All The Greens: Simple green smoothie recipe

This weeks simple green smoothie recipe is below.  Starting as we mean to go on using ALL THE GREENS!  (All the green stuff we had anyway).  There can always be more greens….

INGREDIENTS:

Spinach (fresh and raw, a good handful)

Avocado (1/2 a frozen one)

Cucumber (1/3rd)

Kiwi (1 whole fruit inc skin)

Apple (1/2 a fresh green with skin, no pips)

Ginger (about an inch, fresh raw ginger root – skin off)

Water (COLD 240ml or more to acquired thickness)

METHOD:

Chop all the solid ingredients to chunks (you might want to leave the frozen avocado out a bit so easier to chop and blend), then add to blender  |  Add a good handful of raw baby spinach leaves to the chopped ingredients  |  Pour over the water to almost cover  |  BLEND (in the nutribullet we blend between 15-21 seconds)

Things to remember:

  • Try and use more vegetables than fruits in your green smoothie.  You don’t want too much sugar – even if its fruit sugar – at this time of the day otherwise you’re setting yourself up for a crash, a sugar slump, later on.  Saying that – if you are starting out with the smoothie blending and/or you naturally have a ‘sweet tooth’ start mixing fruits and veg and gradually replace the fruit to get to a higher ratio of veg to fruit as your tastes develop.
  • Try adding a splash of apple juice to the blend if you don’t like the texture of the blended apple it can be something you will get used to, but it can be bitty and separate easily, therefore the juice instead will sweeten the green smoothie a lot and give a better drinking texture
  • You can always use more/different greens – you can blend up any green veggies in theory – how about trying another few of our favorites from the list below for your next simple green smoothie:

Broccoli  |  Celery  |  Mangetout  |  Snow peas  |  Kale  |  Lettuce  |  Chicory  |  Asparagus

Nutrition Info:

  • In the green packed blend today you will find a huge vitamin C, antioxidant boost!  This comes from the KIWI fruit, which will also provide a healthy amount of both soluble fibre (the green part) and insoluble fibre (the skin and seeds)
  • You will also be lapping up a good hit of vitamin A from the SPINACH (remember this is great for your skin, hair and nails)
  • Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin – so blending this with the AVOCADO, will help the uptake of vit A in your body, while the good fats (ie about 10g of monounsaturated fat in half an avo) will also help in lowering bad cholesterol.
  • The avocado will also provide more fibre and holds vitamin B6 again good for skin, hair and nails, while it can also provide positive effects on PMT and hormone control.
  • GINGER of known more as a flavouring, and really will spice up your smoothie, but its also known for its anti sickness properties.  Its great for relieving nausea so if you’re suffering morning sickness, have a long journey ahead or are just feeling a bit queasy anytime ginger can help!

OK, well there you have it – the no nonsense nutrition, all the greens smoothie!  Have a go and let me know what you put in yours…  For more recipes grab our newsletter HERE and please share your lovely green smoothie pics and recipes with us via social – you can find us on:  FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER

@nononsensenita | #nononsensenita

Want to join us for further help, motivation, support and accountability? 

The annual GET FIT IN FEB  is starting soon!  This year we are extending the community via Facebook and will include healthy eating ideas, recipes, tips and tricks alongside the exercise and activity boosts! 

Please register your interest via Facebook message or by signing up to the newsletter HERE and we will send you further details of this upcoming FREE PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP.

 

Thirsty Thursday | Simple Green Smoothie Recipe

Looking for a fresh healthy start to the day in among the fabulous gluttony and excess of the festive period?  Then give this thirsty Thursday simple green smoothie a shot.  Or indeed have a shot at this super simple green smoothie.  Or in fact have a shot OF this fresh no nonsense green smoothie.  However you do it, here is the list of ingredients included in this one; including a money saving, time saving, labour saving, no nonsense cheat!

Start the day staring down the barrel of a smoothie straw into this blend:

INGREDIENTS:

Cucumber (1/3rd)

Fresh, raw baby spinach leaves (generous handful)

Frozen mango chunks (handful)

The fresh juice of half a lemon

JUICE – apple, red pepper, sweet potato

Water (approx 240mls / medium glass)

 

METHOD:

For the Juice:

Puree (or juice if you have a juicer) 3-4 large (red) apples, 1-2 medium red or orange pepper and 1 medium sweet potato (skin off).  Add the juice of half a lemon to keep this fresh.  As long as stored in an airtight container and refrigerated this will last up to 3 days but in all honesty there wont be much of it.

SO you could;

Buy apple, pepper and sweet potato juice ready made (I got mine in Tesco) *Just take note as we mentioned before if buying pre-made juices and smoothies, make sure you double check the ingredients list and the nutrition label for anything else added that may not agree with you, or for added/extra sugar or anything you cant pronounce!*  This one has apple puree, and the traffic light system label does show its higher in sugar than anything else, but these will be mainly fruit sugars from the apple and apple puree so not to worry too much.

For the green smoothie:

Chop the cucumber into blender

Add the frozen mango chunks

Add the spinach

Squeeze over the lemon juice

Pour over the apple, red pepper and sweet potato juice

Add the 240mls of water or enough to cover and to get the smoothie to your desired consistency

BLEND (adding more water as you go if needed)

 

You could also pop a carrot or 2 in the juice, or chop and add to the blender smoothie mix.  You could add some raw ginger for an extra kick.  You could pop some lettuce in there too – crisp round iceberg lettuce keeps it nice and fresh! Also have a mix up of the apple, pepper, sweet potato portions to balance the flavour to your liking.

 

Nutrition Information:

Why are we sharing the recipe?

  • It was a super simple tasty wake up
  • You can make the juice separately and keep that itself for about 3 days to use in other blends
  • Its super and simple and green and we might just need that fresh start at this time of year when we have finished everything else to excess….a good bit of fruit and veg can top vitamins and minerals up and keep  fibre flowing to keep your gut working (even when overloaded with Xmas)
  • VITAMIN A – can be found in all the main ingredients in this smoothie: especially sweet potato, red pepper and mango.  In fact if you’re looking for plant based sources of vitamin A  (these come in the form of beta-carotene that is converted in the body to vitamin A and used for the following) look for fruits and veggies that are red or orange or even yellow in colour.  Red bell peppers are bursting with it and 1 sweet potato (including the skin thats not used in this recipe) can give you up to 438% of your daily allowance compared a regular white potato only providing 1%.
  • Vitamin A and C (which is also found in most this smoothies ingredients) will help keep your immune system working against infection, keep your skin nice and clear and healthy and most importantly at this time of year vitamin A can help keep the lining of some body parts clear and healthy too – especially the nose.  Good to know for cold and flu season right?
  • People can be prescribed vitamin A topically or internally for conditions such as acne, wrinkles or dry eye so before you suffer any of those, top up on the vitamin A super boosting smoothie!

 

For more info, recipes and smoothie cheats check out the weekly digest HERE

See, like and follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Or contact us for more: info@nitakothari.com

 

Pepper and Sweet Potato Soup with Chilli

This week our Tasty Tuesday dinner is a home made delicious (even if I do say so myself) and comforting pepper, sweet potato and chilli soup.  Seriously easy to make – take the ingredients list, pop everything in a pan until its cooked then BLEND until you find the right consistency you love!

pepper soup with sweet potato and chilli - recipe

Full ingredients are also listed on our RECIPES tab

For more recipes and our blog, please sign up for the newsletter via the panel on the bottom right of this page!