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Saturday, February 9, 2013

Kale, Pineapple, and Almond Milk Smoothie

First and foremost, I found out yesterday that one of my favorite magazines, Whole Living, will no longer be published.  I received a check in the mail from Martha Stewart Omnimedia that said it was for a cancellation of my Whole Living subscription.  When I called them to find out why I had received the check, they said that the January/February issue was their last issue.  Then I got a message on my Kindle stating that they are going to try to incorporate certain aspects of Whole Living into other Martha Stewart Omnimedia magazines.  So sad :(

One of my favorite things about Whole Living has been their healthy recipes.  I am planning on doing their Whole Living Challenge from previous years later this month.  In the meantime, I thought I'd check out some of their smoothie recipes.

I had most of the ingredients on hand to make the Kale, Pineapple, and Almond Milk Smoothie from Whole Living.



Kale, Pineapple, and Almond Milk Smoothie
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 cup packed chopped kale
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup diced pineapple (I used frozen pineapple because I really wanted that nice frozen texture)
1 banana

Puree ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Only 3 Weight Watchers points!!!


Here are the ingredients in the blender before I mixed them:


Here is how it looks after mixing it:


Review:
The smoothie was surprisingly good.  I was worried about mixing the almond milk and the pineapple juice together.  In retrospect, I would have probably blended the pineapple juice and kale together first before adding the other ingredients.  If you are trying to get a good consistency and keep blending (which is what I normally do), the almond milk gets a little too frothy when over-blended   Also, I would leave out the banana.  I like bananas plain, but not added in smoothies.  It overpowered the pineapple, in my opinion.  When I make this again, I will most likely add more pineapple in place of the banana.

I would probably also slightly freeze my almond milk and pineapple juice.  I really like a cold frozen smoothie texture.  It makes me feel like I'm eating dessert instead of veggies and fruit.

It also said that it makes two servings.  I filled a standard glass up and still had about 1/4 cup left over.  This would probably make a great size adult meal serving instead of two servings.  If you are only drinking it as a snack, it is definitely enough for two people.

I supplemented my smoothie with some Lacinato kale chips.  I had some extra kale left over from my smoothie and didn't want it to go bad.


I liked using the Lacinato kale instead of the curly kale this time.  Although I do love the fun texture of the curly kale, this kale cooked more evenly since it was flat.  I lightly brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled it with sea salt.  I baked it for about 10-15 minutes in a 325 degree oven.  Here's a picture of my finished product (please excuse the crappy cell phone pic):


If you try this recipe out, please let me know what you think of it and any modifications you plan on making to it in the future.  I always love to hear other opinions.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! I was looking for comments on the combination of pineapple and almond milk and here you are :)

    I use a Vitamix and so once I gathered from you that the combination was fine, I threw some kale, pineapple, mint, ginger, ground flax seed, some protein powder and then the almond milk. It was surprisingly good even though the concept scared me a little!

    Sorry about your magazine loss. Always sad when a favorite magazine bites the dust.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the comment. I am definitely jealous of your Vitamix. I hear such wonderful things about them that I am considering purchasing one. And I definitely will have to try out your smoothie recipe. I'm not a mint or ginger person, but I'll try anything once. Did you throw in a piece of ginger or just some ground spice?

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    2. i bought the nutribullet and i think it works great and i really give it work out with a variety of items, and such little waste and clean up.

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    3. Thank you for the feedback. I bought a Magic Bullet, but it doesn't seem to chop up the frozen fruits and some of the seeds like I would like. I wish I had spent my money on the Nutri Bullet instead. I'll have to add it to my "To Buy" list.

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