Red Velvet(ish) Smoothie

 

This is not an easy time, and you might already understand how self-care goes around here. Mostly it's food. Sometimes it looks like a 7-minute boiled egg with butter and Frank's. Sometimes it's chicken wings, homemade or from the good Korean wing place. A big green salad with fried chickpeas and feta and perfect vinaigrette. Half a grapefruit. Mashed potatoes. It's an excellent alcoholic IPA or a good-enough non-alcoholic IPA. Buttered popcorn with Old Bay or nootch. So even though I'm posting two kind of suspiciously healthy recipes in a row here, rest assured, we are also eating buffalo shrimp (when Ben is home, at least) and Trader Joe's olive oil potato chips.

But I really just kind of love this smoothie, and it makes me feel great when I drink it. It's tangy and rich and smooth. Barely chocolatey, but a little bit chocolatey. It tastes exactly like the color it is. If you have a high-speed blender, you will notice the kale not at all--it will simply disappear, mixed into the red of the berries in a way that the one teaspoon of cocoa will make you feel like "Of course it's brown!" I have a fancy Vitamix blender, which I bought refurbished and which was still expensive and which I use every day and love. However, at my volunteer hospice cooking gig, we have this less expensive blender and it's excellent. 

Anyhoo, take care of yourself, okay? And everyone around you. I'm trying to recenter myself around the word "grace" when it feels like every interaction, even mundane work ones, is too fraught to bear.

Red Velvet(ish) Smoothie

I believe it goes without saying that I don't actually measure anything. 

½ cup frozen raspberries (or use fresh and add a couple of ice cubes)

¼ cup frozen mango cubes, only if you happen to have these languishing in your freezer (I ran out and stopped using them, and it's still good)

½ cup yogurt (I use full-fat vanilla)

½ cup unsweetened cherry juice (I get it at Trader Joe’s, but Whole Foods and my Stop and Shop both sell this too) or a juice of your choosing

1 pitted date

A large handful of clean kale stripped of its thick ribs

A heaping teaspoon cocoa powder (or cacao powder if you’re in an episode of Portlandia)

A dash of vanilla

Whir all the ingredients in a high-speed blender, adding a splash more juice if it's disinclined to move around. Drink! Be nourished and well!

p.s. I wrote this kinda weird piece for my friend April over at Romper.