The Organic Climber – Blogging about climbing, RAW foods, vegetarianism, running and cycling.

Pineapple Grape Banana Smoothie

Ahhh, it’s the return of smoothie Tuesday. I know you have been waiting for it. Well, I have a really tasty one for you today. I randomly thought of this one after staring at the frozen grapes in my freezer for weeks – I thought man, those would go great with some pineapple, if only I had some. So, next time I was at the store I picked up some pineapple and ended up making a recovery smoothie later that night after a climbing workout.

This is an excellent recovery smoothie because of the anti-inflammatory properties found in the pineapple. Bromelain is the enzyme in pineapples that contain the anti-inflammatory property, it also helps with digestion, so this smoothie is easy on the stomach, it will also help digest any food consumed after the drink. Additionally  pineapple is high in vitamin C and is great for fighting off colds. I have even been told it’s a great way to help get rid of a cough.

The grapes (as well as the pineapple) are high in anti-oxidants contained in flavonoids, which help slow the aging process. For those of you just starting out vegetarian or are going vegan, grapes are a good source of both calcium and vitamin B6. Grapes also are rich sources of vitamin A and C in addition to  minerals like potassium, iron, phosphorus, and magnesium.

I would also like to note that the inflamed bursitis in my right shoulder has significantly decrease after drinking this smoothie.  I am not sure if there is a direct relation to the large amount of pineapple consumed through blending or not, but I plan on trying this smoothie again if the inflammation comes back. I will be very happy though if I discover thre is a relation, because the inflammation has been with me for almost a year now and I’m doing everything I can to avoid cortisone injections.

The Recipe

• 8oz of freshly cut and diced pineapple
• one big hand full of frozen grapes
• 1 banana
• 1 TBSP of cashew/almond butter (optional)
• 1 TBSP of hem seed protein (optional but great for recovery)
• 1 TBSP of greens powder or 1 hand full of fresh greens
• 1/2 cup of almond milk
• 4 cubes of ice
• water (just enough to cover the fruit and aid with blending)

Directions: Simple; just throw it all in the blender and WHIZ!!

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Health & Fitness, RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
banana, bursitis, grapes, inflammation, pineapple, protein, recovery, smoothie
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Rainbow chard, green, nectarine, mango banana smoothie. What a name for a smoothie eh?  I made this delicious bad boy after an impromptu trip to Whole Foods after exchangeable my shoes at Luke’s Locker. I needed some agave nectar and it just so happened, there was a Whole Foods right down the road. I ended up buying way more stuff than I intended to buy. Really the only thing I needed was the agave, but walked out with a canvas bag full of other stuff including a couple mangoes and some rainbow chard. I have used rainbow chard in past smoothies – it’s one of my favorite greens.

The amazing Titan peeler!

I have a feeling I am going to start eating a lot more mangoes since my roommate purchased the Titan peeler. This “As Seen on TV” kitchen utensil is seriously quite amazing! It only takes me seconds to peel one mango as opposed to minutes with a standard potato peeler. This will make dehydrating mangoes way easier too.

Anyway, without further or do, here is the Rainbow Green Monster Smoothie. I just renamed it on the spot; sounds much better huh?

The Recipe

• I ripe mango
• 1 ripe nectarine
• 1 ripe banana
• 2-4 TBSP of agave nectar
• 6 cubes of ice
• 3/4 – 1 cup of almond milk
• 1 giant rainbow chard leaf

Directions: blend that stuff up

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
agave nectar, banana, green, mango, nectarine, rainbow chard, smoothie, titan peeler, whole foods
1 comment

This is a variation of my go-to mixed berry smoothie. This morning I was out of mixed berries but had a couple packages of frozen strawberries, some blueberries and some frozen bananas. Combined with some honey, rice milk and almond cashew butter it created a really delicious smoothie.

The Recipe

• About 2-3 oz of frozen blueberries
• About 4 oz of frozen strawberries
• 1 frozen banana
• 2 TBSp of raw honey
• 1 heaping TBSP of raw almond cashew butter (or just plain almond OR cashew butter)
• Your choice of greens or greens powder and hemp seed protein powder (optional but best)
• 1 cup of rice milk

Directions: Just blend!

For those of you who are not regulars on my page, I use a Vita-Mix blender. You can get free shipping on this wonderful machine through the Vita-Mix page on my site.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
almond butter, banana, blueberries, cashew butter, raw honey, rice milk, strawberries
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Electric Green Spinach Smoothie

This is one of my all-time favorite smoothie recipes. It was one that I made countless times when I first started eating raw foods. This simple green smoothie is brightly colored and is sweet and tasty to boot. All you need is spinach, bananas and water. It’s that simple! Alternatively you can use almond or hemp seed milk to add to the flavor and provide additional nutrients.

