Category Archives: Smoothies

Oat milk for smoothies

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I wrote about making almond milk some years ago, and whilst I love almond milk, it’s expensive. We drink a lot of smoothies in our house, and I usually add some sort of non-dairy milk to them. Not because I don’t have dairy – I do, and how! – but I just prefer nut/oak milks in my smoothies; so, in an attempt to make something cheaper,  and to avoid shop-bought ‘mylks’ I tried making my own oat milk. Plenty of people do and it’s so simple I urge you to give it a try.

The basics is one part oat flakes to four parts water, and then, depending on taste and how much you make you can add some vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, or a date for a bit of sweetness. If you use one cup as the measurement, I use a teaspoon of vanilla extract, one date, half a teaspoon of salt. So you can increase or decrease those measurements to suit the quantity you make. But, increasingly I make it using just oats and water. I make it about 1L at a time (I make mine quite thick and then dilute with water at point of making) so it’s pretty fresh. It keeps for a few days in the fridge. It might need a shake/stir before using.

Take your one part of oats (say one cup, in fact I use my 1/3rd cup measurement as that is what works for my bottle), add four parts water, blend for 30-60seconds depending on your blender. You can strain it in through a fine cloth (I do) or in fact just use as is. I don’t find there’s much left behind in the cloth but I do have a ‘super blender’, which basically turns oats to dust.

I felt so disproportionately pleased with myself for saving money making this, I went out and bought a fancy bottle to put it in, thereby completely wiping out this week’s savings.  But I think the presentation is important…

 

Milk shake mix-ins

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This is a great way to use up scrappy bits of ice cream ‘n’ bits you may have, or just to amuse yourself for five minutes in the kitchen – it’s permissible to buy ice cream just to make these, too.

I got the idea from an ice cream shop in Aldeburgh called The IceCreamery – which is well worth a visit if you are in the area. Here you select your ice cream ‘base’ – vanilla, chocolate, strawberry etc., then add a ‘mix in’. And here’s where it gets fun, and slightly diabetic-inducingly crazy.

The mix-ins can be M&Ms, Jaffa Cakes, Oreos and a million other alternatives, and these get added/crushed into your ice cream to give you a custom-made ice cream.

Or you can have it made into a milk shake.

My eldest chose vanilla and Oreos and my youngest chose chocolate and M&Ms. I watched, in awe/horror as about four scoops of ice cream were put into a mixer and then – in the case of the M&Ms – a WHOLE PACKET of M&Ms were put in. I would never, in a million years, let my youngest (who is tiny) eat a whole packet of M&Ms in one go, let alone with four scoops of ice cream.

But I had to metaphorically shut my eyes and switch off my inner mummy-OMG-ness and just go with it.

The milk shake was amazing, I hesitate to say the best ever as of course the best ever milk shakes were those my dad made for me in his cafe, when I was a child. But aside from that:

BEST EVER.

The vanilla and Oreos was particularly memory-hogging.

So when I got home I sought to recreate these but using less ice cream and less mix-ins and the way I make them isn’t more calorie-laden than a regular ice cream in a cone, I put two scant ice cream scoops in my Nutribullet, with some milk and some mix-ins (like one cookie if it’s an Oreo, maybe one and a half) and blend the whole thing together.  So far we’ve done:

Strawberry ice cream with fresh mint

Strawberry ice cream with Milky Way Magic stars

Chocolate and fresh mint

Coffee ice cream with Oreos

Vanilla and Oreos

Vanilla and Milky Way Magic stars

Vanilla and jam ‘doughnut’ sponge crumbs (these were left over from some Nigella jam doughnut muffins which my eldest made which stuck to the tin and I scraped out and froze and I add them straight into the mix and it works beautifully).

Chocolate and peanut butter……you get the idea.

Of course I had to buy the special cups and lids and straws.

26 July 2016 update: I made raspberry cheesecake milkshakes today: vanilla ice cream, frozen jam doughnut sponge crumbs, fresh raspberries, milk and a dollop cream cheese. DELICIOUS. I didn’t have one (just tasted it) otherwise I’d be the size of a house come the weekend with all the milk-shaking we have going on..

 

 

The Nutribullet

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Ours is not a house short on gadgets. This is due to many things. We cook and bake a lot. My partner and I were fully formed adults when we joined households and we both cook and bake a lot, as I just said, and we had our own homes. So when we threw our lot in together, we discovered we now had four sieves, 12 pans that all did the same thing, 25 wooden spoons etc.

We have a juicer, a blender, a grinder (two actually), two ice cream machines, a food processor, a food mixer, a dehydrator, a stick blender with enough attachments to build a robot man…you get the idea. And we/I use all of them. Regularly.

So did I need a Nutribullet?

Strictly speaking no. There’s lots of talk about how it busts open the cells in your food. Sounds fabulous! But that’s what your teeth do and also, that’s what any good blender will do.

