Day 125: Adventures in Smoothie Land

It's been a few days since I've been required to eat foods that freak me out, but I guess I'm not quite out of the habit. You see, I've been drinking a lot of smoothies lately--partially inspired by my 50 Smoothies foldout that came with a recent Food Network Magazine, partially because it's starting to warm up outside. Mostly, I've been making the smoothies up as I go. I throw frozen fruit, yogurt, juice, whatever into a blender (or food processor if my blender is out of commission), buzz it up, and drink it. But the little smoothie pamphlet contained a smoothie recipe that really intrigued me, that I never would have considered making if I hadn't been on my recent culinary adventures and didn't happen to have cottage cheese in the fridge. Here it is:

Blend 2 cups chopped pineapple, 1/2 cup cottage cheese (I used low fat), 1/4 cup milk (I used 2%), 2 tsp honey, 1/4 tsp vanilla, a pinch each of nutmeg and salt, and 2 cups ice.

Normally, I would have passed that recipe by. It would have been on par with some of the green smoothie recipes I've found involving things like kale (I probably should try those at some point, and maybe I will, but in the past I would have gagged at the thought and moved on). The most intriguing part about this was that I couldn't imagine how it would taste. Normally I'm good at mentally synthesizing flavors and figuring out how a combination will taste, but here, I couldn't quite imagine it. I had to know. So I went out, bought a pineapple, and this morning, turned it into a smoothie.

So guess what? It's delicious. I don't think I would ever have guessed its ingredients, either. No--I KNOW I would never have guessed its ingredients. Especially the cottage cheese and nutmeg. Pineapple, yes. Something creamy. Milk. Honey, because it's such a common smoothie sweetener.

I may have to go through this little pamphlet smoothie by smoothie. Could be pretty fun and pretty delicious.

As for fruit, I know the day isn't over and thus I might have more, but I have had a hefty amount of pineapple already.