The Recipe

• 2 hand fulls of spinach
• 2 bananas
• 6 ice cubes (or omit if your bananas are frozen)
• 1 cup of water or your favorite “milk”
• 2 TBSP of hemp seed protein (totally optional)

Directions: Throw it all in a blender and WHIRRRRR

If you want to spice it up even more use a chocolate greens powder such as Amazing Grass, or just use cacao powder. One of my favorite things about this drink is how much it freaks people out when they say it. Their reaction is always, “eww, your going to drink that”. But I promise, what looks like it flowed right out of a nuclear waste dump is one of the most delicious smoothies you will ever taste.

Electric Green Spinach Smoothie

RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday, Uncategorized by OrganicClimber
almond milk, banana, cacao, green, hemp seed, protein, RAW, smoothie, spinach
1 comment

I spent this past weekend hanging out in Austin with friends, in fact, it was the same friends that first peaked my interested in raw foods. On Sunday morning before church we made a really delicious smoothie. It just so happened that the night before they held a game night and one of the participants brought grapes to snack on. There ended up being a lot left over and we used them in our smoothie the next morning.

Grapes alone weren’t going to be enough, so we ended up adding raspberries, banana, hemp milk and vanilla flavored hemp protein. I didn’t record the exact ratios, but there were more grapes than the other ingredients, we also made enough for four people at once, so I will give my best guess for a single serving.

The Recipe

½ cup of grapes
¼ cup of raspberries
½ banana
¾ cup of hemp milk
2 TBSP of vanilla hemp protein powder*
*Alternatively you could use regular hemp seed protein and add about a teaspoon or more of vanilla extract.

This smoothie was tantalizingly delicious! The added vanilla flavor (along with the hemp milk) was perhaps the best part. I had never thought about using flavored hemp protein powder, but I think I will definitely have to add that to the mix. I apologize there is no photo for this one. Perhaps I will make another one on my own later this week and take a photo.

Remember, if you are interested in purchasing a Vita-Mix blender you can receive free shipping by using the link above. That is a $25 discount. The purchase also helps me out!

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
banana, grape, hemp, protein, rasberry, RAW, smoothie, Smoothie Tuesday, vanilla, Vita-MIx, vitamix
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Cosmic Explosion Smoothie

I gave myself a big pat on the back after making this smoothie! Simply put, this one is amazing! I was hoping to incorporate a fruit I don’t normally use in my smoothies and just happened to have a couple of ripe nectariens lying around the kitchen. So, I looked around to see what else I had and ended up using some frozen strawberries I had just put in the freezer the day before, added a banana and then tossed in the nectarine and pure amazingness happened.

The Recipe

• About 8 oz of frozen strawberries (or one BIG hand full)
• 1 pitted nectarine (ripe is essential)
• 1 banana
• 1 cup of almond milk

Blend in high speed blender until smooth. Optionally, you can add greens to this as well. I actually ended up adding a huge hand-full of spinach after taking the picture and it didn’t affect the taste too much at all. This will definitely be a repeat smoothie for me. The nectarine really added some punch to what would normally be a mundane strawberry banana smoothie.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
almond milk, banana, nectarine, smoothie, smoothy, spinach, strawberries
1 comment

Granny Drink Your Greens

It’s Smoothie Tuesday again! This time I bring you a creation I just invented last night, I call it the, “Granny Drink Your Greens Smoothie.” I made this one after getting back from a climbing workout at the gym. I was extremely hungry but didn’t have a lot to eat so I decided to make some nut butter to go with a sprouted grain tortilla. After I was done with that I had a nice base of nut butter left stuck in the blades at the bottom of the blender container. I will actually be posting that nut butter recipe latter this week.

So, since I was to lazy to scrape out the bottom of the container I decided to make a smoothie, this worked out really well since I needed a recipe for today’s blog. I had plenty of green things lying around, so I just started throwing stuff in. This one was very experimental. I personally was not extremely satisfied with the taste, but all three of my roommates loved it. But it’s definitely one I would make again.

The Recipe

• 1 stalk of celery
• 1  granny smith apple chopped (skin on)
• 2 bananas
• 1 small hand full of spinach
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil
• 4 tbsp of agave nectar
• 1 cup of almond milk
• 1/2 cup of water
• 4+ TBSP of almond butter

Add all ingredients into a blender (I use a Vita-Mix) and blend until smooth.

And for an added treat, I leave you with a photo I recently took while on a climbing trip in Arkansas. Funny thing about this photo was I used a rock as a tripod. I typically bring my tripod on trips with me, but this time opted to leave it at home and this was the one time I actually really wished I had it. I still really like the results of this photo though, especially how our neighbors campfire lit up the trees behind our tents. Enjoy!

