Honeyed Words: Food Through a Straw, Red Juice Smoothie

Food Through a Straw, Red Juice Smoothie · 8 March 2007

Food isn't a factor in The Onion Girl. Except for references that the air in the Dreamlands is almost solid enough to sustain one, there isn't much mention of sustenance and understandably so. Jilly is recovering from a serious accident. During the first part of the novel she is fed through a tube, and even though she progresses, Jilly still views her body as "The Broken Girl," so enjoying earthly pleasures is hardly on her mind.

What is on Jilly’s mind is dreaming, whimsy, art, and healing. With that in mind, I went out in search of foods that were out of the ordinary, magical, artistic, or just plain healthy and easy to eat with the goal of cooking up something that might have tempted Jilly out of the Dreamlands and reminded her of the pleasure to be had here in The World as It Is.

Today’s entry is practical, a veritable primeval soup of healthy goodness, a quick liquid snack, a good source of antioxidants, and a money saving idea all in one.

What I’ve done is create a red juice smoothie inspired by one of my favorites, Naked Juice ® Red Machine. Jilly may not be worried about earthly problems during her spiritual journey, but I am (as I would imagine most of you are) and I’m always looking for ways to save a bit of time and/or money without sacrificing taste.

The original blend is an excellent source of vitamins and nutrients, including a good chunk of dietary fiber and potassium (two things most Americans lack in their daily intake). The Naked Juice ® Red Machine includes some vitamin boosts such as flax seed but I made this recipe as quick and simple as possible for me by not adding those. I also went after ratios that required the least bit of measuring, for example, I used 10 ounces of frozen raspberries and 32 ounces of juice because those are the sizes that my grocery store carries. Feel free to experiment and make this easy for you, that’s half the point of this exercise!

Picture of a Glass Filled with Juice

Red Juice Blend Smoothie:

32 oz bottle of cranberry/pomegranate 100% juice blend (I used the L&A Pomegranate Cranberry Delight $1.99)
16 oz bag frozen strawberries ($2.99, organic)
10 oz bag frozen raspberries ($2.99, organic)
1 banana ($0.20, approximately)
10 to 20 red grapes ($0.25, approximately)

Add ingredients to a blender or food processor in small batches, being careful not to overfill. Blend each batch thoroughly until all the fruit has been liquefied and the texture is uniform. Transfer blended mixture to a 64 oz pitcher in batches.

Repeat until all ingredients have been processed, then stir final mixture with a wooden spoon or spatula until it obtains a smooth and even consistency.

Shake or stir prior to serving. Ingredients will settle. Keep refrigerated.

Cost Analysis:

Total Cost for approximately 58 ounces (the equivalent of 3.8 bottles of Naked Juice ®) = $8.42 or $0.1451 per ounce.

I probably could have cut costs a bit by going to the grocery store that sells non-organic frozen fruit, but it wasn’t on my way, so I saved the gas money by not making an extra trip instead.

I’ve seen the Naked Juice ® Red Machine sell from as little as $2.00 (on sale) to as much as $3.89 for a 15.2 ounce serving. Total per ounce price for the Naked Juice ® Red Machine ranges from $0.1358 (on sale) to $0.2559.

So, the moral of the story is: If you see the bottle for $2.00, grab it, but if you’re stuck with a store that is going to charge you $3.89 a pop, you’ll save about $6.42 for every 4 bottles you buy.

Taste Analysis:

I’ve had a glass of my blend for breakfast every morning this week and I like it so much, I’m not even bored of it. My version turned out quite a bit more tart than the Naked Juice ® version, which I was quite pleased about. The strongest taste was the cranberry, but the strawberries and raspberries were also quite evident in the flavor palette. The rest of the fruits provided the background taste (though one of my tasters thought I used too much banana).

The Naked Juice ® version uses orange juice in addition to the ingredients I listed, and I think their cranberry/pomegranate/apple juice was more highly skewed to the apple side than mine. I could barely taste the apple juice in my smoothie, but after drinking mine, then drinking theirs apple seemed to be one of the dominant flavors in the Naked Juice ® version (which isn't the usual experience with a Red Machine).

The only complaint I have with my version is that I don’t have a blender strong enough to get the incredibly smooth, seed free blended consistency of the commercial product (probably obtained during the pasteurization process). As you can see in the pictures, my version was somewhat frothy, more a smoothie than a juice drink, but tasty nonetheless. This second picture does better justice to the actual color of the blend than the lighting in the first one does. Wouldn’t it look cute in a martini glass as a mocktail? I'll bet even Jilly could get excited about that.

Picture of a Glass Filled with Juice

ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday

This recipe qualifies for Sweetnicks ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday, an ongoing focus on healthy eating by one of my fellow food bloggers. I’ve submitted a link to be included in next week’s wrap-up post, but for those who are interested in starting up a collection of healthy and delicious recipes, check out the archives at Sweetnicks for past contributors.

Searchable keywords/ Technorati tags: Antioxidants, Cranberry, Fruit, Juice Blend, Mocktail, Pomegranate, Raspberry, Smoothie, Strawberry, The Onion Girl, Vegan, Vegetarian