15 July 2010

red pepper smoothie

Don't you just love smoothies? They're cool, refreshing...and a great way to clean out your fridge. This time around, we had some red bell peppers that were down to their last days,  some frozen apple juice cubes, and about one serving of orange sherbet to get rid of. I combined them, added some filler, and made a fabulous smoothie.
You can see the red pepper chunks in the blender. The kids don't normally like bell peppers. I bought one of those Costco bags of mini bell peppers, hoping that the tiny size would be appealing. No luck. So Hubs and I did our best to eat them all, but I just got tired of them after a while.
  • So I threw in a banana. I almost always use bananas in smoothies. They're great for texture and nutrition. Their distinctive taste can be a little overpowering, so you have to make sure you have other strongly-flavored ingredients...unless you want a banana-flavored smoothie.
  • I added raspberries, as a "red herring" (pun intended) of sorts, so the secret red peppers wouldn't be the only red ingredient. I've got sleuthy kids, I tell ya.
  • I added the frozen apple juice cubes for temperature and texture, and a little apple juice to make the solid ingredients easier to blend.
  • Then the sherbet...to get rid of it and to have another camouflaging agent for those red peppers. (You could substitute this with yogurt.)
 The result was a pretty yummy smoothie. Upon first tastes, I got a smile from Miss H, and a confused look from J. I read it as, "What is in here? You're trying to pull one over on me, aren't you?"

He passed on the smoothie. 

But H and I enjoyed ours very much. 
Perfect for a hot summer day.