It’s strange how your taste in food can change so drastically over the years. I was the world’s pickiest eater when I was younger. I barely ate fruits other than bananas and vegetables weren’t even a blip on my radar in my younger years, much to my parents’ dismay.
Thankfully, I grew out of that stage eventually, and I’ve broadened my eating horizons considerably. Still, I never thought the day would come when I’d admit to liking beets, but there you have it. I love this red velvet smoothie and it’s full of beets. Ergo, I love beets. Things change, I guess.
I’ve actually been obsessed with putting beets in smoothies ever since I tried it last winter. Roasted or boiled beets are okay added to savory dishes, but I think they’re at their best when combined with foods that’ll enhance their natural sweetness – like this Hidden Veggie Red Velvet Smoothie.
I’m still not a huge fan of salads, but I understand the need for a balanced diet and I actually enjoy the taste of most vegetables. So much so, that I find myself trying to chuck as many fruits and vegetables as I can into one smoothie. I almost always ignore the MAX line on my Nutribullet, just to sneak a little extra nutrition in. Yep, I’m a rebel.
The first time I saw someone use beets in place of red food colouring in red velvet cake my mind was blown. I’d never really considered using natural food colourings before that, but now that I’ve tried it, I’m hooked. Last month, I branched out from beets and bought a head of purple cauliflower in hopes of adding a bit of colour to different dishes.
Unfortunately, cauliflower is one of the few vegetables that I still detest and that didn’t change just because it was purple and purple happens to be my favourite colour. Guess the world doesn’t work like that?
Anyway, cauliflower was out, but when I spotted a head of purple cabbage in the grocery while at home over the holidays I just had to pick it up. I haven’t had much interaction with cabbage, except in the occasional coleslaw and that one bowl of cabbage soup I had about 3 years ago, but I was confident that I wouldn’t hate it outright. Plus, it was purple and apparently I didn’t learn anything from the cauliflower incident.
Thankfully, purple cabbage is way better than purple cauliflower and I didn’t have to try to pawn it off on anyone like I did the cauliflower. On it’s own, the cabbage was light, crisp and slightly sweet and actually made me enjoy a salad for once. In this smoothie however, the awesomeness that it the taste of purple cabbage is second to the beautiful colour it produces when mixed with the beets.
And now that I’ve spent a million years waxing poetic on the beauty of beets and purple cabbage, let’s talk about what else is in the smoothie. I started off with bananas and dates for sweetness and added the aforementioned beets and cabbage along with a handful of berries for the colour.
Then, for maximum creaminess a threw in some quick cooking oats and almond milk. And finally, since red velvet wouldn’t be red velvet in my eyes without chocolate, I added some cocoa powder and chocolate chips into the mix.
In the end, this smoothie had not one, but two hidden veggies but everything comes together to form the creamiest, most purple smoothie I ever had the pleasure of enjoying. Oh, this one is pretty thick so you may want to grab a bowl and spoon.
Courtesy : Savorystyle.com ,ideahacks.com