Apricot Mango Spinach Smoothie: Eating seasonally

I’m really loving trying out recipes for this Simple, Seasonal and Save Green Thickie Series as they are just so quick to do!  There’s hardly any tasting, adding, measuring or tweaking of recipes.  The formula is so simple, it will work with any seasonal ripe fruit.  Just substitute the fruit in the recipe for whatever you have in your house already and there’s your Green Thickie, Simple!

Today I’m exploring the benefits of eating locally and seasonally and have another great simple, seasonal recipe for you, The Apricot Mango Spinach Smoothie.

Did you know that buying a veg box from a local farmer can be 26% cheaper than buying it from a supermarket.  This article will explain why the consumption of veg boxes has actually increased during the recession.  When you eat locally grown food, you will naturally eat seasonal food as you can only eat what is grown in season.  Eating this way is much better for your health as you get fresher food with more nutrients.  It is much better for the environment as your food doesn’t have to travel as far, and it’s great to support local businesses.  Local farmers tend to use less pesticides and are more likely to be organic so you can avoid more of the chemicals.  It also tastes a lot better.

Green Thickie Thursdays: A new Green Thickie every Thursday along with Green Smoothie of the week on Tuesdays

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I have been so inspired by trying to eat more seasonally with the Green Thickies, that I’m trying to do the same with all my meals by looking at the food that is available locally.  We’ve done so much moving house, changing diets, having a baby etc. that I’ve not been in a place long enough to think about trying to eat locally.  But now we’re just starting to feel really settled in the north of Scotland, so it seems a great time to try basing my diet on locally grown food and sign up for an organic box scheme.

I will be basing most of my savoury meals around locally grown food.  There is not that much variety in Scotland however.  So I’ll be having a lot of potatoes, carrots, onions, lettuce, spinach, leeks, and a few other items.  The only fruit they grow at this time of year is rhubarb although we all know that rhubarb is really a vegetable.  I just found out that you can actually eat rhubarb raw.  It’s just the leaves you shouldn’t eat.  So I’ll probably end up throwing some of that into my smoothie.  I’ve never tried it raw but it’s supposed to be quite sharp like celery.  I am the kind of person who likes to plan my meals a week in advance and follow recipes so I know exactly what to buy and avoid waste.  So it’s going to be more of a challenge for me to plan my meals.  So what I’m planning to do is carry on using my slow cooker for the meals and just replace the vegetables in the recipe with the veg in the box.  It might work, it might not but it’s worth a try to eat locally grown organic food and be able to support the local farms.  I make 5 different types of meals per week in my slow cooker, a stew, chilli, casserole, pasta bake or rice dish and a curry or asian dish.  At the weekend I usually have a veggie burger and leftovers.  So I’m really hoping these vegetables will work well with those slow cooker meals.  When it arrives I’ll share my photos with you.

My organic box will also contain few bananas, oranges and apples but these aren’t grown locally.  We eat absolutely loads of fruit in our household though so I’ll still need to buy most of my fruit from the supermarket but I’ll still be trying to eat seasonally even though a lot of it is shipped over from Spain and further afield.

Green Thickie recipes in this series are easy to make with simple, seasonal ingredients which will save you money.

We actually went to a farm open day on Sunday where we got a tour around the farm who is providing my veg box.  It was so interesting and so good to actually see where my fruit and veg is being grown.  It really helps you to connect a lot more with your food when you see it grown. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos to show you as it was raining so hard all day, but we were told we could go back and take photos whenever we get a nice day (we might be waiting a long time based on the weather so far this year).  The farmer told us his vegetables haven’t actually been doing too well this year as the weather has been so awful.

We have also just started trying to grow our own vegetables, as this is the first time we’ve had a garden.  So I’ll let you know how that is going in a future post.

