Pineapple Citrus Ginger Green Smoothie

I’m very much a smoothie girl! I don’t know when my love for them started but I’m glad it did. They have literally saved my life in the morning especially since I’m a grab and go kind of person especially on work days. I have a smoothie for breakfast 3-4 times a week. I’m a creature of habit with many things and smoothies are included in that. I usually have the same variation pretty much all the time and it just works and I never tire of it. In fact I crave it. My smoothies must include lots of greens and for that I usually do frozen spinach. I also have some frozen bananas that I add along with frozen blueberries, almond milk and for bulk I add hemp seeds, flax meal and a flax chia blend, and sometimes I will add my collagen powder to it too. That is my typical smoothie. I do switch things up depending on what I have available. This type of smoothie is nutrient and calorie dense meaning it’s a meal. It’s not a sit by the beach kind of fruit smoothie that’s just fruit and ice. I love those too but I’m just clarifying what type of smoothie I usually have in the midweek.

I was sent some maple syrup from a fabulous company called Runamok. You all must know by now that I love maple syrup and always have. It’s one of my favorite things to use to sweeten things from my salad dressing to my bliss balls and beyond. I love honey too but I save honey for things that I can taste it in or on especially since our local honey here is so fragrant and delicious.

Anyways I was excited to receive their maple syrup especially since they sent me some of their infused maple syrups to try and to experiment using in things other than poured of pancakes. They wanted me to come up with some recipes for using them in smoothies. I immediately thought of using their ginger infused one in my citrus smoothie that I usually make when it’s citrus season over here. And it was perfect. It adds the right amount of sweetness and heightens the intensity of the ginger in the smoothy. The best part about it is it does this completely naturally and organically.

They infuse their maple syrups with real ingredients. No artificial flavours or essences or colours to spoil it. So you can imagine the intensity of the ginger in this maple syrup! It’s sooo good. I will be using it in cocktails too as the perfectly infused simple syrup to a gingery drink. I also love it in my stir fry’s too. I usually finish off my stir fry with some maple syrup or honey along with some sesame oil and this ginger infused syrup is great cause it intensifies the ginger in the dish and adds a natural sweetness too. It’s perfect for its regular uses over flap jacks and waffles as well so I will be loving it over those too!

This smoothie is fresh from the citrus as well as the pineapple and ginger. It’s so refreshing and it’s chalk full of greens too but doesn’t taste ‘bushy’ or like you are drinking grass or ‘bush’ as we say here in Trinidad. This would be great without the bulking add ins for a lighter more refreshing drink but I love to make this into a power smoothie by adding all the extras which make this refreshing to take on my way to work on our very hot mornings and also filling.

It’s super high in vitamin C so it’s great for keeping your immunity up. I make a big batch and the extra I pour into ice trays and freeze for later in the day or the next morning. I just add more freshly squeezed orange juice or just some water to blend right out of the ice cube trays. We loved this - both me and my husband. He is not really a smoothie man. He drinks them because I make them and because he knows their good for him and he isn’t really into green drinks either, so for him to thoroughly enjoy this one says a lot. If you love citrus and want a tropical twist to your smoothie, this is definitely one to try!

Ingredients

• 1 small to medium pineapple cored and cleaned and chopped
• 6 oranges peeled and seeds removed (add whole if seedless otherwise squeeze for their juice alone)
• 1 inch ginger peeled and added whole
• 2 cups fresh spinach or 1 cup frozen
• 2 frozen bananas
• 2 tbsp of maple syrup - we used Runamok ginger infused one. Add more according to taste
• ¼ cup ground flax (flax meal)(optional)
• 1 tbsp Chia (optional)
• 1 tbsp Hemp (optional)
• 4-5 tablets of Chlorella (optional)

Directions

• Place all ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until creamy and smooth adding more juice or water to thin out to your preferred consistency.

Recipe Notes

To keep this lighter just leave out the flax chia hemp and chlorella - they are totally optional.