Recipes – Blender Lady (2024)

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These are more than just recipes. In addition to giving you ingredients and proportions, I intend to use the recipes to teach you how to use your Vitamix to produce different end results such as “chopping” (Salsa and Chicken Salad), perfect Frozen Deserts every time, smooth and cold Whole Fruit Juices, Hot Soups with texture, and delicious purees (Raw Applesauce)! And I would be remiss if I left out the “Classic” Vitamix Whole Fruit Margarita…

For help deciding on the best Vitamix model for your needs and budget, visit:www.BlenderBuyingHelp.com

Emerald Ecstasy Green Smoothie
WholeFruit Juice
Tortilla Soup
Ice Cream
Chicken Salad
Salsa
Raw Applesauce
Cold Green Soup
Whole Fruit MargaritaAlmond Milk

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My Famous “Emerald Ecstasy” Green Smoothie

The “Emerald Ecstasy”Green Smoothie is the one that I used to make at shows before Vitamix asked demonstrators to stop using grapes and apples. The “Sweet Green Smoothie” recipe is the new“Vitamix compliant” recipe. If you had my green smoothie at a show with Orange, liked it, and want to make that one, use the “Sweet Green Smoothie” recipe below.

FYI – I call these “Kindergarten Green Smoothies”. They are good for introducing skeptics (like kids, husbands, wives, or anyone who looks at green with a turned up nose) to a Green Smoothie that tastes great. As you graduate in your “Green Smoothie Education” you will increase the greens, and decrease the glycemic index of the fruits that you use. If you keep it up, your taste buds will adapt and you will crave more greens and less sweet. You will have your “Green Smoothie Ph.D” in no time! 😉

Put Ingredients into your Vitamix in the following order:

My old recipe (Emerald Ecstasy) (was a bigger batch than my new, recipe)
1/4 cup of water
1-2 Cups of Green Grapes
1/4 of a large Pineapple or 1/3 of a small Pineapple
One whole large Banana
Half of a small Apple or 1/4 of a large one
2 big hand fulls of Spinach (at a show I add a touch of Kale and Parsley too)
2 cups of Ice

This will make 2-3 LARGE servings or 4-5 smaller (juice glass size) servings.

See pictures of this recipe in my blog post: Emerald Ecstasy Green Smoothie

My current “Vitamix Approved ingredients” show recipe – (Sweet Green Smoothie):
Agave to taste*
1/4 cup of water
thin slice of lime with rind on
1/2 of an Orange (leave white pith and seeds – peel off the orange part)*
very small amount of Lime with peel remaining (about 1/2 the size of a slice of Lemon you would get in a glass of water at a restaurant)
Slice of Pineapple (about 1.5 inch with core remaining, but skin removed)
1/2 of a Banana
Large hand full of Spinach
1 cup of ice

This will make 4-5 cups of Green Smoothie

*Vitamix only allows us to use Agave. I don’t recommend Agave. At home I use Stevia. Dates or Yacon Syrupare other good sweetener options. Miracle Berries also work to sweeten this recipe if you increase the amount of lime to 1/2 of a lime peeled.

Blend according to the instructions in my Fruit Juice section (until the icy slushy mixture turns into a smooth liquid). This is a “beginner” Green Smoothie. As you get used to the taste of the greens, you can increase the proportion of greens to fruit, try out some of the “stronger tasting greens” (remember, Spinach is one of the “magic veggies”), and use fruits that are not as sweet – like berries for instance.

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Whole Fruit Juice

Five Fruits, Two Veggies

Put Ingredients into your Vitamix in the following order:

Water 1/2 cup (at a show I use 5 oz.)
One Orange Peeled (leave the white pith)
1/2 of a Banana
5-6 Strawberries – leave the green tops on! 😉 (at a show I use 4 to save $)
Pineapple wedge (one to two cups)
1/4 of an Apple – I include the seeds, core, and skin
3-4 small Baby Carrots, or a small chunk of Carrot
a leaf of Red Cabbage (stem removed) half of a leaf if it is a very large leaf (this adds a beautiful color to the Juice)
One cup of Ice (or try freezing almond milk or coconut water into ice cubes!)
Sweetener of your Choice (or none) in a show I am required to use Agave*, at home I only use Stevia, Dates are an excellent natural sweetener.

