A Soul-Nourishing Carrot-Ginger Smoothie

Each Thursday, Emily Vikre (a.k.a. fiveandspice) will be sharing a new way to love breakfast -- because breakfast isn't just the most important meal of the day. It's also the most awesome.

Today: A carrot-ginger smoothie for breakfast will help you battle that cold.

Espen, our (almost) one-and-a-half-year-old, started a toddler preschool program at the beginning of January -- and we’ve all been sick pretty much ever since. Kids are adorable, but they’re also little germ factories (one of my friends actually calls her daughter Patient 0). Colds, bugs, ear infections, and such have been on an endless parade through our household. First, Espen catches something, then I catch it from him, then my husband catches it from me. We’re good sharers, we are.

Pretty much the only time I want to drink my vegetables is when I have a cold. Something about sniffles and sore throats has started to make me crave cool beverages packed with things like celery and cucumbers, spinach and beets, carrots and ginger. From behind my tissue box a few days ago, I spied a juice at our local co-op that had carrot and ginger and a whole bunch of other things that made it sound like it would be as soul-nourishing and cold-fighting as soup, but possibly with some of the sweet carrot character of a carrot cake. I didn't buy the $9 bottle -- because it was $9 -- but I still wanted to try it.

I wondered if a carrot smoothie would be good. As I don't have a juicer, I experimented with various methods and can now tell you that a smoothie using cooked carrots tastes very much like a soup -- which is not what I was going for. On the other hand, raw carrots that have been grated (so your blender doesn’t implode upon contact) taste fresh. They're especially nice once combined with the warmth of ginger and cardamom, the sweet of apple, and citrus from orange and lime. Now, here’s hoping it can cure me of the new cold I’ve come down with.    

Carrot-Ginger Smoothie

Serves 1 

2 small-medium carrots, washed and grated with a box grater
1 medium apple, cored and grated with a box grater
2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
1 large pinch of ground cardamom (plus more to taste)
1 cup orange juice (plus more as needed to reach the consistency you want)
Juice of 1 large lime (about 1/4 cup)

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.