The standard Chuck Smoothie

Several years ago David S. introduced me to the concept of a smoothie, sold at the U/R coffee bar place. For him, a smoothie was routinely his complete dinner (don't know where he got his other 2200 calories).

I was always too cheap to buy the things, but David, like many college students, was on a "declining balance" plan, and would have "use it or lose it" money left at the end of the year. With the prospect of free food, I got addicted to one type - the one with just fruit, and no dairy products.

I then started buying them on business trips, where others were paying the tab. I have never been willing to spend my $4.50 for one with my own money. But then, Gwendolyn encouraged me to abandon my reservations about unnecessary household appliances, and buy a blender.

The rest was history...

I have tried a number of variations, with different degrees of precision in measuring ingredients (just don't ask - I have all the lab equipment I need). In the end, I use the rule of thumb method, as follows. This is to make one medium-large (about 500 ml, or 17 oz) black raspberry smoothie. It works like this, and takes very little time:

1. Take the blender jug, and add a combination of frozen black raspberries and frozen red raspberries, until it comes up to the 500 ml mark.
2. Add about 60 ml (2 oz) of lemon juice (the normal sour stuff)
3. Add about 2 tablespoons (30 ml dry) of either sugar or Splenda
4. Add cold water until the water comes just above the surface of the frozen fruit
5. Start blending at medium speed - if the blender does not mix properly, add a bit more water.
6. Once the frozen chunks are broken up, move to high speed, blend until smooth (about 45 seconds to a minute, usually)
7. Sample the mix, if too sour, add some more sugar or Splenda