*I don’t recommend Agave. At home I use Stevia. Dates orYacon Syrupare other good sweetener options.

Blend on high until the ice melts. This can take longer than you think!

A lot of people say that they can’t make their fruit juices come out the same way taste and texture as mine at a show. The key to getting your Whole Fruit Juice the texture and temperature that you desire, is the proportion of frozen to non-frozen ingredients that you use, and the length of time that you blend. If you are using all room temperature fruits (and veggies if you are including them) you will need to add something frozen (either ice, frozen fruit, or “smoothie cubes”). If you are using frozen fruits, you may need to add water. If you use ice, it will melt and become the liquid in your smoothie. If you have very fibrous ingredients like carrot, seeded berries, or wheat grass, the amount of frozen ingredients should be enough that when you first start blending the drink it is very thick because of the frozen stuff (like a very thick “slushy”). In fact, many times my juices start out so thick and frozen that they are like ice creams. Using Plenty of Frozen Ingredients in the beginning buys you plenty of “blending time” and allows you to blend the drink long enough (one to two minutes) without over heating your smoothie/juice! As the friction of the blades spinning at 249 miles per hour begins to heat up the ingredients, the drink will turn from a very thick, frozen “slushy” to a liquid. If you want a smoothie, or a creamy textured juice (and not a “chunky”) you want to blend long enough to smooth out the texture, but start out with enough frozen ingredients that your smoothie will still be very cold (if that is the temperature you are striving for).

Making juice is not an exact science. With a little bit of practice, you will soon learn how much frozen ingredients you need to start with, and how long you need to blend to get your smoothie/juice BOTH the temperature and the texture you are striving for…

If you taste your juice and it is not as sweet as you would like, consider adding one of the sweeteners from the Sweeteners and Smoothie Additives page of my website. I don’t recommend Agave. At home I use Stevia. Dates orYacon Syrupare other good sweetener options.

Search “beverages” here for additional juice recipes.

Tortilla Soup

(aka “Must Go Soup”)
I base my recipe off of the recipe on the bottle of “Blend It Up” Spice Mix that we sell at some shows. Where my recipe departs from that recipe are some extra “secret” ingredients 😉 Lucky for you, I’m going to let you in on the “secrets” that make the recipe an all-time favorite crowd pleaser – they are the ingredientsin italics.

1 carrot (a regular carrot, not a baby carrot)
1 stalk of celery
1 small wedge of green cabbage
1/4of Red Pepper (don’t forget the seeds!)
1/2 to 3/4 inch slice each of zucchini and yellow squash (or more of just one of these)
3-4 Large Roma Tomatoes (a much better flavored tomato is the Campari – 6-8 small or 4-5 large ones)
Cilantro to taste (I use the leaves off of 2 stems in a show)
A medium clove of Garlic
A slice of jalapeño pepper to your taste – or – leave this out if you don’t like spicy! (I don’t use this in shows)
Sea Salt to taste
1 level Tbs“Blend-It-Up Southwest Spice Mix” (coupon code 15244 at BlendItUp.com gets you a 20% discount)*
A Vegetable Boullion Cube (I use Rapunzel Brand)
A 1 inch cube of cheese (I like Sharp Cheddar, but some like Monterey Jack – choose what you like best!)For a great tasting, non-dairy alternative to cheese, use 1/4 of an Avocado – adds an EXCELLENT Texture to the soup!
Small wedge of lemon – VERY small, just a hint of tart is what we are after. You can use the rind when using such a small amount. It should be about 1/2 the size of the Lemon they put on your glass of water in a restaurant.
2-3 dates
A pinch of sun dried tomatoes (up to 1/4 cup) Adds thickness and an amazing tomato flavor!

