Green Monster Smoothies
Smoothies can be delicious. Smoothies are also a way to consume large quantities of sugar in liquid. I find I can consume several hundred calories in liquid without even noticing, so I limit my smoothie intake. However, a good milk-based smoothie is a handy breakfast on a busy morning, and, with a bit of peanut butter, it can even be somewhat healthy. I’ve been working on ways to eat more vegetables, though, and they don’t go so well into smoothies.
I’ve seen several recipes for Green Monster smoothies lately, and my sister and I have been trying out and adapting a recipe she found. The basic idea of a Green Monster smoothie is: add spinach. You can easily fit a serving of veggies into a smoothie this way. I like some good raw spinach now and again, so I might not mind if this tasted like spinach, but it doesn’t. Mine typically taste like a standard peanut butter and banana smoothie. This is definitely the sort of thing I don’t measure, so it’s hard for me to write the actual recipe. Here’s a rough outline and some suggestions.
Green Monster Smoothie
- 1 frozen banana. I buy bananas, eat as many as we do while they’re yellow, and freeze them when they start going brown.
- 1 container yogurt. 1/2 cup or 1 cup, whatever. Plain is good. Greek is fine. I use homemade yogurt. The sister says blueberry is good. Or, use plain yogurt and add a few blueberries. Sometimes, I freeze my yogurt and pop in the whole frozen lump–I have a good blender
.
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter. Or so. I used Nutella
in the smoothie pictured. It was tasty, but the smoothie doesn’t look as amazingly green as typical.
- 1 cup milk
- 4 cups of spinach. Or so. This is hard to measure, since it packs so well. Judging by the 8 oz bag of spinach I bought, I probably use about 3 ounces.
- Any other smoothie goodies–wheat germ, flaxseed meal, any other particular favorites you may have.
Toss in a blender and blend well. Then blend some longer, or the spinach will still make little pieces that are gritty. Really blend this stuff. Oh, and blend it a little bit more.
I’m working on what happens if the spinach is (a) purchased fresh and then frozen before use or (b) purchased frozen. My initial trials shows that method (a) is fine, since the spinach doesn’t thaw and get mushy in a smoothie. I’m hesitant to try method (b) because, well, I just can’t handle those boxes of spinach from the frozen vegetable section. If I get up the stomach to try it, I’ll let you know how it is.
