Smooth Operator

Do you know how many smoothie cookbooks are floating around? I found more than 20 on Amazon alone. I only have one smoothie book (I can feel a trip to the bookstore coming on....) by those Corpening twins who owned a catering company called Thymes Two in San Francisco and went on to pen a dozen books or so.

There is even a low-carb smoothie book; which seems counter productive to me. Most smoothies are made with fruit and most fruits are loaded with carbs. I'm really sick of the whole low-carb thing anyway. I mean, cutting out white sugar and white flour is a noble thing to do, but cutting out all carbs is ridiculous. Our bodies need a healthy does of carbohydrates to function. You wouldn't run your car without gas, so why would you run your body without fuel? But I digress.... this post is about smoothies.

The temperature forecast for today is 112. It's already 97 and it's only 9 a.m. And I'm battling a cold, so this morning, I made a smoothie for breakfast. Again, I didn't specifically measure the ingredients (I just started blending and when it looked the right consistency and tasted like heaven, I stopped). It tasted so good, in fact, that I wanted to share it with you. Here goes...

Grapefruit-Orange-Blueberry Banana Smoothie

Makes about 2 cups

1 cup grapefruit juice
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup half & half
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 ripe, frozen banana

Place all the ingredients (in order, starting with the juices) in a blender and puree until smooth, adding more juice or half & half if too thick.

[NOTE: keeping peeled, sliced ripe bananas in the freezer, along with a good supply of other frozen fruits makes for the best smoothies because then you don't need ice, which just dilutes the smoothies in my opinion.]