Wake Up and Smell the … Green Smoothie!!!!

I’ve been thinking about this post for weeks now, but this morning I could no longer put it off.

 

I used to LOVE coffee. Did you hear my emphasis? Yes, I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED coffee. And it still seems a bit strange to put that in the past tense as really I didn’t see myself as someone that drank coffee merely because I needed the caffeine or was in the habit or well for any reason except that I truly loved it. I was rather a coffee snob as well. Until the recent upgrade in our office break room to something wonderfully beyond the large thermal carafe for everyone to “enjoy,” I rarely even was tempted to indulge at work, and instead would detour through one of the local coffee stops prior to work or during a break (or bring and drink tea, but my love for tea is another post). During the past couple of years my once-a-week indulgence was an almond mocha made with soy milk, heavy on the chocolate to cover the soy flavor, and de-caf or at least half-caf because I really didn’t need want the caffeine. And one of my regular detours could make this specialty so good I thought it was a little bit of heaven.

 

My oldest daughter could order her own Mocha at ten, and I just smiled and thought of how I didn’t know what a Mocha really was until I was nearly thirty. (The coffee snob thing used to be only coffee and not all the sweetly steamed additions.) Now I wish I could somehow infuse her with the true energy I feel from my regular green smoothies — double-grande please, no detour required!

 

I’ve had a slow grieving process with moving my love of coffee into the past tense. Since committing to starting my day with a green smoothie I have tried to continue less frequent coffee indulgences. I told myself I was making the detour as a fun treat, and that indulging in the small size occasionally was simply part of moderation and balance. Moderation or not it actually became self-inflicted disappointment. That Mocha? The taste seemed burnt, sour, and not even the chocolate part lifted my taste buds. And there was no energy infusion of any type — natural or otherwise. I tried switching to Chai tea, and when the same disappointment followed I tried to believe it was just that that particular barista couldn’t make a good one. After telling myself that a half a dozen times, I decided maybe it was me and not them. Sometimes I still enjoy the smell of rich coffee, but I quite literally no longer crave it at all.

 

I’m still trying on this new identity of the non-coffee drinker. I still feel bad when someone offers me dark rich coffee, and I have to decline.

 

And on mornings like this one there is still a reflex deep within my psyche that immediately says, “maybe today I’ll have a cup of coffee.” Then I get up, try to keep my eyes open during ten minutes of light therapy (Go Light, light box), drink some water and bounce on my rebounder for at least a few minutes, and get in the shower. Then as if by body memory I pull out some greens and look around to see what fruit I have to work with (I’m not a morning person so I seriously may not remember what was clearly there the night before), and start blending. I see, smell, and sometimes can’t help but taste the ingredients. And I smile.

 

And I don’t even realize that all thoughts of coffee have disappeared…

 

It wasn’t easy dragging my butt out of bed this morning and to make it even more challenging my daughter felt the same way. I had had thoughts of experimenting with some type of “chai” flavored green smoothie this morning, but I neglected to prepare the night before, so I opted for nourishing and simply satisfying instead. I’ve been craving salt lately and more than that I swear I literally crave minerals. Either way I decided to experiment with throwing some celery into a smoothie that was otherwise supposed to be sweet. My family would have turned up their noses and wondered why I ruined a perfectly good smoothie, but I thought it turned out perfectly wonderful. Since I also made it icy cold I thought there was no way I could finish the entire quart on my way to work. I was wrong.

 

My Sweet and Salty Simple Smoothie:

• 1/2 stalk celery
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup water (or slightly less if you like it thick)
• 6 leaves of beet greens
• 1 cup frozen mango (or more or less to taste)
• 1 cup ice

I blended the celery, bananas, water, greens and half the mango first. After that was super smooth I added the ice and the rest of the mango and blended again. In reality it was 2 whirls through the “smoothie” cycle on my Blendtec, and a few pulses. It actually made slightly more than a quart so I had to eat a bit with a spoon to empty the blender.

 

I tried to tempt my 3-year-old with a few spoonfuls before heading off to daycare with her. Unfortunately she wasn’t in the mood, and even my telling her I had made it like ice-cream this time didn’t succeed. (For the record, she used to slurp them down as fast as I could make them months ago, but in addition to being super picky, she tends to go in streaks with what she’ll eat.)