Do your eyes a favor and visit the Green Kitchen Stories website. Their rich, vibrant photography will make your mouth water for fruits and veggies that even look healthier. This family-run site won Saveur's Best Special Diet Blog award in 2013, quite an honor and one that is not surprising when you visit the site. There is so much passion in each recipe, photograph, and story. David, Louise, and their daughter Elsa are vegetarians and have a unique approach to cooking simple meals made from wholesome ingredients. I encourage you to read more about them and their published books.
This week I had sisters Emma (left) and Jessica (right) in my kitchen to help review the newest GK Stories book, Green Kitchen Smoothies. Don't be fooled by the title - this book offers more than just smoothies. Overnight oats, juices, desserts, and snack foods are all represented. We chose to make 3 recipes: muesli, greens for all (smoothie), and an interesting fennel and berry smoothie.
First they made the muesli because it was the simplest recipe of the three. Oats, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, Just Right cereal, coconut, and dried spices were added to a mason jar. We used Just Right cereal because the recipe called for puffed and raw grains and this particular cereal has several types of puffed grains in it including corn, rice, and oats. It's also free from the allergens I need to avoid (dairy, nuts, peanuts, legumes) which makes it a rarity among healthy breakfast cereals.
All ingredients were shaken up in the mason jar, a minor spill happened, and we were on to recipe 2! The jar of muesli can store in your cupboard for months and is great for taking on the go, sprinkling over coconut milk yogurt, or tossed with fresh fruit.
How to cut a pineapple in 5 easy steps:
1. Approach with optimism - this isn't hard at all!
2. Now what? Wedge the knife in and see what happens...
3. Oh crap, it's really wedged in there *scene of slicing fingers runs through head*
4. Call Bran over to fix it for you. Very nice.
5. Ta daa!! It's just so simple!
After the pineapple debacle (I could have been more helpful but.. we like to keep it real in the EAF kitchen) we got to blending up the Greens for All smoothie. Pineapple, avocado, lime, spinach, and coconut milk, were added the Magic Bullet and pulsed until smooth. I have a bullet blender because it's very light weight, but you can use whatever blender you prefer.
The cleanup crew prepping for the next smoothie
Next we moved on to the fennel and berry smoothie. I eat raw fennel often but I've never had it blended into a smoothie before so this was a new twist for me. It was combined with orange segments, frozen mixed berries, ginger, and coconut milk (in place of almond milk) and blended up. For this recipe I would suggest using a more powerful blender that can really crunch up those fennel fibers. It tasted fantastic, very light and fresh, but we couldn't get the texture quite right and I think the challenge was the fennel strands.
Below is the finished lineup of GK Smoothies recipes. The Greens for All recipe was by far the favorite with it's creamy texture, and fresh, sweet taste. We stayed in theme by pairing these smoothies with a vegetarian dinner of roasted veggies and a simple salad.
What we loved about the book:
Very easy to follow and recipes were simple to execute
The photography is stunning!
The recipes tasted great and are very healthy
It was pretty easy to adjust the recipes to suit my allergies with simple substitutions like coconut milk in place of almond milk
You can pick up your copy here for $27.99, hardcover. The book will be available on August 2, 2016.
