Customer Reviews

Ultimate Smoothies: Delicious Recipes for Over 125 of the Best Smoothies, Freezes, and Blasts

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this book, such a wide variety of smoothies to choose from. The author was very creative with the names for each drink. The ingrediants are very simple and easy to find. I live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and every ingrediant is stocked all year round. My only complaint is that the book contains no pictures at all. Only the cover has a picture of a smoothie. Basically, the book is great. Try the Ultimate Fuzzy Nazel, yum!

It's difficult to choose from the many smoothies books out there, but this one is far more thorough and entertaining than any of the others I've looked at. With over 125 recipes, you never get tired of drinking smoothies -- and they're not only delicious but also good for you -- a winning combination! As well, the author's culinary know-how is matched only by the wit she displays in her clever recipe titles. I have several books by Ms. Rodnitzky and have loved every one of them -- she always has an interesting twist on the latest trends in diet and health. I'm looking forward to whatever she's cooking up next!

This is a fantastic smoothie recipes book.The ingredients are tasty and easy to find.I have a young son and he enjoys them too.I like that the ingredients are common and healthy-I don't like giving any unfamiliar "new agey",miracle things to my child and this book stayed away from that. A very nice addition to my library.

With a claim like "Over 125 of the Best Smoothies, Freezes, and Blasts" Ultimate Smoothies has a lot to live up to! I didn't even know there were that many combinations!! Not only are these delectable drinks easy to make, they're also good for you. And with names like Last Mango in Paris and Cherry Springer would you expect less?? When you're done with this book, you'll not only be the Sultan of Smoothies and the Guru of Garnishes, but you'll be able to perform fantastic feats with fruit! With such rarities as Candied Oranges and Expresso Brittle Shards added to your bag of tricks, you'll never leave a party or date with anything but the sweetest impression!!

All sorts of fruit smoothies - no vegetables ones in here. Some have an alcohol kick but most are just fruits. Calorie/vitamin info is provided for each recipe and you can make them vegan by using soymilk instead or regular milk/icecream.

`Ultimate Smoothies' by Donna Pliner Rodnitsky and `The Best 50 Smoothies' by Joanna White are the fourth and fifth smoothies books I am reviewing and it is appropriate to review them together and not review them in the same context as the first three, `The Smoothies Bible' by Pat Crocker, `The Ultimate Smoothies Book' by Cherie Calbom, and `Smoothies for Life' by Daniella Chace and Maureen B. Keane in that these two little books do not profess to be a comprehensive work on smoothies. They just profess to be little books on `the best' recipes.

It is painfully obvious from the outset that the second of these two, `The Best 50 Smoothies' does not live up to its title. The first reason is that there is not a single recipe in the book with a vegetable ingredient. For those, in detail, you want to go to `The Smoothies Bible' or `The Ultimate Smoothies Book', especially the latter if you have a juicer and like to use it. The second reason is that this book contains no smoothies with any alcoholic ingredients. Even the smoothies with names copied from famous alcoholic drinks such as the Mint Julep contains no alcohol. I strongly believe that among the true top 50 smoothies are at least five containing alcohol and at least five with at least one vegetable ingredient such as either tomato or carrot juice. Thus, I dismiss this book from further consideration.

The `Ultimate Smoothies' is a different story altogether. While it contains no vegetable ingredients, I will forgive it, as it makes no claim to being a collection of all the best recipes. It is only claiming to have 125 from among the best recipes for smoothies, freezes, and blasts. And, the book gets extra credit for including a very nice selection of recipes that include alcohol in some form or another. Even `The Smoothies Bible', the best general book on the subject has no `adult' recipes. I anticipate reviewing at least one more book on smoothies, but for the moment, if what you really want is just a collection of good, fun recipes, then `Ultimate Smoothies' is for you!

Even if you are just into smoothies for the fun of it, this book has excellent nutritional information for each recipe, nicely located in a box at the bottom of the page, at the same place on each page so you can easily flip through the recipes with an eye on the calorie count to find ones which fit a particular calorie range or low fat recipes or low carb recipes or low sodium recipes or high beta-carotene recipes or high or low whatever the nutritional fad of the day may be. This feature justifies the otherwise annoying slim Jim book format where pages are more than twice as long as they are wide.

A not inconsiderable virtue of this book is the fun names given to all the recipes, divided up into five chapters concentrating on:

Back to Basics: Classic recipes
Smoooothies: Recipes heavy on dairy.
Rx Smoothies: Recipes focusing on especially healthy combinations.
Outrageously Decadent: Lots of chocolate and sweets.
Black Tie Only: An adult swim with rum, cordials, and other ethanolic pleasures.

A second feature of this book not found in any of the bigger volumes is a chapter on garnishes. And, this is not a five-page throwaway. There are 29 recipes including the same nutritional analysis as we get for the smoothie recipe. This is a not inconsiderable virtue as some garnishes can easily double the calories of the serving, although many, such as the fruit chips are very low in calories.

If you want only one book on smoothies, especially if you plan to use them with entertaining, this is clearly the best of the crop. It is entertainingly written and the recipes are clearly written, although I would have liked metric measurements to accompany the English units. If your primary interest is in health, get `The Smoothie Bible'. Otherwise, this book is highly recommended.

I agree that the variety of the smoothies is tremendous.
There are a few things that concerned me. First of all,
why does almost all the smoothies contain honey ?
In the, so called, healthy smoothies, all had over 350 calories and some went up to over 700 & some of the carbs were over 100. How is that "healthy"?
I thought it was a waste to use a dozen or so pages telling us how to choose fruit. How hard is it to know how to pick an apple, orange, banana, pear, cherry, etc.
Some of the garnishments were silly. I'd like to see anyone try to balance them on the side of a glass.
All in all, I'd say not worth what I paid for it. A disappointment.

I liked the way the contents of the book was laid out, although the instructions where very detailed, they are written in way easy to understand and follow. The book not only give me the recipe but also the amount of calories and fat per serving which was a useful aid. The recipes were easy to follow and to make. I would recommend it