Pear and Parsley Green Smoothie Recipe

I have always hated salad, and have heard it called "rabbit food" for a good deal of my life. This has led me to eating as little salad as possible! At first I found I was able to eat a salad occasionally as long as it had fruit in it. Then I discovered fruit dressings, such as a Raspberry Vinaigrette. In the end, all the greens fell by the wayside as I went back to the fruit salads I have always loved...placed on top of the one leaf of lettuce that would simply find it's end in the garbage or compost pile, depending on what it had held.

When I first heard of Green Smoothies, I was intrigued to say the least. I was familiar with fruit smoothies, and the idea of simply blending the salad greens into that sweet smoothie was cause for further study. To that end, I have studied the idea of Green Smoothies, the application of Green Smoothies, the components of Green Smoothies, the recipes of Green Smoothies, and in the end the taste of Green Smoothies...and then marveled at their effect on my health.

I absolutely love 'Green for Life'
by Victoria Boutenko! She is a wonderful and engaging writer, and this book is filled with more information then you learned in your entire school career!

Ever wonder why you hate to eat salad?
She tells you.

Ever wondered why you burp after eating green vegetables?
The answer is in there!

Do you wonder why leafy greens are better than your multi-vitamins?
That answer is in there too!

I definitely recommend not only reading this book, but adding it to your library! The last section of 'Green for Life' has some recipe ideas. Not only are they a great place to start, but I find myself referring back to them for inspiration several times a month!

I want to share this delightful way to enjoy "rabbit food" with everyone! This is a way that anyone can enjoy the dreaded salad greens, and a bunch of other greens too!

No more bitter taste, no more forever crunching on one bite, no more acid reflux or gas from eating too many greens! Green Smoothie recipes are designed to be sweet enough to entice anyone!

This is one way that everyone from the tough guys to little toddlers, to teenagers, to moms, and everyone else can add more leafy greens into their daily diet and LOVE doing it!

I am really excited about this new green smoothie that I created today! It turned out to be the most spectacular bright green color. It reminded me of the color of new leaves on trees in the spring. I finally got a good picture of this Pear and Parsley green smoothie. The camera got over its need to turn everything an unappealing brown, and gave me a green colored green smoothie!

This is such a simple recipe, and I have been thinking about it for days. I finally got up the courage to try it out today. The idea of using parsley as a base ingredient in a green smoothie was a bit daunting. The darker the green, the stronger the flavor is a general rule I have discovered. And parsley being among the darker greens, I have been nervous that the flavor would be overpowering.

The kids still like their green smoothies on the sweet side, and I was worried the fruit to green ratio would need to be way off to make this green smoothie palatable.

As we get out of the growing season, I am finding the price of green leafies to be going up exponentially. I decided that I want to find some fantastic winter greens at the grocery store.... This would mean that the leafy greens would taste good, and be cheap in price!

Parsley is always under a dollar, and the glorious darkness of its green leaves and stems have both intrigued me and scared me off. The darker the green color may indicate a stronger flavor, but is also indicative of the amount of nutrition its little cells hold! So, I braved my fears, and bought a couple of bunches of parsley this week.
And so, I have been experimenting with parsley this week.

The optimum composition to a green smoothie is 40% greens, and 60% fruit, according to Victoria Boutenko's book Green for Life.
I have found that when I started my children and myself on green smoothies, that we really enjoyed them being slightly sweeter. This meant that I started with a ratio closer to 25% greens and 75% fruit, and have slowly adjusted as our tastes did. Now, I look forward to the "green" taste, but the children still like a sweeter blend. I have also adjusted the recipe slightly, and have my own basics that are always included.

Those inclusions are: 2-3 tablespoons of coconut cream (oil)...make sure you get high quality unheated coconut cream that has not been sprayed by pesticides or affected by other chemicals. The second change is the amount of water. I usually add 3-4 cups of water...this up to doubles the amount of water used in the original recipes making it very liquid, instead of the creamy, almost pudding like texture. The last added inclusion is a stalk of celery, which will help oxygenate the blood.

About 1/3 bunch of Parsley
2 Pears (I used green D'Anjou Pears)
1 stalk of Celery (the greener the better!) (opt.)
2-3 Tblsp. Coconut Cream (opt.)
3-4 C. water

Make sure you wash off your produce. Using a vita-mix, I don't worry about much chopping for preparation. I did quarter the pears, and remove the top stem. (I usually don't worry about removing stems, but for whatever reason it seemed the right thing to do today.) Yes, the seeds were included in the blender.

The celery is usually snapped in half, just so the lid can be secured to the blender jar before turning the blender on. I leave those celery leaves springing from the top, and don't bother trimming the bottom either. If it pulls off, it goes in!

Just smoosh the parsley sprigs down into the blender. I don't worry about chopping them. That's what the blender is for. I include the entirety of the stem and leaves of the parsley sprig. Just throw it in whole!

Scoop (or pour, depending on the season) the spoonfuls of coconut cream. Over the summer it was hot enough here (120 degree daily high temperature) that even with the window air conditioner on, the coconut cream melted into a clear liquid for the summer, and has just recently started to solidify into it's usual white hardness. When solid, it is much more like scrapping cold butter, but worse! But WOW is it ever worth it! That's a lens for another day!
Pour in 3-4 cups of water. I use a small 16 oz. mason jars, and fill it most of the way twice. As usual I am using bottled water. (The tap water here is just barely run through a filter after it comes out of the river, and sometimes dirt comes right through the faucet! The flip side... I don't have to worry about what chemicals we are bathing in!)
That's it. Secure the cap, and blend several minutes until smooth.

Remember, if you are not using a Vita-Mix, you will need to do a bit more prep work. You may want to chop your produce into approximately 2 inch pieces. You will probably want to remove the tougher inner part of the pear, including the seeds, and stem. (The leafy greens are also better blended by a Vita-mix. So if it is green chunkies that are putting you off, you might want to look into a Vita-Mix.) And the results may be slightly chunkier...but delicious none the less!