Fruit Smoothies on a Sunny Winter Morning

I start every day with a fruit smoothie and a cup of coffee. I figure it's hard to have a terrible day if it starts out so good. And the smoothies are pretty, so even if the day is gray there's something lovely in my cup.

My brother and his wife are big fans of a raw food diet and green smoothies. While I can't claim that my smoothies equal theirs in nutritional content, I can claim that mine are far tastier and pretty damn healthy, too--not to mention prettier. But, in honor of them (and my own health), I have recently started adding some green things (I'm pretty happy with a spring herb salad mix right now, plus some avocado and a spring of fresh basil). So, in the interest of actually publishing something to my blog after so long (and such a lame last post--nothing else happened, by the way), I thought I'd walk you through making a great smoothie.

You'll need: Vanilla Rice Dream (enriched, of course); 1-2 scoops of Kashi Go Lean protein powder (also vanilla; I prefer Kashi Go Lean as it tends to blend smoother than a lot of other powders); flax seed or flax seed oil; one banana; half an avacado; a quarter to a third of a cup each (or some combination) of frozen strawberries, mango, blueberries, raspberries; three quarters of a cup of herb salad mix (any mix will do...though I will say that romaine throws the taste off, while something like spinach doesn't); the leaves from a sprig of basil; a quarter cup vanilla yougurt; and a decent blender. It sounds like a lot, but it only takes five minutes to make and will yield about 30 oz (I'm completely guestimating this) of smoothie. If you can get your hands on fresh fruit, add it! I love to add a pear when I have one; peaches; apples; and other frozen things sometimes, too, like pineapple, peaches, cherries. The fact of the matter is that there really aren't fruits I'm aware of that can't be blended together to make something really tasty.

I find it blends best if you add about 3/4 cup of the rice milk, then the powder, then the banana, then the green things, frozen things, yougurt, and top off with more rice milk. I've never measured how much rice milk I end up using, but I would guess it's around 12 oz. Blend it until it's smooth (add more rice milk if it won't blend all the way through), and enjoy!
You can drink it all, or put the left over in the fridge for later. It's a great, tasty way to get a couple servings of fruit and a serving of vegetables to start you off on your day and it really takes very little time...I can even do it before coffee!