For a while now, Elyse and I had been coming up with ways to use up certain food items in the house that we were not going through. It stems from the way that my eating has changed ever since I had the sleeve surgery back in December. Ever since then, I can’t eat a regular-sized meal anymore, and haven’t eaten off of a regular-sized plate in a very long time. If I’m eating off of a plate, it’s one of the small plates, but more commonly, I eat out of a six-ounce ramekin, or out of a mug. That works for me for the most part, but with such limited capacity, I end up getting my protein in, but I haven’t been as good about vegetables. Typically, for vegetables, I try to throw some in when I make eggs, and then I also get it in when I make that vegan chili that I like. But I want to say that just that is probably insufficient, and so the thought came up about how to (A) get more vegetables in, and (B) use up several large bags of broccoli and California mix that have been sitting in my basement freezer ever since before the surgery.
So Elyse and I thought about making smoothies with what we have around the house. The idea seemed reasonable enough. I have a Ninja blender, and there was food that needed a purpose. The idea was to put it in and grind it up. The bag of vegetables that was on the top in the freezer was the broccoli:
So in it went:
Then I added some plain Greek yogurt:
I like Greek yogurt, because it has lots of calcium and protein. And plain has almost no sugar, which means that it’s low in carbs. Also, for what it’s worth, this is the only ingredient that I bought specifically for making smoothies.
Then I added some water, and two scoops of vanilla protein powder:
The way I figure, this adds a little extra protein to it, plus I’m trying to use that stuff up. After living on the stuff for two weeks before surgery and two weeks after surgery, I realize that I hate the stuff. Same goes for the meal replacement shakes. It’s the flavorings in the stuff that bother me. None of them are very good, and the flavoring really limits what you can do with the stuff, since it adds that vanilla or chocolate flavor to whatever you put it in. When I use these up, if I get protein powder again, I’m getting unflavored. That way I can add it in with less impact on whatever I’m making.
Then I put it up on the blender base, and then ground it all up:
This is what the resulting concoction looked like:
I ended up filling two of these containers plus a little change:
And then I tasted it:
Let’s just say that it was an interesting flavor combination. You can definitely taste both the Greek yogurt and the protein powder. The Greek yogurt was good, lending that sour flavor that plain yogurt tends to have. The protein powder, well… it tasted awful, like flavored protein powder tends to do, but at least I was able to use up a good bit of it with this, which means that I have that much less of the stuff still to use up. Then the broccoli kind of felt like orange juice pulp, but less soft. This is definitely not something that you can drink quickly. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s not great, either. This has the potential to be good, but this iteration doesn’t hit it out of the park by any means.
But, I suppose if it means that I’m getting nutrition that I’m not otherwise getting, then it’s a win overall.