*If you don’t have the Blend It Up Spice you can use Taco Seasoning, or a 50/50 blend of Cumin and Taco Seasoning (this is what I use at demonstrations in Whole Foods Market shows). Also, if the Blend it Up Southwest Spice is too spicy for you, try making a 50/50 blend with Cumin.

AFTER the above ingredients are in the container, I add hot water to reach the 3 cup line on the Vita-Mix container (this is Less Than 3 cups because there are already ingredients taking up space in the container). Even though the machine can turn cold water into nearly boiling (over 200°), I usually use my hot pot to pre-heat the water. This saves blending time, and a lot of loud noise! When I’m running the Vitamix for a long time, I usually take my wind-up timer with me and leave the room. 🙂

Blend on high until the temperature goes back up (the room temperature or cold vegetables will cool off the hot water). Also don’t go from “off” to “high speed” all at once… start on variable speed low, turn the dial up to high, then flip the switch to high. I don’t blend too long because I don’t want to cook the vegetables any more than I have to, however, you can blend as long as you like to get the soup to the temperature you want. Feel the container – you can tell when the container is getting nice and hot!

Whenever you use the Vitamix to heat a soup, you are making a broth (because the heat comes from the friction of the blades spinning at 240 mph). If you want a soup with texture, all you have to do is keep the machine on high until the broth is as hot as you want it, THEN drop the switch from high to variable, and adjust the dial down to the lower variable speeds (start at #1 and work you way up only if necessary). While the blades are spinning at variable speed #1, add whatever you want for texture and the blades will chop it up for you!

In my Tortilla Soup, after the broth is hot… I turn the blender switch back down to variable speed #1 and add about 1/2 cup of my “must goes”… these are ingredients that I add for flavor and texture. These ingredients can be whatever you have in your refrigerator that “must go”, or, whatever ingredients have the flavor that you like. At a show, I use spinach and organic corn chips. At home I use cooked black beans and corn. I also add cooked chicken. On the lower variable speeds, the machine will chop (more like shred) the chicken right in the soup (I like to let the machine do the work for me)! At a show I use the lower variable speeds to chop the tortilla chips into the soup (because the samples will be consumed right away while they are still crunchy), at home, we crumble the tortilla chips on top of the soup.

If you want your soup to be served very hot, you might consider heating your “must goes” before putting them into the hot broth.

If you use cooked ground beef instead of chicken in this soup it is more like a chili – a really healthy chili!

Other ideas for “must goes” include:
chopped meats (I use chicken mostly)
asparagus
green beans
spinach
mushrooms
cooked rice
cooked potato
broccoli
etc.

Voila! Enjoy!

Search “soups” here for additional soup recipes.

Ice Cream (Sorbet)

Before I give you the recipe I use in my shows, I want to let you know that the basic “rule of thumb” for making ice cream (or sorbets) in a Vitamix is 3 cups of frozen ingredients to 1 cup of non-frozen. Stick with that, and you should come very close to getting the “four mounds” that you’ve seen in my demonstrations and you’ll get them to appear when the consistency is just right.

Strawberry Sorbet– Old Show Recipe (we no longer make this in shows)

To find my current show recipe lookbelow for the “Simple Sorbet”.

The liquid for the strawberry ice cream I make at a show (it is really a sorbet) comes from 100% Juice Concentrate (I prefer the White Grape flavor as it seems to be more of a “neutral” flavor and primarily just adds a nice tart, sweetness). Be SURE to read labels! You don’t want a Juice co*cktail – those are full of high fructose corn syrup and lots of chemical preservatives. If you are shopping Welches brand, all of the juice concentrates with the yellow lids are 100% juice (preserved only with vitamin C) and all of the concentrates in the white lid are juice co*cktail (full of sugar and chemical preservatives). If you are not buying from Welches, just be sure you read the label and are buying 100 % juice concentrate.

Pour the juice concentrate just to the tip of the highest blade (this is 3/4 cup which is exactly 1/2 of a juice concentrate container). If you want more sweet and less tart, add something to sweeten. At home I use Stevia, but in a show I have to use Agave or Honey.

