Lenny: I'm here with Carolyne in the Vitamix store in Cleveland, and she's gonna show me
the right way to make this mango kale smoothie that I made two years ago when first started
Life is NOYOKE. Carolyne?
Carolyne: Well, Lenny, you had a great start. A great foundation. Well on your way to perfection.
[music]
Carolyne: We're ready. So, I'm really gonna highlight the layering method.
So when you blend a smoothie, you really should never need to a tamper.
A lot of times people are tamping away, and it's all about how you load it, and of course,
that liquid to frozen ratio.
But the rule of thumb is liquids, soft ingredients, you can do leafy greens and seeds, we're going
to show you the tip about the seeds.
Lenny: Okay.
Carolyne: Ah, dense foods. And then ice and frozen fruits on top.
Lenny: Okay.
Carolyne: So the key is as you're ramping that up, you're creating that liquid base
and that vortex, so all your dense foods and ice push your in-between ingredients down
so it all falls into the blade.
So no matter what recipe you're doing, if you follow that, you're gonna get a good blend.
Lenny: Right.
Carolyne: And use them as a template. So you can always flip-flop and kinda have endless...
You know the best smoothie is called a "What's in your refrigerator smoothie".
So as long as you have the template down
Lenny: Right.
Carolyne: you can... they say you're a proud Vitamix owner
when you drink brown sludge with pride,
Lenny: [laughing]
Carolyne: So as long as you like what you put in there, typically you're gonna like
what comes out.
Lenny: Yeah, okay.
Carolyne: So to get started, we're gonna put that fresh, homemade almond milk,
Lenny: mmm!
Carolyne: Super creamy. And then so after liquids, do you remember what goes next?
Lenny: Yes. Liquids. And then, umm. Soft things.
Carolyne: Soft ingredients, so we have half of our orange, so I'll put that in there.
Lenny: Just be careful putting your fingers inside of the container, though.
Carolyne: Well, make sure it's not on.
Lenny: Makes me a little scared.
Carolyne: We have our honey, here. So that can be considered a liquid, I guess. Down
there at the bottom.
And then next, we're gonna put our leafy greens, so we have our nice fresh kale.
And then lastly would be your frozen fruits or ice. If you wanted to put ice, I would
just cut back on some of the frozen fruit. You don't need to add a cup of ice on top
of frozen fruit because that ratio would be off. And you'd be using the tamper and making
a frozen, you know, veggie dessert.
Lenny: Right. This is like, ya know, I want to think it through a straw.
Carolyne: Right.
Lenny: Yeah.
Carolyne: So we have everything loaded. Just to reiterate, we have our liquids which was
our almond milk, we have our soft fruits in there, our banana and our orange, our leafy
greens, and then our dense and frozen which was the mango is on top.
Lenny: And this is really good, too, because I grew up without an ice maker so we have
had ice. So this is great. You know, you buy, you get frozen fruit at the grocery store
and throw it in the freezer, you don't need to use ice.
Carolyne: Absolutely. And it's not going to dilute it. You're going to get more flavor.
Lenny: Right. More flavor.
Carolyne: What I want to point out is just blending with the variable speed dial. So,
a lot of people, maybe they're timid, it's their first time using it the Vitamix, keep
in mind your Vitamix is a race horse, it wants to run on high, it runs optimal on high, so
you're always doing a smoothie in high.
Usually, like a fresh smoothie like this should take, I don't know, 20 or 30 seconds. If you're
compacting a lot of greens, maybe you have dense things such as cucumber, celery, carrots,
tons of maybe frozen mixed berries, you want to run it closer to 45 seconds.
Really, how do you know when it's done? We're looking to make sure those leafy greens are
pulverized and you'll see with the seeds that there's pretty much, maybe microscopic little
pieces, but the flaxseeds are pretty much pulverized.
Lenny: What do you say to someone who is afraid of using high speed, like my mother?
Carolyne: I would say face the fear and do it anyway.
Lenny: Just do it, right?
Carolyne: Yes!
Lenny: Because it's better for the machine, it's better for the blend.
Carolyne: Exactly. And it will be well worth it once they taste that smoothie.
Lenny: Right, I can hear it from, like, the living room. Like, I don't live with my mother.
Carolyne: Right.
Lenny: Aright, like, c'mon, like, the Vitamix is struggling, Mah, like go to high speed.
Yeah.
Carolyne: So what I'm gonna do with this is I'll simply, I'm working with the standard
model, commonly known as the 5200, I'm going to turn it on, I'm going to ramp it up to
variable ten, and then I'm going to place it into high.
So we talked about that slow ramp, maybe they have a programmed setting, it's gonna do that
for them, by ramping it up to high.
But what we're doing with that slow ramp. And this is a ramp. Sometimes people wait
ten seconds, 20 seconds, 30, I mean, this is a ramp.
We're just trying to create a liquid base there so that that frozen mango can push all
of our in-between ingredients down.
Once I'm in high, I'm going to see a nice vortex. Whenever you see a vortex, and we'll
point it out, you know that you can add to the smoothie. So we have the flaxseeds, I'm
actually gonna drop them in.
And what a lot of people don't know is that their lid plug is a two ounce measuring cup.
Lenny: Yeah, I love that.
Carolyne: So, protein powder, seeds, nuts, all that kind of stuff --
Lenny: Tequila!
Carolyne: Yes, tequila.
So again, we'll turn this on, ramp it up to ten, place it into high, and when we see that
vortex, we'll add that flaxseed, and then what we're going to do when it's done is we're
gonna put it back into variable, ramp it down to one and turn it off.
Lenny: Cool.
Carolyne: And we always recommend people do that, most importantly so the last time you
made peanut butter or somebody in the family did and they didn't put the lid plug back
in, maybe your lid is not on secure, the force alone, it's happened to me.
Lenny: Oh yeah.
Carolyne: It's kind of your initiation process into the Vitamix family. But you do, it will
go everywhere. So to ensure that's not going to happen, we always take it back down, so
that if you bump it, or you forgot to add something
when you turn it on it's not in high.
Lenny: Perfect. Good to know.
Carolyne: Alright, so we'll turn it on. We're gonna ramp it up.
Lenny: Ramp it up.
Carolyne: And put it into high.
So now you see that vortex.
Lenny: Yup. So it's kinda going in.
Carolyne: So I'm going to take out my lid plug, and I'm going to add my flaxseed.
Lenny: It's going to go right into the vortex.
Carolyne: Right in.
Lenny: Okay, that's great.
Carolyne: Do you see any flaxseed?
Lenny: None!
Carolyne: It's a nice, thick, luscious blend.
Lenny: Luscious. The luscious smoothie.
Carolyne: Yeah.
Lenny: Carolyne's luscious smoothie.
Carolyne: Exactly. Carolyne and Lenny's. There you go.
You'll see that there's no flaxseed stuck on the sides of the container.
Lenny: Yeah!
Carolyne: It's completely pulverized.
Lenny: It looks delicious. And I'm thirsty!
Carolyne: So, cheers.
Lenny: Cheers. Carolyne's green smoothie.
Carolyne: And Lenny's.
Lenny: If you're not making something like this, that's totally cool. But just remember,
Life is NOYOKE.
Cheers!
Okay, this is really good.
I don't like to just take sips. I like to chug.
Carolyne: You gulp it. Just go to town.
Lenny: Yeah. Mmm!
I can't wait to update the website. And do a redirect. Carolyne's smoothie.
[beep]
How's my hair?
Carolyne: It looks great. Although you have another stray.
Lenny: See! Thank you.
Carolyne: We're gonna need a lint brush the next time.
Lenny: I know...
This is a clean shirt, I assure you.