Summer to Fall Smoothie Guide

Smoothies are easy to make, efficient, raw, and packed with nutrients. In the summer fresh fruit is everywhere and you can find it for cheap on the $2 rack at the farmers market. 

With fall approaching the summer strawberries are turning in to apples and pumpkins. But fear not, you can still make great smoothies all year round for a reasonable price. 

Tips to Making Cheap Fall Smoothies

1. Use frozen fruit.
   Frozen fruit is frozen when it is perfectly ripe. This means it’s sometimes a little better than the produce you find shipped in from South America. You can also cut back on adding ice since the fruit is already frozen.
   Surprising Tip:You can sometimes find frozen fruit cheaper at Trader Joes
2. Buy in Bulk.  If you prefer fresh fruit, buy in bulk. (tips on fresh produce smoothies below*)
3. Add Veggies. While a lot of fruits are going out of season, a lot of new veggies are coming back. We got spinach, squash, pumpkin and lots of other great flavors to start experimenting with for your fall green smoothies. 
4. Swap Fruit to Fit the Season. Don’t worry you don’t have to have spinach smoothies til next June, switch to fruits that are in season. The fall means cranberries, melons, pears, plums, and apples are freshly available, experiment and see what’s ripe for you ;)

**BONUS TIPS FROM A CHEAP SMOOTHIE EXPERT

Jacob Sworeheath is a young professional living in Philadelphia on less than $100 a week. These are his tips for great smoothies all year long:

I like to get as many nutrients out of a smoothie as possible so I always use an orange juice base and usually only raw fresh fruit. Sometimes I put raw spinach leaves, or carrots. If you do that, you have to use soy milk instead of orange juice, because the combination is too strong if you use OJ with spinach.

Normally I buy 2 lb of strawberries a week. I drink one every day. If I miss a few days, I will cut the tops off the strawberries and put them in the freezer. Frozen fruit is a great option. If you have some fruit that is about to go bad. Just freeze it and try it in a smoothie. I’ve used plums, nectarines, peaches, cherries, and other weird fruits which were about to go bad. Sometimes you can find them for cheaper. Make sure to cut them before putting them in the freezer.

Flax seed is something that I WISH I put in every smoothie because it is so healthy …but cleaning it can be a pain, and I just forget to buy it usually, it might be expensive?
 (Flax seed is usually $1.50/lb and can be stored in the freezer-CV) 

Jacob’s go-to smoothie:

• 1 cup of OJ
• 5 strawberries
• 1 banana
• ice

Avocados are AWESOME Heres Why:
Health- Avacados are packed full of good fats that help your body. In salads/with other vegetables, these fats help your body absorb minerals from the other vegetables as well as antioxidants. It has a lot of carotenoids and is a good anti-inflamatory. So don’t be fooled when you hear avocados are a high fat dense food, these fats, like the fats in olives, are anti-inflamatory and are a highly beneficial item to add to your diet.

Food/Cost-Here’s some quick easy ways to eat avocado. You can pick them up most times for $1 each, thats good for about 2 servings (.50 per meal) So I’ll eat half at breakfast and half at dinner. Cut it in to slices to put in a burrito, pair it with sliced potatoes and tomatoes, or in a salad with cucumbers, or just on it’s own for a snack. If you have a really soft avocado, you can even spread it on toast like butter, sprinkle some salt on there or make a sandwich.

***Cheap Easy Instant Guacamole Recipe***
2 Avacados
1 Tbsp Salsa
squirt of lime if you have it.

smash it all together and bam, homemade guacamole. Salsa has all of the ingredients you need to make home made Guac and it’s already in your fridge, all packaged together. (Man I Love Salsa.)

All done my Super Bowl Black Bean Salsa! It only took me about 3 minutes and $4 and it will benefit all my friends tonight during the game.

To reiterate, this is just:

1 can black beans

1 can corn

1 can chopped tomatoes

1/4 of a bottle of low fat Italian Dressing

(real or frozen versions of these veggies work too and are healthier, just make sure to de-thaw)

And that is literally it. Pour it all in a big dipping bowl and serve with tortilla chips.