We love smoothies. I used to make them almost every day for breakfast, but then we moved into an apartment and I worried that the sound of the blender would wake up the neighbors in the morning. Plus, my husband and I don't usually get up at the same time during the week so we couldn't share. Normally my smoothies would consist of a banana, a cup of sweetened yogurt (vanilla, strawberry, whatever), some fresh or frozen chopped fruit, and juice to thin it. Yum indeed. This past week I decided to start making smoothies again for lunch, but with added spinach because it's good for ya and you supposedly can't taste it in the finished product. Guess what? You really can't taste it! The smoothie tastes great (I love the lime) and the only indication that it contains spinach is that the smoothie is a frightening shade of olive green and looks like nothing you would ever want to put near your mouth. EVER. For that reason, I decided not to post a photo because my goal here is to encourage people to try my recipes, not send them screaming into the night.
Quick note: You can take a lot of liberties with the recipe and use pretty much any combo of fruit that you want. This week I used frozen chunks of mango, strawberries, and pineapple, but next week I think I will try a berry blend. You can use fruit from the freezer section at the store (which is what I do because come on, it's February in Interior Alaska and there aren't many likely fruit choices in the produce aisle) or fresh fruit, frozen or not. You can even toss in a second banana instead. As for the liquid: milk, juice, almond/rice milk, or probably even water would work. Of course, if you use juice, the finished smoothie will be sweeter. I've been mostly making them with milk and find that the added lime juice helps the smoothie seem sweeter, which is probably just my wacky tastebuds. I make my own Greek yogurt pretty frequently and plan to do a batch in the next couple of days so I'll try using that for 1/2 C of the liquid and will let ya know how it goes.
Lime Green Smoothie
1 banana, peeled (obviously)
1 big handful of fresh baby spinach
about 1 C chopped fruit (about 5 ounces by weight)
3/4 C milk
2 T lime juice
Place all ingredients in a blender, cover, and blend until completely combined.
Yield: about 2 1/2 C, which makes 1 big smoothie or 2 little ones.
So are you sure I'm not going to taste the spinach?
ReplyDeleteHinna, I can't promise anything, but I personally could not taste the spinach and neither could my husband. You could start out with a small handful of spinach if you're skeptical :)
DeleteI can do this!!! Easy enough even for me! I work at a froyo shop and make lots of smoothies. My favorite combo is strawberry, mango, banana. (Q-tip likes to lick the straw when I'm done).
ReplyDeleteI've never tried spinach, but I've used kale. I'll have to try to spinach in it....if you put enough banana, you can't even taste the veggies!
RadDyke, that sounds good! I usually buy the big bag of frozen tropical fruit and it includes strawberry, mango, and pineapple, then I add a banana. When I make the smoothie without dairy, I often let the bunnies have a little taste. They love it! Of course, they love all food, but especially smoothies :) Sometime soon I will need to try it with kale, just yesterday I was wondering how that would turn out. Good to know it works!
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