Arkansas Night Sky

Click on the photo for a larger view.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
agave nectar, almond milk, apple, banana, celery, coconut oil, granny smith, RAW, smoothie, spinach
3 comments

Mean Green Kale Smoothie

This smoothie was pretty much an accident, but a good one if you ask me. Sunday afternoon I was making some Kale Chips, and as I was tearing off the leaves I kept having small pieces that were to small to make chips out of, so I would just toss them in my blender which was right in front of me, after all was said and done I had a small hand full of kale greens in the bottom of my blender.

After that I decided to make my salad for the next day and had a fuji apple I sliced up to put in the salad, but an entire apple was going to be too much for the salad, so I tossed about a 1/2 – 3/4 of the apple into the blender as well. In addition to the apple I tossed in 1/2 an avocado as well. At this point I thought I had something pretty good going, so I continued adding ingredients to the blender. When all was said and done I had added 4 TBSP of honey, 2 bananas and a cup of almond milk.

The finished smoothie originally only had one banana but the taste of the kale was still very strong, so I added one more to smooth things out a bit, for those of you that like a strong “greens” taste to your smoothie you may consider not adding the extra banana, but even with two bananas the smoothie still had a bit of a “green” taste to it, but not overwhelmingly so. Just perfect in my book.

The final recipe:

• 1/2 – 3/4 of a fuji apple chopped

• 1/2 an avocado

• 2 bananas

• 1 small hand full of kale

• 4 TBSP of honey

• 1 cup of almond milk

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth

Nutritional Benefits: Kale is one of the most nutrient rich greens you can eat. It contains almost all of your daily requirement of vitamin C, it also provides loads of vitamin A and K, it is also high in fiber as well. Additionally kale contains phytonutrients, which help increase enzymes in the body that ward off harmful carcinogens. The plant is also rich in calcium, lutein (which helps improve eye sight) and iron.

I love discovering new smoothies on accident. I will likely be making this one a lot more since I don’t really care for the taste of kale by itself.
Even though the University of North Texas Mean Green lost Saturday night I still decided to name this smoothie after them; I think they will end up having a decent season.

Health & Fitness, RAW Food, Recipes, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
almond milk, apple, avocado, banana, calcium, enzymes, green, kale, lutein, mean green, nutrition, RAW, smoothie, smothy, vitamin
3 comments

Raw Peanut Butter Cup Smoothie

For the first Smoothie Tuesday I thought I would share with you my favorite smoothie. I discovered this smoothie one day after giving in to a craving for a peanut butter cup from a co-worker. I thought surely there is a raw version of a peanut butter cup out there, after all I have had some delicious vegan peanut butter cups. After a quick Google search I turned up a blog post by Rawdog Rory.  Granted I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, this liquid peanut butter cup is truly awesome and in my opinion.

Most non-raw foodies likely won’t have some of these ingredients, but they can be easily acquired at a place such as Whole Foods. But rest assured I will be providing plenty of recipes that anybody can make.

The Recipe:

• 2 cups water
• 4 TBSP of Tahini
• 1/3 tsp of Vanilla Extract
• 4 TBSP of Raw Cacao Powder (do not use Carob Powder as a substitute, it does not work, I tried)
• 4 TBS of Raw Honey (or Agave Nectar if you want it Vegan)
• 1 – 1.5 Frozen Bananas
• 6 Cubes of ice (I think Rawdog suggests 8, so start with less and add more if you need them)

Combine all the above ingredients in a high speed blender until there are no longer any chunks of frozen banana and you are done! Pour your drink and enjoy. I find this usually makes about 32oz of more, so either be hungry or be ready to share with friends.

Captain Oats, guardian of the Raw Peanut Butter Cup smoothie. Hands off, he is very protective of his smoothie.

You can even easily make this into a green smoothie and add a hand full of spinach and it will hardly affect the flavor of the smoothie.

For those of you out there that are visual learners you can watch Rawdog Rory make the smoothie himself. The end of the video is amusing when he blends the smoothie in his bedroom.

The health benefits of this smoothie are tremendous, it’s especially a good source of protein. Both the tahini and cacao are excellent sources of protein. Not only that, but the cacao has more antioxidant flavonoids than any food tested so far according to Live Superfoods. Be sure to check out the web site to see more benefits. If you are interested in purchasing raw cacao, the best place I have found online is Amazon.com. I am fortunate enough to be able to get a better price locally and avoid shipping fees.

RAW Food, Smoothie Tuesday by OrganicClimber
banana, cacao, honey, Peanut Butter Cup, peanutbutter cup, RAW, smoothie, tahini
12 comments