Add any of the “5 Magic Veggies” that you are going to use (IF you are going to use them) and stick to only 1/4 of a cup. Keep in mind that if you use spinach, it will darken the color of the ice cream, but it won’t change the flavor!

If you don’t add any of the magic veggies – add something non-frozen to bring the liquid/non-frozen amount up to the 1 cup line. It could be a banana, some unfrozen fruit of the same kind as the frozen fruit you will be using, half-n-half, or even water.

At home I use half of an Avocado – this really helps make it creamy!

Add frozen fruit. This is where proportions can only come from experience. Start off with frozen fruit to right at the 4-cup line (don’t go much higher as you can cause the motor to over-heat and turn off if you try to make more than 4 cups of ice cream at a time). I don’t often use ice at home because my fruits are frozen solid – I use ice at the show because my fruits gradually thaw in the cooler, however, you can do a combination of frozen fruit and ice as long as the two frozen ingredients together do not exceed the 4-cup line. Turn the machine on variable speed 1 then run it up to 10 then flip the switch up to high. Use your tamper to push the ingredients from the corners down toward the blades. If you have a lot of frozen ingredients, keep pushing the tamper down from each corner and as the tamper gets into the middle of the container pull it right back out (keeping the tamper inside the vortex of air in the middle of the container can block off that cool air and cause the motor to over-heat). Also try plunging the tamper down one corner, across the middle, and then drag the ice cream up the sides of the opposite corner. This will cause the opposite corner to get pulled down into the whirling blades.

If you keep at this, you will eventually get it all to mix. If you have too much frozen ingredients you can just stop tamping it all down for a while and eventually, the friction heat will melt the stuff at the bottom enough to allow it all to get mixed together. Every 20 seconds or so, try tamping it down again to see if it will now blend with the stuff that has melted some on the bottom. Alternatively, you could add more liquid.

Different fruits and different kinds of ice will all have a different effect on the final product. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right at the beginning – I make that strawberry ice cream 15-20 times a day so I have it down pat but at home, if I try a different kind of frozen fruit (or a different ice cream recipe) my ice creams turn out different every single time. If they are too frozen, I wait until the machine heats up the ingredients on the bottom – if it is too runny, I add more frozen fruit or ice.

Ideally, the mixture will begin to blend on its own and form 4 nice “pillows” on the top. (see my Green Ice Cream Video for an idea of what this looks like). As soon as you see the 4 “pillows”, blend just a little bit longer (to get any tiny vegetable pieces blended in) and you are done! If there is too much ice cream (anything much over 4 cups) you usually won’t be able to get the 4 “pillows” to form. (There are marks on your container for cups, ounces, and millilitres). But, if you have a batch that comes to right at 4 cups, you can usually achieve the goal of getting it to blend on its own forming the 4 nice “pillows”

Experiment and ENJOY!!!

Simple Sorbet– Show Recipe
3/4 cup of White Grape Juice Concentrate
5 Baby Carrots*
one Frozen Banana
Ice to bring everything up to the 4 cup line
* Replace the Carrots with a TINY bit of beet (about the size of a date), or a small wedge of Red Cabbage (about the volume of 5 baby carrots) for a BEAUTIFUL Pink Sorbet

AppleSorbet– Show Recipe
3/4 cup of AppleJuice Concentrate
Small slice of lime with rind (same size asrestaurants who give lemonwith a glass of water)
1/2 cup red cabbage
one Frozen Banana
1/4 Frozen Avocado (not used in show, but great addition you can add at home to make your recipe creamier)
Ice to bring everything up to the 4 cup line

Chicken Salad

HINT: When you food process anything, don’t add more than what will reach the 1 and 1/2 cup line on the container. I usually do each ingredient one at a time. I love my 32 oz. Wet Blade Container for food processing and making Peanut Butter because it is easier to get the ingredients out of the smaller container.

