Red Velvet Smoothie

While I was visiting my sister several weeks ago she recommended the cookbook "Superfood Smoothies" by Julie Morris. This cookbook is really outstanding. I've been really impressed with most of the recipes I've made and it's given me an excuse to blend up a storm with the Blendtec I got for Christmas. The only dud I've made is the cauliflower chocolate smoothie, but I guess I should have seen that one coming! The only downside I've seen to this book is that she sometimes uses ingredients that are neither easy to find nor easy on the wallet (camu powder? dried white mulberries?). However, I've found that the funky ingredients are pretty easy to work around.

One of my favorites was the "Red Velvet Cake" smoothie. This recipe gets its gorgeous color and bulk from cooked beets and it's flavored with cocoa powder, so basically you can't go wrong. I played around with this particular recipe and found that it works really well with dates. They add the perfect amount of sweetness. You can use a medium frozen banana or an alternate sweetener (honey, stevia, etc.) in place of the dates, but I think dates taste best.

Another favorite smoothie from the book is the Pineapple Watercress smoothie. While making it I had this crazy flashback to "green drink," a horrid concoction of pineapple juice, spinach, parsley, and celery my mom used to make when we were kids. I still vividly remember the texture and smell of that horrid drink and to this day it makes me shudder. Fortunately this version is actually quite delicious, but I was reminded that in the end we all become our parents, right? :)

This is really, really easy and it makes 1 large or 2 smallish smoothies. Add the following to your blender in this order: 4-5 seedless dates (1 ounce), 1/2 heaping cup of sliced roasted beets (tutorial below on how to roast beets), 3 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (optional), and 1 cup milk or milk alternative (almond coconut blend is my favorite). Blend for several minutes until it is completely smooth. Add about 1 1/2 cups of coconut ice (tutorial below) and blend until ice is combined and the smoothie is nice and frosty. Delicious!

A few tips: 

• I like to make this up in the evening and store overnight in the fridge, then just blend away in the morning. I tend towards laziness, so anything than can give me a few minutes extra sleep in the morning is a win in my book.   
• It is really easy to roast multiple beets at a time and they keep well in the fridge. It makes it easy to prep for this smoothie in advance. 
• Beets can be really messy so be careful when making this smoothie, especially when blending it and adding the ice. You don't want to have it splash everywhere and end up looking like an extra in a straight-to-DVD slasher movie. (Yes, that happened.) 
• You might skip serving this to your young children, or at least closely supervise them because: beets. 
• I haven't tried this, but I imagine you could use precooked beets from the grocery store, either canned (not pickled!!) or cooked beets from Trader Joes.

Coconut ice: Freeze coconut water in ice cube trays overnight. It stores easily in a ziplock bag for several weeks.

Roasting beets (this is also an excellent tutorial): Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Scrub a medium-sized beet and wrap in a double layer of foil and roast for about 30-40 minutes, or until soft and easily pierced with a knife.

Once the beets are soft, remove from the oven and let them cool for awhile. When they are cook enough to handle, put the beet in the middle of a paper towel and rub the skins off. They come off really well this way.