Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Smoothed and Refreshed!

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
♥ Strawberry & Orange Juice Smoothies
Following days of warmer weather and an addiction to smoothies, we enjoyed a refreshing (and cheap!) home-made low-fat, low-sugar and dairy-free version of smoothies. This should really be refered to as an ice crush or frappe or in mandarin 'bing sha' (crushed ice as smooth as sand) because I have no added any milk of any types nor is there any ice-cream or sorbet.

I became a member of the smoothies addict society after sampling a chocolate smoothies (minus the banana) earlier this year. It's sweet (very!), cold and smooths down your throat easily. Perfect for a hot day when you just don't want to eat anything. Last year, we saw the mushrooming of other juice (and smoothies) bars.

And then I finally woke up and realised these smoothies are as deadly as any other sinful sweets. Think ice-cream. Think cakes! True, the smoothies are low fat. But what about the high sugar content? You consume as much as 2 large scoops of frozen yogurt in just one large smoothies. Not to mention there are fruit juices with little nutritional value and a few miserably tiny amount of frozen fruits inside. I might be touching on sensitive topic here and probably have offended smoothies lover out there. If so, I am sorry. This is merely one tiny opinion among the vast ocean out there. So to speak, I still buy smoothies every now and then.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
♥ Mango Smoothies
I find having some frozen fruits and some juices in the fridge very useful. The mango smoothies was whipped up just a little before midnight. It was very hot and we were a little restless. The smoothies helped calm us down a bit.

What I did was take a cup and fill it about 70-80% full with ice cubes. Then add juices or milk of your choice (I used orange juice) until the cup is full. Empty the content into a blender. Make sure you blender has blade that can crush ice. Then add chopped frozen fruits, about one big handful or more if you like. A generous drizzle of honey. You can omit this if you want but the smoothies won't be as smooth. Lid on then blend. You might find you need to add a little more juice if it is hard to blend. Blend until smooth. Voila! Instant healthy ice-cold fruit refreshment! If you are like, you can also add sorbet or ice-cream and even yogurt to make the smoothies richer and creamier.

We have also tried making green tea frappucino using vanilla protein shake powder, maccha powder and green tea ice-cream. It was just divine except that the vanilla was a little on the heavy end. Too bad no pics here. Drank it all before I remember to take out my camera. Next up, I might try to make myself a "real" chocolate smoothies or even mocha smoothies with real chocolate! The combination of pineapple, orange juice, lemon juice and mint is great too! ;-)