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.
