We have a new toy in the house. This happens a lot when you have a husband who sells small kitchen appliances, and it's dangerous when you have a microscopic kitchen... but that's another issue for another day. A couple weeks ago, we picked up a smoothie maker to replace my horrible cheap blender. The main reason for this is because I'm looking for ways to get a quick dose of good quality calories, and so far it's been doing the trick.

The problem with smoothies and juicing is that a lot of the information out there comes with a good side of woo. And I don't really want woo. I'm not looking for magic foods or Dr. Oz's Miracle Cure of the Week or detoxes or super combos. Even the machine we bought has a guidebook with some decent recipes but some questionable dietary advice. I tend to stay away from anything faddish, and there are a lot of liquid diet fads out there right now.

Basically, I just want to put some good stuff in a cup, mash the hell out of it for a few seconds, and drink it while I'm running around in a sports bra with one shoe on. I've mostly been using this for pre-runs on clinic days. I get home from work shortly after 5, which leaves me with 15-20 minutes to change and be out the door for my evening run. Since our runs are edging into 10k plus territory as of this week, I need a substantial snack/mini-meal at that time. Smoothies have been a great solution, especially if I get everything ready at lunch so I just have to stick it on the base and go.

So! I'm looking for ideas - especially green smoothies. I tend to be bad about getting in my leafy greens because salads take more effort than I'm willing to do unless I specifically set out to make a salad. For comparison, I have cut raw veggies all over the place that I can grab for a quick lunch or snack, so there's no shortage of carrot sticks and peppers in my diet. I have some taste and texture issues that are mostly visual, so I'm looking for a green smoothie that's on the sweet side (or at least not bitter) so my brain can get over the 'This is WRONG' hump of drinking green sludge (maybe a pretty strawberry on the side of the cup will help). I've had some tasty juices with greens before (I like Jugo Juice's Kale King), but I want something to try at home that I can't screw up. Either that, or something that's a familiar veggie juice mixture (like a V8 type thing).

My usual mix so far has been about 150-200g of fresh fruit (in some combo of banana, blueberries, strawberries and mango), almond milk and vanilla greek yogurt. I haven't tried adding any veggies or nuts yet.

Any thoughts or personal favourites?