Pomegranate Citrus Smoothie

Do you smoothie all winter long?  We sure do!  I’m not sure we would if we lived somewhere that looked like a winter wonderland, but since the high today is in the 70’s, it really doesn’t seem to unreasonable.  Sorry to those of you who are in the negatives right now… I have no comprehension, and I really can’t even formulate a picture of what life would look like in that kind of weather.  I assume you can only stay by the fire under a blanket in your fuzzy pajamas with a cup of hot coffee for so long?  One must keep working, keeping going to school, keep buying groceries, but how?

Hope this Pomegranate Citrus Smoothie is a ray of sunshine bringing hope of warmer days to come.

We have one little orange tree that grows in our front yard, who has just recently decided to start producing juicy edible oranges.  Up until the last couple of seasons, we would pick an orange and find them extremely acidic and sour.  This smoothie is a great way to use up our sudden plethora of citrus.

Since pomegranates are also in season, I thought I would try adding some of these sparkly red rubies to my smoothie as well.  Aren’t they just gorgeous?  I was a little worried the inner seed would make my smoothie have a gritty texture, but my Blendtec handled them just fine and the texture was perfectly smooth and creamy.

Have you ever cut open a pomegranate before?  There are lots of videos you can find on YouTube to see how to best do the job, but I find that scoring the flesh about 1/4 inch deep all the way around the fruit, prying it open, inverting each half, and then gently removing the arils over a bowl of water is the easiest way.  The arils will sink to the bottom of the bowl, and the inedible pieces of membrane will float to the top.  Do any of you all have any other helpful tips?

On average, you can get more than a cup of arils from each pomegranate and it’s a lot cheaper than buying them already removed.  I found that it just took a few minutes, and was actually a little bit therapeutic.  And I don’t usually enjoy that sort of task – for example, as much as I’d love to roast our own pumpkin seeds, I have no patience to remove and clean seeds from the pumpkins we carve each year.  So obviously I tend toward the lazy side when it comes to tedious, meticulous jobs.  If I can do it, so can you!

This smoothie was so refreshingly delicious.  Creamy, tangy and sweet and packed with Vitamin C and antioxidants.  And since we are right in the middle of cold and flu season, we’ll take all the help we can get.  Stay warm friends!

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