The Blender Girl Smoothies: 100 Gluten-Free, Vegan, and Paleo-Friendly Recipes - Softcover

Masters, Tess

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1607748932 ISBN 13: 9781607748939

Publisher: Ten Speed Press, 2015

Synopsis

A beautiful collection of vegan smoothies from powerhouse blogger The Blender Girl, featuring photographs, flavor boosters, and nutritional add-ons for every recipe. 

The Blender Girl takes smoothies to the next level in this comprehensive guide, helping you blast your way to good health and blended bliss. These 100 creative and delicious recipes are designed to fit your every need, whether you want to detox, lose a few pounds, get energized, or guard against seasonal colds. Each smoothie has three optional boosters (like chia seeds, ginger, coconut oil, or wheat grass) that allow you to ramp up flavor, nutrient value, or both. Featuring gorgeous photography throughout, a smoothie pantry that demystifies unusual ingredients, icons to identify smoothies that fit your particular dietary needs, and strategies for achieving smoothie success, this accessible handbook makes it fun and easy to find your perfect blend.

About this title

About the Author

Australian-born Tess Masters is a writer, actor, voiceover artist, and self-professed blendaholic. She shares her enthusiasm for healthy living at theblendergirl.com.

As a presenter and recipe developer, Tess collaborates with leading food, culinary, and lifestyle brands. She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Real Simple, Thrive, Vegetarian Times, Living Without, Allergic Living, and New Idea; and online for Today, Shape, Glamour, Food Network, Parents, and Chow, among other publications and websites.

Away from the blender, Tess enjoys a diverse performance career. She has toured internationally with stage productions, worked in film and television, and lent her voice to commercial campaigns, audiobooks, and popular videogame characters. Tess and her partner, Scott Brick, live in Studio City, California, with their West Highland white terrier (and blender-cuisine maven), Cookie.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Six steps to spectacular smoothies

A basic smoothie contains three essential components: liquid, base, and the chill factor (ice, frozen fruit, or chilled liquid). The Pink Cooler (page 18) is a great example of a simple smoothie with just two ingredients. In this blend, watermelon provides the liquid and frozen strawberries combine with the melon to provide the base flavor as well as the chill factor. 

step 1: start with a liquid
A 32-ounce (960ml; 2 servings) smoothie typically requires about 2 cups (480ml)
of liquid (choose one type or a combination of types, depending on your other ingredients). If your blend contains high-water-content foods like watermelon, cucumber, orange, or other types of melon, you may need little or no liquid. 

step 2: choose your base
Add 2 to 3 cups (320 to 480g) of base ingredients to the liquid. Your base can be a single flavor or a combination of several ingredients. 

step 3: get creamy or frosty
I think a creamy or frosty texture is a nonnegotiable element of a great smoothie. Select one item (or sometimes two) from the Cream list (page 10) in the quantities specified, then turn to The Smoothie Pantry on page 219 to choose complementary ingredients. If your base ingredients already deliver a creamy or frosty texture (for example, banana, mashed vegetables, or frozen fruits), you may not need to add anything from the Cream list. 

step 4: go green
For maximum nutrition and to alkalize blends, I highly recommend adding some leafy greens. The greens section of The Smoothie Pantry will help you incorporate these with great success. 

steps 5 and 6: boost your nutrition and add the magic
Boosters and what I call magic ingredients are optional, but they really increase the nutritional profile of any smoothie and amp up the wow factor. You could pick several items each from the Boosters and Magic lists (page 11) and get incredible results. Again, use The Smoothie Pantry as a guide for pairing flavors. Once you’ve tried the recipes in this book, and used the boosters and magic ingredients suggested, I bet they’ll become must-haves for you, too. After all, these aren’t six steps to basic smoothies—they’re six steps to spectacular smoothies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1607748932
• ISBN 13: 9781607748939
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256