As part of my Vitamix giveaway, I’m posting a week’s worth of green smoothies! Enter to win.
Wow. Creating this smoothie was quite a journey for me. A journey meaning I had to make like 4 separate smoothie batches in order to get it right. And I drank all of them. By the end of the day I realized I had consumed like 6 dates and 2 bananas trying to get this thing right. I could picture some of my friends screeching in horror and yelling “candida!” because of all the sugar I was eating. ;)
Originally, I wanted to copy the “I am cool” smoothie from Cafe Gratitude in LA (my fave restaurant in all of la la land). First, I attempted to create it by memory alone. I threw in spinach, a date, 1/2 a banana, almond milk, spirulina, mint, and cacao nibs. It tasted a little off to me.
As I was fretting about what was “missing” from this smoothie, my roommate reminded me that we have the Cafe Gratitude cookbook. Oh yeaaaah, duh. I looked it up in there and tried again. The challenge was that the Gratitude peeps use some kind of vegan ice cream in theirs, and there were a lot of dates involved.
My next batch was super sweet due to all the dates. I started to feel guilty, realizing that I’d never normally use dates unless I’m making a dessert, and rarely even much banana when I’m making a smoothie to drink daily. I don’t like to have a ton of sweetness from fruit in my smoothies, especially in the morning.
So I knew I couldn’t share that smoothie with you with a clean conscience. I wanted to create something I could see myself making again and again and feeling super good about. It was back to the drawing board.
I decided to take matters into my own hands and create a fruit-free mint chocolate chip green smoothie. It was the perfect sweetness, for me. If you want it sweeter, add a little date or banana.
FYI – in order to make this chocolate “chippy” you need to use cacao nibs, not cacao powder. The nibs will add more texture.
My masterpiece:
- 1 cup coconut water
- 2 tbsp hemp seeds
- 1/2 avocado
- handful of mint leaves (or a few drops of peppermint oil)
- 2 tbsp cacao nibs
- 1/2 tsp spirulina
- the seeds from an inch or so of a vanilla bean (or a couple of drops vanilla extract)
- a few ice cubes
Blend away in your trusty Vitamix! Top with more cacao nibs and mint leaves if you wanna instagram it. ;)
Yum.
Who needs peppermint patties when you have this liquid insanity?
Get your greens on every day with Best Green Drinks Ever
Jillian says
Thanks for the recipe! I did a series of tests with my naturopathic/md doc and I found out that I have an overgrowth of candida. Which means no sugar for me! I’ve been searching for smoothie recipes that have very little/no sugar so thank you for creating this! I can’t wait to try it tomorrow.
C J Cannon says
J–Thanks. So far, I’ve shared your blog 2ce w. my daughter. Once on Landmark–2 of the most likable, impressive people I’ve met had become “Landmarkers.” This wss the 2d. She loved mint-choc. chip ice cream as a kid. I bet she’ll love your smoothie, too. Grand day to you! PS Pls. don’t post/share my email w. others. Thnx.