This mango spinach smoothie is very quick, it tastes very fresh and won’t take you any time at all.  It is naturally sweet if you use ripe fruit and it’s low in calories while still filling you up.  Chopping up a mango can be daunting at first but when you realise how big the stone is, the next time you will be able to cut round it a lot easier.  There are a few ways to chop up a mango, but the easiest way I can tell you before I get round to taking some photos, is to peel the mango using a knife, careful it get’s slippy.  Then just keep slicing the mango off until you hit something hard.  That is the stone.  Try and slice as much mango as you can off the stone.  Discard the stone and the peel and use the mango flesh in the recipe.

Cutting up an apricot is very similar but you can leave the peel on.

Make sure your mango and apricots are ripe first.  They should be soft to the touch, and will yield to pressure.  They will also smell sweet.  If your fruit isn’t ripe, the recipe won’t taste very nice at all.  If you can’t find any fresh mango, you can use frozen mango chunks or any other fruit you can get hold of.  If you can’t find apricots you can use peaches or dried apricots. In the UK I struggle to get hold of fresh apricots.  They never seem to ripen and remain like little bricks until they shrivel up and have to be chucked away.  Sometimes the same happens with peaches.

If you buy fruit unripe in the shop, you can ripen it at home by leaving it out of the fridge for between 2-7 days.  Keep checking it daily.  Once the fruit has ripened you can keep it fresh in the fridge.

So we’ve been looking at eating seasonally and locally today through signing up for a veg box.  Has it inspired you to get one?  Do you base any of your meals on local or seasonal food?  How easy is it where you live to get a variety of seasonal fruit and veg?  Let me know what fruit and veg you can get hold of at this time of year.

If you want to see how I got on with my first organic veg box you can take a look now.

Suitable for Special Diets

Gluten free*, raw*, vegetarian, vegan, dairy free, egg free, sugar free, wheat free*, soya free*, salt free, nut free*

* If you want to check if you can drink green thickies on your special diet, please read this first. This will suggest some substitutions so you can still enjoy Green Thickies with ingredients you can tolerate.

If you are new to Green Thickies and have more questions about making the perfect green thickie, please read this guide on How to make a Green Thickie.

Katherine Kyle

Apricot Mango Spinach Smoothie: Eating seasonally

This mango spinach smoothie is very quick, it tastes very fresh and won’t take you any time at all.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 2 minutes mins

Servings: 2 Servings

Course: Green Thickie

Cuisine: Drink

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 2 Cups Water
• 1 medium mango or 4 peaches or 1 cup of frozen mango chunks
• 4 Apricots or ½ a cup of dried apricots or 2 peaches
• 1 Cup Spinach tightly packed or 2 cups loosely packed. (Or Chard – not usually available in the UK unless you grow it or get a box scheme)OR if you run out of fresh greens, add 2 scoops of Amazing Green Powder for an extra healthy green boost.
• ¼ Cup Sunflower Seeds or ground flaxseeds if you don’t have a powerful blender.
• 1 Cup Oats – Any type If you don’t have a powerful blender and want the smoothie very smooth you can soak the oats for an hour before blending.

Method

 

1. Blend the ingredients in the order listed.
2. Blend the ingredients a few at a time so that your blender can cope with the work, unless you’ve got a high powered blender, then you might be able to add them all in at once.
3. If it gets too thick, add more water as necessary.
4. If your blender has made the smoothie too warm, you can either cool it down in the fridge or freezer, or add some ice cubes or frozen fruit to it (You may need to add more water as this will thicken it further).

Notes

See all of my favorite essential healthy ingredients needed to make these recipes AND all of the best resources and products I can’t live without by clicking here.

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Comments always put a smile on my face, so please take a minute to say hello below.  Many thanks and blessings to you.

This Apricot Mango Spinach Smoothie is a blended complete meal containing natural protein sources and leafy greens. If you’d like any more information about these topics, check out my complete guides below:

• The Ultimate Smoothie Blender Guide
• The Only Guide To Protein Shakes You’ll Ever Need
• Over 50 Spinach Recipes: The Complete Collection
• The Complete Guide To Green Smoothies
• The Essential Guide To Meal Replacement Shakes

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Katherine Kyle @ Green Thickies

Founder at Green Thickies

Katherine lost 56 pounds and recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with Green Thickies.
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