Cucumbers are just so great for hydrating, and so great for your skin, and connective tissue, and, well, every aspect of staying fresh & looking young (hah… there’s a commercial in there, somewhere!), and they pair wonderfully with mango here to make a Live Green Smoothie that is only mildly sweet.

Add fresh lime juice and you’ve got a super-refresher alkalizing drink with rejuvenating Vitamin C. And if you want it sweeter… just add a banana! (Or go the raw-honey-or-cane-sugar route…)

But for Weight Watchers aficionados who have become readers of my site… sans the banana and you’ll have a nice low-point drink, here. And it’s filling!

I did indeed take mine to the gym with me. And as there was still a bit leftover from the two bottles when I returned, I blended the rest up with from powdered super-greens and super-herbs, and a bit of powdered cordyceps and other medicinal mushrooms, for a serious energy & immune system booster.

Twas wonderful.

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I LOVE this dish. At the whole thing, with a fork, no chips, no nothin’ on the side, just this straight-up for my main meal of the day, and it just rocked. Didn’t share a morsel with anyone!

I’m famous for needing crunchy side things to feel satisfied when I’m eating very high-raw, but I have been recently dedicated to creating recipes that don’t require that. And this one delivered! I had a “pesto” theme in mind, to use some of the wee-leaved potted basil growing here on the lanai, but instead I gave basil a far more supporting — rather than dominant — role. Add some fresh lemon, garlic, green onion, and earthy almost-potato-i-ness of the mushrooms paired with the juicy & refreshing crunch of the cukes, and this dish really delivers on a bunch of levels.

You can use any kind of mushroom you want, but I used simple Utterly Pedestrian button mushrooms. And With one tablespoon of olive oil for a very large salad, this could be argued as low-fat… or you could just reduce it to 1 teaspoon for your weight-watching purposes.

On a hot day (95 & humid here in the Florida heat at the moment), this was great. But it would also be excellent on a cold day… just substitute some baby zucchini for the cucumber and expose your bowl to the lowest temp of your oven for a little bit, to raise the temp by a few still-comfortable-against-your-skin degrees. It will be true comfort food… without the deadening effect of real pasta.

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Look at these two great Mono-Smoothies using one common garden fruit and another common vegetable. Funny thing about these two… we think of cucumber as a vegetable but in fact it’s a fruit, and we treat rhubarb as a fruit but actually it’s a vegetable! They both make brilliant Mono-Smoothies.

Cucumbers are wonderful hydrators and great for your skin and hair! Cucumber is highly alkaline, making it a natural diuretic, with a soothing anti-inflammatory on your joints and connective tissues. And all with negligible calories.

It’s just a delicious, extremely light and refreshing beverage, perfect for after workouts!

Rhubarb is usually only eaten in pies and other baked goods because of its tart, low-sugar flavor. But it works wonderfully in a Mono-Smoothie and reveals itself to be extremely mild in flavor!

According to this report, a number of phytonutrients in rhubarb may have some anti-cancer properties according to some existing studies, and may also increase circulation. It has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and even anti-allergy effects, and may even benefit those with high cholesterol!

My suggestion: take rhubarb out of the sole domain of pies and start using it regularly to whip some some refreshing Mono-Smoothies!

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This milky dressing is light and nicely flavored with fresh garlic and olive oil to stand up to any ingredients you’d like to toss in. Paired very simply with fresh finely-chopped kale and hothouse cucumbers, anything would work in this dish: olive, red peppers, red onion, and pine nuts come to mind as great suggestions.

If you like to be able to make dishes that can sit in the fridge for a couple days, this is a good one. Keep it around for snacking and for quick salad sandwiches.

The dressing would also make a nice dipping sauce for fresh veggies!

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Pickles are great. So many uses — by themselves, in or with a Salad Sandwich, on the appetizer or dinner table, to munch on with raw, dehydrated flatbreads… as a garnish or condiment off-setting your main course… chopped up in your “raw vegan tuna” avo-sprout sandwich filling… it just goes on and on.

