Sunday, December 2, 2012

Welcome to summer: A collection of smoothies

The 1st December marked the official start of summer here in Australia. (We do our season changes at the start of the month, in contrast to the northern hemisphere.) With temperatures soaring in the Eastern states last week, and set to rise sharply in Western Australia this week, it does feel like summer is here and here to stay.

Given my dislike of temperatures above 30'C, I am repeating a mantra of "only two more summers until we move to England".

I am also reminding myself of how much I like summer fruit, the joy of frozen fruit ice cream on a hot summer afternoon, and the luxurious slide of a chilled smoothie down one's parched, hot throat.

I am definitely not thinking about the joy of being wrapped up inside with a book and a hot drink while rain patters on the window. Not thinking about that at all.

For my fellow Australians, here are six smoothie ideas to help kick off your summer. For those of you in wintery countries, you can enjoy these too - I actually made all of these over winter / spring myself. Just rug up warm, drink them near a heat source, and have a hot drink on stand-by for afterwards.


The smoothies are listed in a rough order that takes you from 'basic stand by' to 'could pass as dessert'. I have listed the milk I used for each one but you can substitute in any milk you like. If making these in a blender, just combine the ingredients and process. If using a food processor, leave the liquid out until the other ingredients are processed, and then add the liquid in gradually, so that it doesn't splash out the sides. I don't have a high-power blender so tend to use my food processor; even with that, my spinach is sometimes less processed than I might like!

All ingredient sets serve one, and err towards a small serve. Double ingredients if you like your smoothies served larger.


Banana-free green smoothie with strawberries
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup baby spinach leaves
~10 medium strawberries, stems removed and frozen (~1/2 cup)
1 tsp vanilla



Banana-free green smoothie with strawberries

Green smoothie with a hint of orange and vanilla
(I made this after juicing two oranges for Mr Bite and being left with orange pulp)
3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup baby spinach leaves
1 large banana, frozen
~2 tbsp orange pulp, or fresh orange or orange juice
Few drops vanilla essence
~1 tbsp hemp seeds or chia seeds (optional)

Green smoothie with a hint of orange and vanilla

Raspberry mint smoothie with hemp seed milk
3/4 cup hemp seed milk (or milk of choice; the hemp seed variety gives a slight nuttiness)
3/4 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup baby spinach leaves
2 fresh mint leaves (roughly chopped if your blender isn't as efficient as it could be)

Raspberry mint smoothie with hemp seed milk


Caffeinated banana pineapple smoothie
1 cup soy milk
1 medium banana, frozen,
1/2 cup (drained) tinned pineapple
1 tsp instant coffee powder

Caffeinated banana pineapple smoothie


Strawberry ice cream smoothie 
(this really did taste like strawberry ice cream!)
3/4 - 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 medium banana, frozen
4 medium strawberries, stems removed
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberry ice cream smoothie

Strawberry mint smoothie with coconut
3/4 - 1 cup soy milk
1 medium banana, frozen
4 medium strawberries, stems removed
2 fresh mint leaves (roughly chopped if your blender isn't as efficient as it could be)
1 tbsp oats
1 tbsp dessicated coconut


You may notice that none of these are very 'green', in the sense that leafy vegetables don't feature highly. My lack of a high-power blender makes spinach the only vegetable I can smoothie-fy, but I do have a very green drink to share later in the week (I thought it deserved a post all of its own!).

Tell me - what is your favourite smoothie at the moment?

For another collection of smoothie recipes, see Theresa's post from last summer at The Tropical Vegan.

38 comments:

  1. I can't believe you don't like the heat!! I need a HOT climate or I go crazy.... that's why I moved from NZ. I didn't know you are moving to England, that's exciting - whereabouts and why?

    These smoothies sound great - I don't have a high speed blender either, so I like your idea for trying these in a food processor, thanks :)

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    1. London, probably, in about 18 months :-) My current job is a 4 year position that ends in May 2014, so we are hoping to move around then. Mr Bite and I have both independently wanted to move across but never managed it, so we decided to make it a firm plan and commit to it. We both love England and I have lots of family there (and he is similarly averse to hot weather!).

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  2. Kari did I miss that fact that you were moving in a couple of summers? That's a bit exciting...and err cooler. I completely agree it's far too hot in this country come summer time. Yesterday was....meltable round these parts. Thankfully today was a lot cooler. Hot weather does scream for more smoothies though, I should get on that hippity hop.

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    1. I think I mentioned it in passing a few times so it probably was easy to miss :-) It is exciting and now starting to seem rather soon - 18 months (about the time) will fly by I think. We do still love Australia but hope to have at least a couple of years over there.

      I hope your weather is more manageable this week!

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  3. I've got some almond milk in the fridge and I'm going to try almond milk, spinach and berries. I just don't want the spinach making the colour odd though !

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    1. Berries usually do a good job of masking it! It can end up a little murky looking but not normally bright green :) I hope you enjoy it!

