Herbal Stomach Soother Green Smoothie

Pretty?  Eh, kinda.  Good?  Yes!!

I'm trying to ease up on the coffee, because I'm tired of having a headache by 1:00 pm if I don't drink it.  So I cut back to 1 cup for a few days, now I'm drinking 1 cup of Chai tea in the morning.

Chai and my empty stomach didn't get along this morning, and I was getting a burning in the back of my throat and some reflux.  Bleh.

So here's what I did for my green smoothie this morning... I took a handful of stomach-soothing herbs -- apple mint, and lemon balm -- and threw them in the blender with the greens, and made sure to use papaya as one of my fruits, because it's known for its stomach-soothing properties, too.  Seems to have done the trick :)   Here's the recipe.

Don't have lemon balm and mint?  My god, why not?  Find a corner of your property you don't want to mow anymore, stick one of them at one end and the other at the other end (seed, plants, whatever) and let them go to town.  They will take over the area, and you will have all the mint and lemon balm you could ever wish for.  They both make amazing hot teas and iced teas, and they add flavor and a load of nutrients to a green smoothie, and as far as green things go they taste fantastic.  Last year I couldn't possibly have picked and dried and used all the lemon balm and mint I had growing.  My plan this year is to pick it and freeze it with water in ice cube trays so I can throw it in my smoothies all winter long. 

Stomach Soother Green Smoothie

10-20 mint leaves

10-20 lemon balm leaves

1 cup kale or spinach or green of choice

1 cup water

1 cup Silk coconut milk (I love this stuff!!!!)

Blend the heck out of it.  If your herbs are stemmy you might want to strip leaves off the stems.  If the stems are still tender and you have a good blender, throw 'em in.

1 cup pineapple, fresh preferable or if using cans you can use some of the juice instead of water

1/2 a papaya, seeded, peeled and sorta chopped

1 small-medium banana

ice cubes to taste... I like mine cold.  You can seed and chop the papaya and then freeze, freeze the banana, pineapple, or all of it, for a nice cold one.  If you put enough ice cubes in here and you have a Vitamix, you can turn this into their version of soft serve ice cream.  Or freeze it into popsicles for little upset tummies.

Blend till smooth.  This will serve 2, you can put it in a sealing glass jar or mason jar in the fridge and it'll keep for a day or two, if there's only one of you in the household braving the green stuff.

This is GOOD!  Seriously, if you don't have mint and you're a smoothie-holic, get some.