Vegetable Smoothie Vitamin Bomb

 

Pure Vegetable Smoothie Vitamin Bomb

Serves 2 glasses

Ingredients:

1. A handful of spinach
2. A handful of kale
3. 1-2 carrots chopped
4. 1 inch of ginger diced
5. 1/2 cup fresh skimmed milk or water

Directions:

Add all ingredients into a power blender and blend.

Additional Information:

This is a vitamin bomb. It actually tastes good on its own, at least to me. After drinking, you will feel very good. It's like your body is thanking you :-) 

It is very simple. You only need 2 - 3 main ingredients: spinach, kale and carrots. Adding any others (cabbage, beetroots, tomatoes, raspberiies, blueberries, etc.) are just bonus adding to variety and depending on what are available in your pantry.

J likes to add a banana to sweeten it, while I drink it without any sweetener.

I love my Magimix power blender. It has been with us for many years and is still working as well as ever. Worth every penny :-)

You can get Magimix from Magasin Departmental Store. They have discounts on Magimix power blender on a regular basis.

Try it :-)

References:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/best-vegetables-to-juice#TOC_TITLE_HDR_12

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/2019/06/06/nutrients-in-spinach-kale/

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/kale-vs-spinach

https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition-pictures/best-salad-greens-for-your-health.aspx

Today's Vitamin Bomb contains spinach, kale, carrots, ginger, raspberries, fresh milk (and banana for J)

Vitamin Bomb is ready :-)

Bottoms up :-)

Healthy Modern Chinese Food

Chinese Cooking with Flax Seeds

I am compiling a list of healthy modern Chinese cooking that incorporates nutritious ingredients normally not used in Chinese cooking such as oats, quinoa, millet, kale, flax seeds, etc. But I am also including some of more common ingredients used in Chinese cooking such as ginger as well. I have tested the recipes in our own kitchen and I am documenting it for the ease of access for myself. I will come back to update it, whenever there is a new addition.

Braised Beef with Oats & Flax Seeds

Coat meat with ground oats and ground flax seeds for frying

Chinese Chicken Oatmeal Congee Porridge

Chinese Oatmeal Sauce

Chinese Steamed Tofu with Minced Pork

Healthy Claypot Quinoa

Chinese Quinoa Egg Fried Frice with Cabbage

Chinese Quinoa Fried Rice with Chicken

Easy Healthy Chinese Braised Pork (红烧肉 Hong Shao Rou)

Chinese Stir-fry Kale/Stegt Grønkål/ 羽衣甘蓝 [yǔ yī gān lán]

Mixed Grain Chinese Chicken Congee Porridge

Chinese Fish Congee Made with Quinoa


Chinese Steamed Cod Fish


Chinese Steamed Salmon


Chinese Ginger Chicken Soup


Chinese Black Bean Soup


Chinese Herbal Imperial Chicken


Chinese Dumplings made with buckwheat


Chinese Egg Dumplings

Chinese Stir-fry Meat with Flax Seeds

Chinese Stir-fried Cabbage with Flax Seeds

Chinese Egg Fried Rice

Add 1-2 tea spoons of ground flax seeds at the end of frying your friend rice. Stir and fry the rice until fragrant. You will find that adding ground flax seeds gives the same effect of a fried rice fragrant, just like those from Chinese restaurants in Singapore, where they fried the rice under big fire. 

Chinese Red Bean Paste 红豆沙 [hóngdòu shā] sweetened with dried dates


Chinese Red Bean Paste breakfast enriched with oat grains, wheat germ and wheat bran


Chinese Brown Rice & Quinoa Minced Pork Porridge

Vitamin K: Just Leaves of 1 Stalk Kale (10 g) A Day

Do you know that eating just the leaves of a small stalk of kale (10 g) a day will fully covers your daily vitamin K need?

A 100 g of kale covers 1021% RDI of vitamin K. A leaf stalk weighs about 20 g and removing the stem leaves 10 g of leaves and covers 100% RDI of vitamin K.

