon

This morning, I woke up to a fragrant kitchen and lots of perfectly dried fruit!

I have said it before, and I will say it again – dried fruit makes and excellent on the go snack! The honeydew melon and watermelon were two fruits that I have never had dried before and the verdict? They were amazing! Still super sweet and pretty much tasted like candy. I’m upset I only did a few pieces of the watermelon…good thing I have a whole summer full of watermelon to dry.