I’m just not that into smoothies. It’s nothing against fruit (really fruit, it’s me, not you). I just like to eat my food. This smoothie, however, is a different story. I’ve been fighting a head cold for over a week and I’ve been getting desperate for a solution. Every evening, I feel off-balance, like my head is underwater. I’ve had enough of this vertigo!

Since I refuse to go to the doctor for antibiotics, I’ve been spending quality time with this lovely contraption, taking probiotics and trying to consume as much immunity-boosting vitamin C as possible. Which is where this clementine smoothie comes into the picture. I drank at least four of these over the weekend and I am feeling better.

This smoothie is delicious, light and refreshing—closer to fresh-squeezed orange juice than a thick banana smoothie. It tastes similar to an orange julius or a dreamsicle or those orange Flintstone push-ups from my childhood. I couldn’t decide what to call it, but the sunshine in the photos seemed to match the bright clementine flavor in the glass, so I landed on clementine sunshine smoothie. Let’s go with it.

This four-ingredient smoothie is suuuuuper simple to make. So simple that I hesitated to post it, but then I thought about all the other people out there who are fighting winter colds, or worse. When energy is running low, we need the simplest of solutions, and this is one of them.

Each little clementine offers about 60 percent of your daily value of vitamin C. That means that this modestly-sized smoothie, which is made with four clementines, puts you at around 240 percent of fresh, bioavailable vitamin C. That’s twice as much as a glass of Minute Maid and it tastes better, too. Since you just blend up the ingredients in a blender, it’s even easier to make than fresh orange juice.

I offered a few totally optional add-ins in case you want to play around with this smoothie. I honestly love it most in its purest form, with just clementines, yogurt or almond milk and ice. This has become the new orange juice in my house, so I’ll be enjoying it even after I buck this cold! I hope you love it, too.

Blendtec blender
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