Freezing fruit and veggies for smoothies

I've got an idea!

I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to make my daily smoothies only to find the fruit i have selected has gone bad. Now, when I buy fruit, if i  know i am going to use it exclusively for smoothies in my nutribullet I freeze it. Bananas would always  go bad on me before I could use them. Now, you can chop up the fruit and just  throw it in a ziplock or a container and freeze, but what you will get is a lump of fruit all stuck together. It is very difficult to separate the fruit if it has been frozen like that.

So, what I do is, peel the bananas, chop into 1 inch sections, place on a cookies sheet lined with wax paper.  

Then I put  it in the freezer for a couple of hours, which usually turns into a day because I forget to get it out. When I get it out, I then place the fruit in a plastic freezer container.

When I want to do a smoothie, I select whatever combination of fruits I want and place them in the nutribullet with some water. Here in the picture below is frozen grapefruit and oranges. I am about to add a 1/4 inch cut of fresh ginger and a garlic clove. Sounds disgusting, but actually good, only if you really like garlic. I good way to get your natural antibiotics with the garlic.

 

Another veggie that I have problems with is spinach. So there are a couple of ways to do spinach that I find time saving. 

• One, is just to put a  handful of spinach in quart size ziplocks and put them in the freezer and freeze. When ready to use, open the bag up and dump the contents into your blender or bullet. 
• Another way is to use cupcake pans. You will need a blender and some orange juice.

1. Pour 1 cup of orange juice into your blender add 2 to 3 handfuls of spinach.
2.  Blend until smooth and liquidy. 
3. Add more spinach until the bag is done.
4.  Pour into ice cube trays or cupcake pans. 
5. Cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer until frozen. 
6. When frozen solid remove from trays or pans and put in plastic container or ziplock bag.

Other things that I freeze are basil, since I have had so much growing in my garden. I also like to freeze buttermilk and tomato paste, because inevitably i do not use the whole can or carton. I also did lemons this year. My friend Claudia, had pulled a bunch of lemons off her tree, because of an impending freeze. I had a boatload of lemons, so, I juiced them all and put them into ice cube trays and then froze them. I cannot tell you how many times i run  out of store bought lemons. Being able to open up the freezer and pull out a couple of cubes has saved me from having to run to the store. 

Here is the link for freezing spinach.

http://www.positivelymommy.com/2013/04/how-to-freeze-spinach-for-smoothies/