It’s so easy to make smoothies these days, I have found that I really love when certain fruits come into season. And now that I’m becoming more Eco-conscious and trying to mitigate further plastic consumption, I had drastically stopped buying frozen fruits because those plastic bags are special — they are reinforced for food safety and cannot and very rarely, are recyclable. When I found this out, I was devastated! What was I to do about smoothies?! Sometimes, they became a breakfast meal replacement.

This summer, after moving to my brand new apartment, the local stories advertised lots of juicy summer fruits that were ripe. They were cheap and absolutely delicious. I was able to get bulk strawberries and blueberries at great deals, and they are never so sweet. I thought I would make something from them, and save some for the winter when the fruits aren’t so great. I put them into my resealable silicone bags, and take them out whenever the mood strikes. So far, the pineapples have been amazing. I cut up a few and refrigerated them. I recently found out you can marinate steak with pineapples to make them tender and juicy, so I have finally found a use for the core. This whole time I’ve been tossing them out, but actually, its where most of the bromelain enzyme is in the fruit. I freeze any excess of that too. Now I have frozen pineapples, strawberries, and blueberries for winter.

My mom gave me some really nice and ripe pomegranates a few weeks ago also. She said she got it from a friend’s tree. That day I went to visit her she gave me about 4 of them. There were delicious. I kept one inside my fridge for later. I’m particularly lazy about peeling them to eat by hand. I get really lazy about picking out the skin, because sometimes, it sticks really good to the seeds. Because we just bought some new groceries, I decided to use them. I recently found a new trick on how to open them much more easily too! First you cut out a scare at the bottom of the fruit, and then cut along the skin veins. It should pop open like a star….

I also had a kiwi, and decided that a pineapple and 3 strawberries were enough for 2 smoothies.

As a juice base, I used some Oceanspray cranberry cocktail juice.

And some strawberry greek yogurt.

Sometimes, I accidentally make too much smoothies. I always have an extra cup, that I refrigerate, but it’s not as good the next day because the juice separates. This time however, it came out exactly two 12oz. cups. Don’t mind my smoothie cup, I drank some.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium pomegranite or 8 oz of pomegranite seeds
• 1/8th of a pineapple or 3/4-1 cup of frozen pineapples
• 1 kiwi
• 3 strawberries
• 1 cup of pomegranite juice
• 1 cup serving (about 5.3 oz) of [greek] yogurt, any flavor

Directions:

1. Blend everything together. Fruits first, juice second, yogurt third.
2. Optional to add more fruit, different fruit, crushed ice, or chia seeds

This serves exactly 2 people, or 2 tall cups that are 12 oz, or 3 small 8 oz cups.