Over the years I have given you a number of Recipes for Health devoted to smoothies – fruit smoothies with nuts and seeds; smoothies with vegetables; dairy free smoothies. I thought I had pretty much covered all the smoothie bases. Then I came across a recipe for a “Fresh Peach, Banana and Warm Millet Smoothie” in Bryant Terry’s impressive new cookbook “Afro-Vegan,” and a bell went off. Cooked millet in a smoothie? I had never seen such a thing; yet breakfast is a great meal for cooked grains, and also for smoothies. So why not? Adding cooked grains to smoothies would be a perfect way to thicken the drinks and bulk them up. It’s also a delicious way to incorporate more grains into your diet.
Then I began thinking about colors. For at least some of my smoothies I matched grains and fruits by color. I used red quinoa with dark red fruit (this week I used red grapes and sweetened the drink with pomegranate molasses), black quinoa or purple rice with blueberries, brown rice for an almond date shake and millet in a pineapple smoothie and in a banana-strawberry-kefir blend. I used 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cooked grain in each drink and ended up with a beautiful rainbow of smoothies – pink, red, deep purple, yellow and beige – all of them incredibly nourishing and definitely substantial enough calorically and nutritionally to get me through a busy morning. They should give you one more good reason to cook grains ahead so they are always on hand for quick, nutritious and easy meals.
Although Well will continue to feature the recipes of Martha Rose Shulman, she now is moving to the Food section, where her healthy recipes will appear weekly alongside others by Sam Sifton, Melissa Clark, David Tanis and other members of the Food staff. (You can already find 1,564 of her recipes on Cooking, the Food section’s recipe search app.)
Deep Purple Blueberry Smoothie With Black Quinoa : A delicious smoothie that works with berries that are fresh or frozen.
Strawberry, Millet and Banana Smoothie : A nourishing mix of fruit, grains and nuts in a glass.
Blood Orange Smoothie With Grapes and Red Quinoa : Red grapes and red quinoa are a perfect match in this sweet/tannic smoothie.
Date Smoothie With Brown Rice and Almond Milk : A date shake with a grainy twist.
Pineapple and Millet Smoothie : The pure flavor of pineapple is softened by the millet in this delicious drink.
An earlier version of this post misspelled the given name of the author. She is Martha Rose Shulman, not Marth.