And make no mistake, the Nutribullet is a blender. That’s it.

But this is why it’s good and this is why I’ve used mine every day since I got it at Christmas.

The foot print is tiny (14cm) compared to that of any other blender that I know of. So it sits on the work surface and you’ll use it.

It’s unbelievably simple to clean. You just rinse the blade part under hot water and put it on the draining board and stick the cup part in the dishwasher if you have one, if not that is so easy to clean, too. If you do this immediately after you’ve made your smoothie you don’t need to do anything else. I have a toothbrush I use to clean any bits that get stuck under the blades, occasionally, but that’s it. No seals to take off like on my other blender (a 1000W machine).

And those really are the two reasons why it’s great. It’s easy to use and easy to clean. What more do you want? It comes with another blade – a grinder – which I use to make things like oat flour (just chuck in porridge oats or oatmeal). The Nutribullet comes in two versions, a 600W one, which is what I have, and a 900W one which costs 50% more.

You get two blades and various container ‘cups’  (the large one is the one I use most) in the smaller version, three blades and various other gizmos in the larger version. I’m sure you can decide which one, if either, is right for you. It costs about £100 for the 600W version, £150 for the other one.

I got mine (with my press discount of 20% which I’ve had for 20 years) from Lakeland which offers a life time guarantee on everything (or at least it used to but this now seems to have disappeared from its website so I’ve asked them to clarify) *.

I use it every day to make smoothies of varying degrees of “Gwyneth-ness” and my children have one every morning (God we are so GOOD). If you need some smoothie inspiration see my drop down menu on the right for ‘smoothies’.

*And Lakeland did:

“Thank you for getting in touch to ask about our guarantee.

We’ve recently changed the wording on our guarantee but it’s still the same Lakeland ethos.

Our guarantee states ‘We’re only happy when you’re happy’. So if you’re not delighted with your purchase or our service, please tell us so that we can put it right.

So, if at any time, you feel the product hasn’t given you value for money or develops a fault we’ll be happy to help.”

 

Zingy green smoothie: cucumber, spinach, apple, mint, lime, ginger

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I know there are loads of debates about smoothies and how much sugar they contain. I agree that you should consume more vegetables than fruit. But, if you eat the whole fruit – either by actually eating it or blitzing it into a smoothie – then you get lots of fibre (both insoluble and soluble), vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The rise in diabetes isn’t due to people eating too much fruit in its whole, natural form; it’s eating too much refined sugar in sugary drinks and too many refined carbs that busts your pancreas.

Anyway, this smoothie is really zingy and my partner loved it, but my youngest struggled with it – she prefers something that contains banana/berries at its base.

I always put a cube of frozen spinach into my smoothies. Okay, not always, but mostly.

Anyway, for this one you need, for four small glasses:

About 20g frozen spinach (or fresh of course)

Half a thumb size of ginger – be careful, if it’s fresh and good it’ll be quite powerful. I used half a thumb size and it was a bit too much for the children, adults loved it though

The juice of one lime

Half a bunch of mint, you know those bunches you get in the supermarket that cost about 85p (rip off)

Half a small cucumber, washed, not peeled and cut into chunks

One medjool date to bump up the sweetness and fibre a bit but you can leave this out

Apple juice. I get mine from our local farmer’s market, it’s really good but if you can’t get really good apple juice then blend in an apple (not the pips) and some water

Put all the ingredients in a blender/Nutribullet and taste it: because lime sizes vary and the recipe isn’t precise, you may need to add that date, or a bit more apple juice or water or cucumber. The ginger and mint are strong tastes, the cucumber calms it all down, the apple juice adds liquid and sweetness.

i think this would be really good if you had a cold. I can still feel the zingy effects over an hour later.

 

Making your own almond milk

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Although we all eat everything in this house, we do also try to mix things up a bit. In smoothies, especially green ones, I stay away from dairy, but often want something a bit more luxurious than water.

Enter almond milk. You can buy almond milk, of course, and we do, but it tends to be full of stuff I don’t recognise and it contains just 2% almonds. So we make our own when possible and it’s really easy, nutritious and super tasty but not, I should add, cheaper than buying ready made. I like to use this in iced coffee (even though the base is dairy) to add a lovely nutty dimension to the finished drink.

Anyway, this is what you do:

Get 250g almonds, skin on and put them in a container that will fit in the fridge, cover with water and leave overnight. When you are ready to make the almond milk, drain the almonds, give them a rinse then put them in a powerful blender with 700-800ml of clean fresh water and blend up until all mushed up – it takes about 30 seconds.

