Pear and Pollen

Ever since a friend joked about having me post my smoothie recipes every day, I've been thinking about posting about how I nearly ruined one recently and then how I salvaged it.

I added pear. I know, pear is delightful. It's sweet, juicy, mild, soft . . . delicious in salads . . . the seemingly perfect addition to a morning smoothie. Yuck. I almost couldn't drink it. Maybe it was the combination of pear with mango, oranges, strawberries, and banana. I don't think so, though. I tried a pear smoothie once in a little coffeeshop, and it was terrible, too. So I guess I don't like pear in my smoothies.

A couple years ago, my husband and I happened upon a sweet little cafe in the Smoky Mountains (quite a miracle, if you've ever been there) called The Pear Tree. We dined on pear mint soup and delicious salad (with goat cheese, pecans, and pear I think). Then, the owner gave us the recipe for the soup. MH has made it several times. Since I have a little mint plant on my windowsill, I decided to throw in a handful of mint and . . . as a result . . . salvaged my smoothie.

My favorite smoothie "ice" includes frozen strawberries and frozen bananas. We get big bags of strawberries from Costco ($1.48 lb. I think) and buy conventional bananas or organic ones if they're on sale. We peel the bananas when they're over-ripe, then freeze them in a big freezer bag. They peel away from each other and break in half easily even when frozen.

I made some frozen orange juice last week by adding a cup of crushed ice to two or three oranges. Mmmmmmm. Delicious! It was also good when I added a mango or an apple (makes it a tad sweeter and gives it a little variety). After writing this I made some frozen OJ w/ pineapple. Yum.

My favorite smoothie recipe (makes approx. 48 oz.):

a fresh mango
one or two fresh oranges
7 or 8 frozen strawberries
1 or 2 frozen bananas
(occasionally I'll add pineapple if we have it)
a couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach

variations:
frozen mango
orange juice
fresh strawberries
fresh banana
kale or romaine

Try it without the greens first to see if you like it. Then add a little (maybe a small handful) of greens. Try it again. If your greens make it taste bitter, add some local honey or agave nectar. The main reason green smoothies work so well for us is that they taste delicious!

I've been adding local honey for the past two days even though I think it's plenty sweet because of an awesome story my girlfriend wrote about her husband overcoming his allergies by drinking a green smoothie every morning sweetened with local honey. I'm over here sneezing like crazy and trying not to scratch my eyes out. Traditionally, I haven't been sensitive to the changing of seasons--except to feel nostalgic at the onset of autumn.

My front porch and van are completely covered in a dusting of green-yellow pollen. Judah keeps telling me it's snowing because the budding trees are losing their white petals in the wind. My nose and eyes are suffering. Advice? Remedies? Help!