As we leap into the new year I know that many of my family and friends are ready to kick start some new healthful habits. Why not try adding in a few “green” smoothies to your week to ramp up your fruit and veggie intake? Check out my bright, tart, but still sweet and addicting Totally Terrific Tart Cherry Smoothie! (Try saying that three times fast!!!)
I take Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate daily as a health supplement to treat the symptoms of my Inflammatory Arthritis. It is loaded with antioxidants which help to combat the inflammation in my body that causes my joints to swell up. Since I love to cook and use my hands it is important that I keep my hands as limber as I can. There was a point last summer where I could barely bend my fingers 🙁 But thanks to Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate, other supplements and daily hand exercises my fingers are doing tremendously better.
Since I take the delightful elixir daily, I thought why not try adding it to a green smoothie? And I am so happy I did because the results are – DELICIOUS and nutritious 😉
Necessities:
1 cup water
1 cup frozen sweet dark cherries
1/2 of a small banana
2 cups baby spinach
2 Tablespoons Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate*
* I use Stanton Orachards because I’m from Michigan and love supporting small businesses from my home state, but any brand will work – just make sure you are getting concentrate. This can usually be found in the fresh juice area of the grocery store, often near the produce department. It is also readily available online, like this one. Disclaimer: it is expensive, but a little bit goes a loooong way – I highly recommend you give it a try.
Method:
If you have a high powered blender such as a Vitamix, Blendtec or Ninja, you can get away with just dumping everything in and blending until smooth. If you don’t have a high powered blender have no fear, you can still make awesome green smoothies.
I recommend adding the water, cherry juice concentrate and spinach and blending until you no longer see chunks of spinach – you don’t want to have to chew your smoothie; this may take up to a minute. Stop the blender and add in the remaining ingredients and blend again until smooth.
P.S. Ignore the hard water stains all over my Vitamix pitcher – we use it daily and have really hard water, so no matter how hard I scrub it always looks a bit cloudy.
Now this “green” smoothie won’t really look green. But I promise it’s super good for you and that is why I refer to it as a green smoothie. See – it actually looks like a dark chocolaty brown.
This recipe make two 8 oz smoothies. I always drink one and then bottle the other to drink the next day. Believe it or not fresh smoothies will last for 2-3 days in the refrigerator – who knew?!
The next day it may look like the liquid is sitting on the bottom and the solids have risen to the top. Because, well, that is exactly what has happened 😉
Just shake, shake, shake and drink up! It’s still chocolaty brown and terrifically tasty!
I hope you give this a try and let me know what you think. Until next time – Happy Blending!