I already have in mind to enjoy these with my  Savory Mushroom-Almond “Pate”/”Raw Cheese”…

They’re also so quick and easy to make fresh, why buy the store-bought sort that are loaded with crappy salt, caustic vinegar, and who knows what else? Make it fresh, eat it living… taste and feel the difference. And these make a pretty and much-appreciated addition to a raw pot luck (or other buffet) table!

This is a basic recipe to which you can add all sort of other ingredients to your taste, such as sliced red pepper, finely chopped ginger, a sprinkling of cardamom and/or cumin seeds, garlic, cilantro, chile, jalapeño, and/or turmeric. All of these would do well on their own… or add them all together!

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This raw smoothie is light, lemony, not-too-sweet, and goes down like nobody’s business! Lasted about the blink of an eye with my marginally-raw twenty-something crew around this evening! They just loved it.

This recipe adds yet another cucumber smoothie to your alkalizing, rejuvenating arsenal! Both cucumber and lemon are high on the list of alkalizing fruit and vedge, and together they do their part to help neutralize the negative effects of an overly acidifying diet (hello… virtually the entire world qualifies on that account).

Great for skin, joints, connective tissue, and immune system function, this is an easy smoothie with easy ingredients you can find pretty much anywhere, any time.

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I picked up a beautiful pint of organic cranberries, famously diuretic, high in disease-fighting antioxidant phenols, and certainly fresh and seasonal as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. Paired here with another diuretic, fresh cucumber, and with mangoes, another fruit rich in antioxidant phenols, and here’s yet another youthifying, healthifying, extremely refreshing smoothie for your LGS arsenal.

Make the smoothie with unpeeled organic cucumbers and you’ve got the added detoxing benefit of chlorophyll and turning this raw smoothie into a Live Green Smoothie!

This is mildly sweet and mildly tart, an excellent sports drink to take with you to the gym. You could even enjoy this in the evening instead of a glass of wine — it’s “dry” and won’t fill your body up with sugar so late in the day.

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Don’t let the humble appearance and simple ingredients of this smoothie fool you… this is some serious refreshment, and extremely healthifying! Smoothies don’t necessarily need to be dark green or explosively colorful to be wonderful for you (and wonderful-tasting).

This smoothie is pure refreshment. You may find yourself drinking the whole blenderful before you even get it in a water bottle to take with you on the road. It’s light, mild, just sweet enough, and the very essence of “freshness”.

There is no better (or easier) smoothie to make to take to the gym or dance studio, or after you’ve had a great workout. Kids will drink this like water – forget the bottled juices and sodas! Stock up on cucumbers as you would lemons and apples, and pop them in the blender whenever you have a craving for… “something”. I’d bet money that many of your cravings will just disappear.
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Health Benefits of Cucumber

Cucumber has so many benefits to one’s health and well-being, I’m personally re-committing to enjoying cucumber smoothies on a daily basis. For starters, cucumber has an alkalizing effect on the body. Our systems universally tend toward the acidic, which explains much of the bloat we carry in our bodies, which hang onto the water as a means to try to neutralize that acidity.

Cucumber’s reputation for being a diuretic no doubt comes from this alkalizing effect. The body’s pH begins to return more to a balanced state and shucks off that excess, un-needed water. So if you’re unpleasantly enjoying a bit of water retention, jack up the cucumber smoothies every single day!

In addition, the flesh of the cucumber is high in silica, which is necessary for healthy connective tissue in the body. If you’re an athlete (or you’re a non-athlete who wants to feel as young and “sproingy” as possible), this is the natural way to give your body the silica it needs to keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage strong, flexible, and youthful!

The silica is also great if you’d like lovely, glowing skin.

You can read more about the health benefits of cucumber here. But make cucumber smoothies if you want to enjoy those benefits.

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