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  4. Enjoy your summer. I am waiting for the snow to fall and winter to kick in around here! Instead of smoothies I will be cuddling up with hot chocolate and tea whenever possible! :-)

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  5. Smoothies are so very good in the heat. That's a good selection there. I don't mind the heat. I much prefer it to the cold. I'm not sure I could survive in the UK. It seems to bleak xx

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    1. Then you are definitely in the right country :-) Having missed your summer last year, I hope you get some warmer weather and sunshine in Sydney this year xx

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  6. I don't think I have ever had a smoothie, but these all look delicious. Very exciting news about your future move.

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    1. Truly?? Oh, you have to have one! They are really great in summer, I sometimes have big ones for breakfast and quite often have smaller ones as snacks.

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  7. These are wonderful recipes!! Smoothies are great, aren't they? It's been awhile since I last had one. I like anything with strawberries and bananas. I wanna try your raspberry mint smoothie just to spice things up ;)

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    1. I really enjoyed that one :) I love strawberries too and bananas always make them creamy!

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  8. I love, love, love smoothies! Thanks for sharing your recipes- they all look yummy. Kind of jealous that it's your summer too :-)

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    1. Mm, sorry about that! I hope you're doing lots of fun winter things at least :)

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  9. -11 MINUS ELEVEN BEFORE IT IS EVEN WINTER YOU STOP YOUR COMPLAINING MISSY.

    Love you.

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    1. Bahahaha.

      That really is quite extreme though. I am not sure you picked the most ideal country, weather wise, for this new move across the world thing! I hope you have warm clothes aplenty and hot chocolate aplenty and heating aplenty.

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    2. Yes, let's talk again when it's a straight week of -20 and I haven't found the courage to crawl out of bed.

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    3. If that happens, I think an emergency intervention will be required of a truckload of socks and hot water bottles and thermal heating devices xx

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  10. Anything with berries is my idea of a smoothie, I just love them. Although I must admit I rarely have them, they are so filling they are a meal for me. Personally while I'm thanking all my lucky stars for access to airconditioning, I do love the heat. However I will say that I am lucky in Canberra we have dry heat which is much easier to cope with than humidity.

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    1. We have dry heat - and I share your relief at that! I am always astounded how much hotter things feel when it is humid. Ugh.

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  11. I love the idea of adding mint to a smoothie! Smoothies are the one thing I don't experiment with much, at the moment they are banana, mango, blueberry and pineapple. I need to try some green smoothies soon, especially as I won a green smoothie recipe e-book on Theresa's blog and haven't made anything from it yet!

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    1. My green smoothies are so minimally green that I truly don't notice any difference in taste - it's an easy way to up vegetable intake when done that way! I don't use mango enough in smoothies so may need to replicate your current version soon :)

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  12. Theses smoothies look great! I am always a fan of a berry smoothie! Am a big fan of smoothies, fullstop, during the summer months!

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    1. They do go so well with summer! Thanks Ali :-)

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  13. Love smoothies! One of my favorite smoothies is a coconut mango. Half of a frozen banana, 1/2 cup of frozen mango's, 1/4 tsp of coconut extract and 1 cup of almond milk. It's so good!

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    1. Ooh, that sounds great! I will have to seek out coconut extract - I have never used it.

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  14. Now that it's absurdly cold here, I'm already missing summer. well, really just spring. Somehow I forget every year how awful that hot humid weather is as soon as the cold hits. I'll have to keep these in mind for next year!

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    1. If I lived somewhere really cold, I am sure I'd suddenly love summer too once winter rolled around :P

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  15. I love summer and the heat!!! Lovely smoothies!

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  16. I really like adding baby spinach to smoothies and love the idea of berries and mint but I have been making them to share with Sylvia lately (and missing them on my holiday) so have been leaving out the green stuff to get her into the smoothie way without too much challenging leaves - but berries and bananas are a favourite - have tried mashed pumpkin in smoothies with berries and bananas which works well

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    1. I am very impressed that you are making smoothies on holiday at all! That is something I have never done - are you with family with blenders or just particularly resourceful?

      I will have to try mashed pumpkin as that sounds lovely and a nice alternative to bananas for providing thickness.

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    2. oh no I must have misled you - I don't have the equipment to do smoothies on our holiday - and quite frankly it isn't smoothie weather - am sure I will be back into them when we get home

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    3. Oops, on re-reading your first comment I definitely mis-led myself! I think I combined "lately" and "holiday" and skipped over the "missing them" bit in the middle :P Scotland in winter is more of a hot drink place so I think the smoothie break is probably well deserved.

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  17. I don't make smoothies very often and I am not sure why. I am going to use this as encouragement and start making!. I really like the sound of the strawberry and coconut. You have ver exciting times ahead indeed. Cant wait to hear more about it

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    1. I hope you enjoy the strawberry coconut mix - it would definitely be a good option to ease into smoothie making :-) Thanks so much for stopping by!

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