Take out this sludge and place it on a muslin, in a sieve, over a bowl. Let it drain and then gather up the muslin and give the nuts a squeeze to get the most out. What comes out is almond milk (and you can use this method to make hazelnut, cashew etc milk too) – store it in a big jar/bottle in the fridge and it will keep for a few days (probably up to a week but I’ve never kept it that long). Stir it up before you use it and if you like, you can add a bit of vanilla extract to it for an extra bit of flavour.

The nut residue you have left in the muslin can be used in bread, biscuits, soup, smoothies, porridge or ice cream. If you don’t use it straight away put it in the fridge for a day or two or even freeze it to use later. Whatever you do don’t throw it away!

My breakfast smoothie

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Seriously, like we need another picture of a green smoothie. But, nevertheless, here is mine.

But I wanted to share this because I think it’s so nice, it’s healthy but it’s not so scary that it alienates perfectly ordinary people, like me and you. I absolutely love it and will either have it first thing (after my mad Italian woman habit of lemon and psyllium husks in hot water), or after I’ve had a ‘proper’ breakfast and at about 11am. Depending on what time I have it I will vary the ingredients. I don’t add spinach if it’s too early because WTF am I turning into? But. My big discovery is frozen spinach. The one you get chopped up in ‘pods’. This way you don’t have bags of fresh spinach going off in the salad drawer (yuk) mocking you; it’s always fresh, and adds a nice cold element to the smoothie.

There are three key ingredients, to my mind, to make this smoothie really nice and friendly. And those are the almond butter, the cinnamon (who would have thought I’d become obsessed with cinnamon?) and the dates which must be those lovely expensive medjool dates. I buy mine from the market and £3 worth last me, easily, all week. I would probably also add banana as a must have. Remember that if you don’t fancy a whole banana, you can freeze it, chopped up in pieces, in a box in the freezer to add to subsequent smoothies.

So this is my basic smoothie:

One and a half medjool dates, two if you like

One banana, nice and ripe if possible

One teaspoon of cinnamon – don’t skimp on this

A big old tablespoon of almond butter

Handful of blueberries

200ml or so of almond milk or milk of your choice. I fill it up to the ‘max’ on my Nutribullet container. If you like a thicker smoothie add less, if you like it runnier add more etc.

You can blend it up now for a minute or so until smooth. But, if you want to ramp up the nutrient content you can add any, or all, of the following.

quarter of a teaspoon of spirulina

half a tablespoon of linseeds

big pinch of hemp seeds

1-2  tablespoons of oat flakes

some kefir if you culture it – I add two tablespoons

a pod of frozen spinach

The spirulina makes everything go really green. Don’t be scared. And you don’t have to add it if you don’t want to.

Just remember to blend until really smooth. I do it for about 30-45 seconds in my Nutribullet.

This fills you up for, ooh, maybe 30 minutes. Seriously it doesn’t fill me up for long in that ‘full up’ way. But I do feel REALLY good after drinking it. Until I pollute my body with a cappuccino. Sssh.

 

A chocolatey coffee warming smoothie for the morning

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Something you may not know about me, I eat really healthily a lot of the time. I drink green smoothies with my children when they come home from school. I regularly fast. This is to mitigate when I do eat sugar, butter and flour made into cake and cookie form. But since I got into nutrition in a major way in 2002 even the crap I eat is pretty good. I think what you put into your body is really important.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and I’m not here to sound super worthy cos I don’t want anyone to visit my blog and feel bad about themselves. I know all about that, too.

Anyway. However much I may like green smoothies, there is no way on God’s earth I am eating one first thing in the morning, in winter. It just all feels too cold and unfriendly. I never feel hungry first thing in the morning, and yet sometimes I must leave the house for a full day of knitting words together into meaningful sentences. And I can’t do that on an empty head. Sometimes I need something nutritious, quick, easy to go down and that, even if it doesn’t fill me up til lunch (few things do), I will know that I’ve had some nutrition that morning.

I got this recipe from Dale Pinnnock’s Healthy Everyday book. I haven’t really made much else from it, but my interest in the book piqued when I read this recipe and it involved both chocolate and coffee. I thought, here is a my kinda book, a man who understands that to be healthy you don’t need to be eating cardboard.

I have adapted it slightly to suit my selfish needs and despite the milk making it ‘cold’, it somehow manages to be warming at the same time.

(no picture yet but there will be soon)

225ml almond milk (this is what I use but oat milk should work well too)

1 banana

1 heaped tablespoon of raw cacao – this is my favourite bit and I really do put a heaped tablespoon in. It’s worth buying raw cacao in bulk as it works out cheaper than really high quality cocoa from the supermarket and it’s much better for you.

2 heaped tablespoons of oats

4 almonds

1 teaspoon of raw honey or maple syrup

1 shot of espresso

a quarter of teaspoon of cayenne pepper (essential!)

You just put the whole lot into a blender (I use a Nutribullet) and whizz up until really smooth and drink it. YUM.