You can just blend a stalk of kale (with stem removed) into your smoothie along with other fruits, or add the leaves of one stalk to your salad.

RDI = Recommended daily intake

Colors of the Rainbow Smoothies for the Week

I am thinking of making these smoothies according to the colors of rainbow (well, almost) for each day of the week:

Monday: Red smoothie
Tuesday: Orange smoothie
Wednesday: Yellow smoothie
Friday: Green smoothie
Thursday: Light green smoothie
Saturday: Purple smoothie

Sunday: We will take a break and enjoy a Chocolate smoothie instead.

The plan is that I will go for my groceries shopping once a week to cover all the ingredients for that week. I am not quite sure whether I will keep to this order, but I guess the aim is to cover the colors of the rainbow. The sequence is not so important.

To make it simple, I might also just use all the colors' ingredients mixed in a smoothie, but that will give a muddy color, which is not so attractive to the kids, and adults alike. Let's see how it works out :-)

Btw, it's actually possible to make blue smoothies (see links below), but I think it is too much work for now...

Useful Links:
http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/eat-rainbow
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blue-smoothie-bowl-recipe_n_57bc4f13e4b0b51733a5b417
https://thefirstyearblog.com/rainbow-smoothie/
https://www.finedininglovers.com/blog/food-drinks/purple-fruits-and-vegetables/

Triple Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup (250 ml) fresh skimmed milk
2. 1 tsp flax seeds
3. 1 cup (30 g) baby spinach
4. 1 cup (30 g) kale
5. 1/2 cup (15 g) parsley
6. 1 tsp ginger finely cut
7. 1 orange without skin and cut into smaller chunks
8. 1 banana
9. 1 apple cored and cut into smaller chunks

Directions:

Add all ingredients in the order listed above into a blender and blend until smooth.

Total Calories: 493 kcal

Additional Information:

This smoothie contains three greens, namely spinach, kale and parsley. Thus, I name it Triple Green Smoothie.

Although spinach and Kale are both super greens, they complement each other with a different strong concentration of vitamins and minerals. I have done a comparison below based on 100g raw vegetables. Click to enlarge picture:

Therefore, it is good to have a bit of both in your green smoothie. Spinach is very mild, thus, most people are able to accept spinach in their smoothie. Actually, I don't notice or taste much of the kale in my smoothie. Perhaps, I am so used to green smoothie already. If you are new to having vegetables in your smoothie, you can start by adding only spinach. Once you can accept it, move on to adding kale. You will realize that you won't notice any difference. The sweetness from the apple and orange will cover up any vegetable taste :-)

But if you absolutely have to pick one, then choose spinach. They have the most number of vitamins and minerals, and are more readiness available than kale, if not even cheaper too.

And Parsley is a super herb too. Below is the nutritional information of the triple greens. Click to enlarge picture:

Chinese Chili Bean Paste Kale & Beef

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1. 400g beef cut into slices
2. 3 stalks of kale de-stemmed
3. 2 stalks of spring onions chopped
4. 2 cloves garlic chopped
5. 1 TBS of ginger sliced
6. 1 TBS cooking oil
7. 1 TBS chili bean paste (See picture below)
8. 1 tsp soy sauce
9.  1 tsp of corn starch
10. Salt & pepper to taste
11. 1 litre water (for cooking kale)

Directions:

1. Marinade beef with corn starch, soy sauce, salt and pepper.
2. Bring to boil a pot of water.
3. Add Kale, reduce heat and cook for 5 mins or until Kale is cooked. Add salt to taste.
4. Drain and transfer Kale to a serving dish. Save the water.
5. Heat 1 TBS cooking oil on wok on high.
5. Fry garlic, spring onions and ginger until golden.
6. Add beef and fry until cooked.
7. Add 1 TBS of chili bean paste and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Add a bit of water saved from cooking Kale, stir and mix well.
9. Pour the beef and gravy on top of the Kale in the serving dish.
10. Serve with rice :-)

Additional Information:

I learned this dish at a friend's place, who was serving it today. Our Little FECS loved it.