I use variable speed from between 1-3 to chop:

Cooked chicken breast
Carrot (5-6 baby carrots)
Celery (one medium stalk)
Sweet Onion (about 1/4 of a medium onion)

Remember, put each ingredient into your mixing bowl after chopping them in the Vita-Mix. I don’t clean out the container between each ingredient, I just get the bulk of one ingredient out of the container before chopping up the next ingredient!

Then, I add some mayonnaise and sweet relish to taste.

Optional additions:
Apple
Walnuts
Broccoli

Salsa

To get cilantro (my Alzheimer’s health insurance policy) into my body frequently, I make salsa as often as possible.

Like so many of my recipes, Salsa, is one that varies depending on what I put in it on any give day. Here are some ingredients that always go in:

Campari Tomatoes (my favorite flavor)
Garlic (small clove)
Cilantro (to taste)
Sweet Onion (about 1/4 of a medium one)
Lime juice (a big squeeze or a thick slice of lime with the skin removed)
“Blend-It-Up Spice Mix” (coupon code 15244 at BlendItUp.com gets you a 20% discount)
Salt to taste

Here are some ingredients that I chop and add from time to time depending on what I have on hand, and what I want to try for that day:
Mango
Pineapple
Peach
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Celery
Carrots
Black beans
Corn

Recently I have discovered that my salsa comes out better if I chop some of the ingredients by themselves to get each one to the size that I prefer. For example, if I try to process a carrot with the tomato, the tomato gets pulverized before the carrot gets properly chopped up.

I put one or two small Campari tomatoes (or a chunk of a different kind of tomato that would make enough liquid to just reach the tips of the blades) in with Garlic, Lime, and Blend-It-Up Spice Mix and process to a liquid consistency.

Then, I add the cilantro and process to a very fine consistency.

Then, I add the rest of the tomatoes and chop very lightly so the tomatoes are “chunky”.

Then, I put this mixture into a bowl.

Then, I process each of whatever other ingredients I am going to add and I chop each one individually until they reach the size that I want.

Hint: I’ve noticed that mango chops up better into chunks if it is frozen. Also, I’ve noticed that if you want firm chunks of tomato in your salsa that Roma tomatoes are better for that… Campari have a great flavor but they aren’t very firm – sometimes I mix the two kinds of tomatoes.

Search for “Salsa” recipes at the Vitamix website here.

And this link should have all of the Salsa Recipes you could ever ask for!!! I would just use the Vita-Mix as a food processor (variable speed from 1 to 4 or so) whenever the recipe says “dice”, “chop fine”, or “mince”!

Raw Applesauce

This is a quick, delicious, and HEALTHY applesauce that hasn’t been cooked (which destroys enzymes!). I use the skin, but remove the seeds because I can taste them in the applesauce:

Two whole apples (thoroughly washed and seeds removed)
The juice of half of a lemon*
Cinnamon to taste
Dates (I use 3-6 depending on the sweetness of the apple)

*If you are going to eat all of the applesauce right away, you can use 1/2 of a lemon peeled (there are bioflavanoids in the seeds and white pith), but if you are going to store this, use juice only. Citrus seeds and pith are not bitter when consumed right after blending, but turn bitter over time (I’d consume before 1/2 an hour has elapsed to prevent bitterness from developing).

At home I like to put the apples into the freezer before I make applesauce – not so long that they freeze – just long enough that they are VERY COLD! This is because they tend to heat up as they are blending in the Vita-Mix. Place apples into Vita-Mix whole. Add the other ingredients and then mix on high (using tamper vigorously – this is a great “anger management” recipe). Pound the apples hard, pushing them into the blades until they turn into applesauce. After it turns into “sauce”, I usually blend on variable speed 5-6 for 10-20 additional seconds to be sure that I’m producing a nice, smooth applesauce.

This recipe is full of healthy fiber, alkalizing + Vitamin C-giving lemon juice, and the enzymes have not been destroyed by cooking! If you add some water, maple syrup, and more dates it will become runnier and sweeter and you can run the Vitamix on High until it is a hot fruit syrup! If you don’t add water, but add more dates, and blend until it is hot – it becomes very much like a hot apple butter!

