Welcome back to Vegan Mofo 2018! This week’s theme … Inspiration!
I guess I am a little unusual in that, for most of my life, three of my best friends were a half-century older than me.
I am talking about my great-aunts Martha, Mary, and Billie.
Our family was close, and my three great-aunts played pivotal roles in my life as I was growing up.
Then, as an adult, they became not just my aunts, but also my friends. They all lived to be quite old, so I was extremely fortunate to have them in my life for such a very long time.
If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’ve recently been recovering from a freak auto accident (and an even more freakish fall). I’ve felt quite melancholy (okay, depressed and lonely), and often found myself thinking about family that have passed. Wishing they were still here to talk to. As I made myself smoothies (about the only food I could tolerate while on pain pills), I started to wonder what smoothie I’d make for them if they were still alive, if I could once again be in their kitchen.
We’ll start with Martha, both because she was the oldest and because she was my cooking buddy. I had no interest in cooking until I went veg (because handling dead animal flesh grossed me out). Once I was veg things changed, and I was constantly on the phone with her. “So, how did you make this squash casserole? Oh, pimientos are the key? How long do I simmer these collards? This vegetable soup is missing something – oh, a few shakes of Tabasco? My cornbread dressing came out gluey – what happened? How many jalapenos should I put in the cornbread?”
I knew, in creating a smoothie for her, it had to be Southern ingredients.
I also knew it had to be ingredients Martha liked. She loved a bowl of collards with plenty of “pot likker” and she also made lots of homemade peach ice cream (in the old fashioned tubs you had to hand crank). She also loved cantaloupes and usually had a melon or two in the kitchen in the summertime.
As long as I can remember, Martha loved to play punny games in the kitchen.
She’d hand me a bowl of chopped melon and say, “Honeydew you love me?”
Or, I’d walk into the kitchen to see if I could help out and she’d wave a purple root at me, “Beet it!”
One day, she was chopping a salad and handed me a leaf. “Lettuce marry.” I picked up a melon from the countertop. “No. Cantaloupe.” I was probably five at the time. She laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes with a dishtowel, and then had one of her sneezing fits.
And, finally, the smoothie had to reflect Martha’s personality.
To most people, Martha would seem like a very sweet, proper, mannerly Southern lady. But she also had a keen intelligence, a fierce streak of feminist independence, and a sharp wit, as well as a fiery temper (like my mom, and also, I guess, like me).
Also, one of Martha’s few faults was that she (like most of the rest of us in the South) enjoyed a bit of juicy gossip, as long as it wasn’t too malicious. “Can you believe so-and-so brought a green bean casserole with CANNED green beans to Thanksgiving dinner? I guess Yankees don’t know any better, bless her heart.” “So-and-so looked lovely in her dress, but what was her mother thinking? I hope she gave her daughter a stick to beat off all the boys at the prom. Bless her heart.” “Can you believe so-and-so wore white pants after Labor Day? And bright pink panties? That said Tuesday? And it was Thursday. Bless her heart.”
So … The Bless Your Heart Smoothie, a.k.a The Martha. Made from Southern ingredients that Martha loved – collards, cantaloupe, peaches. Sweet as can be, with a little unexpected fiery kick from the ginger.
If you’ve read my previous posts, you know when I make a smoothie I usually make a fruit only variety and then also a green variety, which is what I did here.
Bless Your Heart Fruit Only Smoothie:
Ingredients
1/2 Medium Cantaloupe, or about 2 cups (chill in fridge before cutting)
2 Cups Sliced Peaches (frozen, or if fresh, slice and freeze for an hour)
1 Teaspoon Chopped Ginger
Pinch of Sea Salt (optional)
Squeeze of Lemon or Lime (optional)
Instructions
Add cantaloupe, peaches, and ginger to blender. Blend.
Melons liquefy so there should be no need for extra liquid.
Salt and a squeeze of citrus is purely optional.
Bless Your Heart Green Smoothie
Ingredients
2 Cups Collard Greens, thick center stems removed (If you can’t find collards, use Swiss Chard or baby kale)
1/2 Medium Cantaloupe, or about 2 cups (chill in fridge before cutting)
2 Cups Sliced Peaches (frozen, or if fresh, slice and freeze for an hour)
2 Teaspoons Chopped Ginger*
Water or Orange Juice, as needed
Pinch of Sea Salt (optional, but ups the ante)
Squeeze of Lemon or Lime (optional, but ups the ante)
Instructions
Add collards and cantaloupe to blender. Blend.
Add peaches and ginger. Blend. (Note the amount of ginger has increased because we are adding leafy greens. If you love ginger, like me, you can add a little more.)
You may need extra liquid. If you have extra cantaloupe, add that. If not, add water in SMALL amounts (1/4 cup at a time). Alternately, you can add orange juice – changes the flavor of the smoothie, but still works really well with the peaches, cantaloupe, and ginger.
A dash of sea salt was optional in the fruit smoothie, but adds a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to the green version.
Likewise, if you didn’t add orange juice to your green smoothie, a squeeze of lemon or lime enhances things more now that you have green leafies! (If you did add orange juice, skip the lemon or lime – your smoothie is already rocking the citrus.)
I hope you enjoy this smoothie! Remember, all smoothie recipes are really just “templates.” I think this is a really good base recipe, so feel free to tweak and twerk and make it your own!
Me and my Aunt Martha. Amongst the other things I mentioned, she was also a great writer of memoirs, an avid reader (Dickens, Wodehouse), and a fan and supporter of PBS … especially British shows like Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Appearances, Waiting for God, and Are You Being Served?
VegCharlotte 
Lovely post
Thank you, mistimaan!