Apple, Beetroot, Spinach & Kale Juice

Serves 4 glasses (2 litres)

Ingredients:

1. 2 large beetroot
2. 4 apples peeled and cut
3. 4 oranges peeled and cut
4. 4 pears cut
5. 4 kiwi peeled and cut
6. 200g spinach
7. 200g kale

Directions:

Just juice them in a juicer, pour into glass and serve :-)

Additional Information:

My mum is here to visit us and stay with us for 3 months :-) So I have fulfilled my dream of juicing for my mum today using our favorite Hurom juicer :-) My mum said pa didn't get to try it. He couldn't chew much then, so this will be very good - a vitamin bomb that he could chew. Whey didn't I thought of it them... A few years ago, we had our old Phillips juicer, that was not efficient at all - using lots of fruits and only produced a little juice. It had stayed as a white elephant in our cabinet for years. Sigh... if only I have gotten to know Hurom juicer earlier and we have managed to do that for him...

I got the glasses from HW Hjørnet for 10 DKK each.

Broccoli, Carrot & Apple Juice

Serves 3 glasses

Ingredients:

1. 3 stalks of broccoli
2. 3 carrots peeled and cut
3. 3 apples cut
4. 3 kiwi peeled and cut
5. 100g baby spinach
6. 100g kale
7. 1 beetroot (optional)

Directions:

Just juice them in a juicer, pour into glass and serve :-)

Additional Information:

We saw this juice that uses broccoli at the juice store, and I was like, what broccoli, could it really taste good? My friend bought it and she said that the broccoli taste didn't overpower at all. So I tried it when I came home today. And it is true, we could not taste the broccoli at all :-)

I use the Hurom no. filter 1 to make juice instead of smoothie.

In this concoction, we used 1 carrot each and 3 kiwi each for the three of us, thus fully covering the daily recommended intake for vitamin A and vitamin C - see link below:

We bought the Hurom Elite Juicer HF2 in stainless steel presentation. It is also available in Amazon:

http://amzn.to/1VjdNzM

Orange, Carrot & Kale Juice

Serves 3 glasses

Ingredients:

1. 3 carrots peeled and cut
2. 3 oranges peeled and cut
3. 100g raw kale

Directions:

Just juice them in a juicer, pour into glass and serve :-)

Additional Information:

This time around, we use the Hurom no. filter 1 to make juice instead of smoothie.

In this concoction, we used 1 carrot each and 1 orange each for the three of us, thus fully covering the daily recommended intake for vitamin A and vitamin C - see link below:

http://www.familyfecs.com/2016/04/vitamin-just-1-medium-carrot-day.html

http://www.familyfecs.com/2016/04/vitamin-c-just-1-orange-day.html

We bought the Hurom Elite Juicer HF2 in stainless steel presentation. It is also available in Amazon:

http://amzn.to/1VjdNzM

18 April 2016 (7Y1M13D): Juice time while going through the day's school work

Vitamin K: Just 1 TBS Cooked Kale (11g) A Day

Vitamin K

Do you know that eating 1 tablespoon cooked kale (11g) a day fully covers your daily vitamin K need (based on adult's need)?

Recommended daily intake: 120mg

• 2mcg (0-6 months old)
• 2.5mcg (7-12 months old)
• 30mcg (1-3 years old)
• 55mcg (4-8 years old)
• 60mcg (9-13 years old)
• 75mcg (14-18 years old)
• 90mcg for women (19 years & above)
• 120mcg for women (19 years & above)
• 90mcg for pregnant women
• 90mcg for breast-feeding women

Functions:

Helps blood clot. May play a role in treating osteoporosis and Alzheimer's and help protect against cancer and heart disease.

References:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=112