I love putting a handful of greens in my smoothies, either fresh or frozen. Some favorites are kale, spinach, lambs quarters or dandelion leaves. Collect greens from the yard in the morning, wash and keep them ready to go in the fridge or freeze them in wax paper bag packets. Make it even easier by buying 10-ounce bags of organic frozen greens.

Most of the time I use coconut water as the liquid for blending and filtered water if I’m out of that. All of my smoothies start with two bananas or more, so I like to keep some frozen in case I don’t have any fresh around. I also love them frozen for when I feel like making some non-dairy ice cream like the mint chocolate chip or the banana peach strawberry. To freeze ripe bananas, peel and cut them in half and lay on a parchment-lined baking sheet and place it in your freezer. When the bananas are frozen, wrap them up in the parchment and store in a zip top bag. Most of the time, if I have an entire bunch fully ripe, I just put the whole bunch unpeeled in the freezer. To peel frozen bananas remove from the freezer and run under warm water. Cut off the top and bottom tips with a serrated knife, then peel from the top to bottom in strips. Break up to add to smoothies.

For freezing any fresh fruit, wash, dry, and peel if necessary, then lay on a baking sheet lined with parchment and put in the freezer. When frozen, wrap up the fruit and store in a zip top bag. I generally like to freeze blueberries, pineapple and mango. I always keep 10 ounce bags of organic peaches, frozen wild blueberries, cherries, and sometimes strawberries, mango and pineapple. I find that unless you are making them for more than two people several days a week, the larger bags tend to get freezer burn, so I stick to the smaller bags.

If I have extra smoothie, I pour it in a blender bottle and keep it in the fridge and then it’s easy to just shake up and drink.