So far, making a smoothie without a recipe is as easy as I’d hoped. Throw in some fruit, some combination of ice and water, blend, then sweeten to taste. So here’s the first drink I made with the Vitamix:
Strawberry Ginger Lemonade
- Three whole lemons, peeled
- Five strawberries, hulled
- About an inch of ginger, grated
- 1 cup water
- 3 cups (a little more than a tray) ice
- 1/2 cup sugar
First, blend fruit, ginger and water, to be sure the lemon seeds are pulverized. Then add ice, blend again. Then sweeten to taste. About a 1/2 cup of sugar worked for me. This made about 4 tall glasses for us.
To make this in a conventional blender, slice the lemon into eighths, and remove the seeds. Also consider slicing the strawberries.
I’ve heard people suggest throwing a piece of ginger into a high-powered blender, rather than grating it. I tried this once, but found that it added a stringy texture that I didn’t like. Maybe I just didn’t blend it enough.
Ed v. Food 
There’s a trick for blending ginger without a grater. If you slice it into ~1/8″ disks, that should eliminate the stringiness, and in my opinion it’s easier/faster than grating. The issue is that the fibers don’t always get cut by the blender, even with a Vitamix. The fibers run along the length of the root, so by slicing it perpendicular to the fibers, you will take care of them.
Ah, that makes sense, I’ll try that. Thanks for the tip!