Cold Green Soup

This is a great summer time lunch!

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 of a cucumber (peeled if not organic)
1-2 medium tomatoes (home grown taste best – Campari are 2nd best for flavor if you have to buy from grocery store)
Very small slice of raw onion, (or 1/4 cup cooked and chilled)
1/4 lemon* (rind cut off)
2-3 pitted dates
3-5 sun dried tomatoes (or scant 1/4 cup julienne sun dried tomatoes)
2-4 cups of Greens (you pick what kind – I like Spinach and/or Romaine the best in this recipe)
4-6 fresh basil leaves (or a scant tsp. of dried basil)
Scant tsp. of oregano
1 tsp (or to taste) ofBlend It Up Italian Spice (if you don’t have it, substituteSea Saltto taste)
1/8 cup of a good olive oil, or 1/4 avocado**

I usually pause and blend the above ingredients until the dates and sun dried tomatoes are liquified.

Then I add:

1 stalk celery
1/2 to 3/4 of a red pepper
1/2 of a cucumber

INSTRUCTIONS:
I rough chop the celery, red pepper, and cucumber with a knife, then place them in the Vitamix container. Then I use Variable #1 just enough to “wet chop” the ingredients so I have a crunchy texture in the soup. You can also blend it into a smooth cold soup or “all-veggie-smoothie” if you want – it’s up to youwhat kind of texture you like.

*If you are not going to eat all of this in one sitting, use the juice of 1/2 a lemon instead of blending lemon with the seeds and white pith. Seeds and the white pith turn bitter over time.

**A healthy fat helps you absorb more nutrients from the veggies! Avocado will make the base thicker and creamier.

If you want this really cold, freeze the 1/2 of a cucumber that goes in the first part. Freeze into slices so it is easier to blend. Blend with the first batch of ingredients until liquid, but stop blending early early enough so that it is all still cold.

Whole Fruit Margarita

(The Classic Vitamix Recipe)

Click on the Picture to get a full-page view that you can read easier!

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Almond Milk

There are probably as many Almond Milk recipes as there are people who make it. A quick Google search will give you many, many other possibilities… Here is how I make it:

Soak one cup of Natural (unroasted) Almonds in water over night (cover them with plenty of water because they expand).
In the morning, dump the soak water, and rinse the Almonds.
Add the Soaked Almonds to a 64 oz. Vitamix container then add filtered water to the 5 or 6 cup line.
Blend on High.
Strain the mixture through a Nut Milk Bag.
Add the unflavored Almond Milk back into the Vitamix container.
Add a pinch of Sea Salt, a tsp. of Vanilla, and 2-3 dates (or other sweetener to taste – I use NuNaturals Liquid Vanilla Stevia)
Add a thickener if desired***
Blend on High until smooth.

***That is the basic recipe. It will turn out rather thin, and watery if you strain the fiber, but store bought has a thicker texture. I like to add 2 Tbs. ofMCT Oilfor energy, and 2 Tbs. of eitherHempSeeds,Chia Seeds, or Glucomannan Powder to add thickness, body, and a creamier texture. I add one of these natural, healthy “thickeners” at the same time I add the salt, vanilla, and sweetener. Store bought Almond Milk has carageenan in it to give the creamy mouth feel, but carageenan has been linked to colon cancer, inflammation of the digestive system, and ulcerative colitis. Making your own Almond Milk using natural thickeners is a cost, effective, delicious, and healthy way to make your own!

Homemade almond milk will last 3-5 days in the refrigerator. Many people make Almond Milk Ice Cubes to use in Smoothies or Ice Creams, or they store only what can be used in 2-3 days in the refrigerator, and store the rest in the freezer to keep it fresh.

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Recipes – Blender Lady (2024)

My Famous “Emerald Ecstasy” Green Smoothie

Whole Fruit Juice

Tortilla Soup

Ice Cream (Sorbet)

Chicken Salad

Salsa

Raw Applesauce

Cold Green Soup

Whole Fruit Margarita

Almond Milk

References