Green Market Smoothie

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •High-speed blender
• •Citrus reamer or your hands
• •Tall glasses

Instructions

1. 1

   Gather your greens

   Start with the spinach or kale. They should look alive, not tired. Leaves that squeak when you rub them together still have their water, their aliveness. Rinse them gently under cold water and shake dry. If you are using kale, strip the leaves from the stems and tear into smaller pieces. The stems are too fibrous for a smooth drink.

2. 2

   Prepare the apple and ginger

   Choose an apple that snaps when you bite it. Granny Smith or a local heirloom variety with some tartness works beautifully here. Core it and chop roughly, leaving the skin on. The skin holds flavor and color. Peel the ginger with a spoon, scraping against the grain. It should smell sharp and bright the moment you cut into it.

   Older ginger gets fibrous and hot. Young ginger, with its thin, papery skin, is gentler and more fragrant.
3. 3

   Squeeze the lemon

   Roll the lemon under your palm on the counter to release its juices. Cut it in half and squeeze through your fingers, catching the seeds. This takes thirty seconds. Bottled lemon juice has none of the brightness, none of the oils from the zest that mist the air as you squeeze. The difference is not subtle.

4. 4

   Blend in stages

   Add the liquid to your blender first, then the greens. Blend for fifteen seconds until the leaves break down into the water. Now add the apple, ginger, frozen banana, honey, mint, and that pinch of salt. Blend on high until completely smooth, about sixty seconds. Stop and scrape down the sides if needed.

   The frozen banana creates body without ice, which dilutes flavor. Peel ripe bananas and freeze them in pieces for smoothies all week.
5. 5

   Taste and adjust

   Pour a small taste. The smoothie should be bright from the lemon, sweet enough from the honey and banana, with a gentle heat from the ginger at the finish. Add more honey if your greens are bitter, more lemon if it tastes flat. The salt is there to wake everything up. You should not taste salt, only notice that the flavors seem more themselves.

6. 6

   Pour and serve immediately

   Divide between two glasses and drink right away. A smoothie is a living thing. It separates and dulls as it sits. This is breakfast at its most honest: the market in a glass, cold and green and full of morning.

Chef Tips

• •Buy greens from a farmer you can talk to. Ask when they were picked. Greens lose half their nutrients within three days of harvest. Freshness is not a luxury; it is the point.
• •Local honey supports your neighborhood beekeepers and carries the pollen of your region. Some say it helps with allergies. I say it simply tastes like where you live.
• •If you cannot find good fresh ginger, leave it out rather than using the jarred paste. Ginger paste tastes like ginger the way instant coffee tastes like coffee.
• •In winter, when local greens are scarce, seek out greenhouse-grown spinach from nearby farms or use hearty kale that stores well. The smoothie adapts to the season.

Advance Preparation

• •Freeze ripe bananas in pieces so they are always ready. Peel them first; frozen banana peels are miserable to work with.
• •Wash and dry greens when you bring them home, store loosely in a cloth bag in the refrigerator. They will be ready when you are.
• •This smoothie cannot be made ahead. Blend and drink. That is the whole recipe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 335g)