What Making a Smoothie Actually Looks Like

Yesterday I bought a hand held blender, so that I could make fruit and vegetable smoothies.  I'd seen photos of these amazing green drinks that looked so beautiful.  Surely I could make one!  

This afternoon, I looked on Food Gawker (one of my favorite websites) for a good recipe.  After a quick search for spinach smoothies, I found this:

http://zoomyummy.com/2011/01/13/detox-smoothie/

And this: 

http://www.52kitchenadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Tropical-green-smoothie-2-1024x979.jpg

And this too: 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjljAgFocMfc9YGDmJFxgNZMtjJCJ119R7qc34gbaweHL-GBa4GfEgmQpl9eKjHLkItRGasFeyCpxUk8GZFKvVoD2D9ebhXTIDSjUhY4WpCQ0RNtBBJyIlIQ6Rfa6i0reonNVvpG3eEiG0K/s1600/Spinach+green+Grape+Smoothie+2+-+small.jpg

Yummo!  I could make that....sure thing!  

So...I piled up my ingredients on the counter.  1 frozen banana from last winter, some fresh kale, some fresh spinach, fresh ginger root, frozen strawberries, and a bag of frozen mangoes.

I put the banana and some of the spinach in the cup that came with my new hand held blender thingy.  I tried mashing it in there, and smelled only the aroma of an appliance engine working too hard.  This shit was not blending like I hoped it would.  I grabbed the vanilla soy milk from my fridge and reluctantly poured some in.  It started to work a bit better, so I added some strawberries.

Next I added some mango and a big piece of ginger root.  Mash Mash Mash the stupid hand held thing went.  I needed more milk.  As I was adding stuff to my smoothie, I of course kept wondering what the point of a smoothie was.  I like to eat spinach and kale and fruit.  Was it necessary to put it all together?  

I kept having to stir the damn thing, which for those who know about my sensory issues (i.e. I don't like water, or wet things in general touching me), this was quite uncomfortable.  "I'm gonna do this," I kept telling myself, "Even if I'm covered in green junk by the end."

I continued to jam and mash the blender thing into the cup, every once and a while pushing too hard and causing it to spill over the sides and onto me/the counter/the floor.  "This better taste good," I said out loud, wondering who really makes a smoothie without making a mess.

At last, I was done!  My counter, blender, and hands were covered in green goo.  I quickly cleaned up and took one last cell phone photo of my smoothie.  I should mention that my cell phone was also adorned with green splotches of goo.

I'm sitting on my couch now, drinking my smoothie, which all in all is not that bad.  I think the large quantity of ginger is what made it taste better than shit.  Will I make another smoothie?  Absolutely... I have a whole kitchen full of produce that needs to get eaten.  Besides, the lady at target said I could only return the blender if it was defective, not if I just didn't like it.  

Bon Appetite!