Green Smoothie

Before I start the recipe let me say that I’m slaying my 40 by 40 and bucket lists this weekend. As you read this I’m on my way to see a live taping of Oprah’s Lifeclass with guest teacher T.D. Jakes! Also, this past Friday I surprised my friends with tickets to see the Soweto Gospel Choir in concert. It’s been a pretty good past few days!

Anyhoo… back to the smoothie.

I thought about starting a smoothie blog once, had a name and everything (which I’ve since forgotten ). I used to make a smoothie every night after yelling “SMOOTHIE TIME!” like a bell went off in my head #truestory. I stopped sometime last year because of the sugar content of the fruit at night and trying to change my diet due to adrenal fatigue. Trust me, it was a sad day in Zamunda .

Lately I’ve decided to get back into my love of smoothies and just make them earlier during the day so the sugar content is not an issue. I’m also gonna lower the proportion of fruit I used since I tended toward making mine thick and creamy with frozen fruit.

Anyhoo … here’s a quick green smoothie recipe for my

Barefoot & Pregnant In The Kitchen: Everything Mama Told Me Not To Be

series.

Everything I used

Pictured above: frozen spinach, frozen banana, greek yogurt, rice milk, (optional: mango nectar, rice protein, psyllium husk powder, fish oil).

I’m using my Oster Blend-N-Go cup (of which I own 4 … because remember I was smoothie obsessed). I don’t see this exact model anywhere, but here’s an updated version on Amazon.com: Oster 6026 Blend-N- Go Cup. Feel free to do this in your regular blender jar.

Moving right along, I added some rice milk in the bottom of the blender cup. I do this so I don’t have to fight to get the dry ingredients from being stuck at the bottom (top when it’s flipped over) when blending.

Add some of rice milk

Next I added the frozen spinach and banana. I’d already peeled and cut up the banana and put it in a ziploc bag with the spinach leaves. If you’re gonna make this smoothie often I’d recommend peeling, cutting up and freezing a few bananas and storing them flat in the freezer. Also just keep your spinach in the freezer.

Add spinach and banana

Then I added the greek yogurt (which was kinda messy to do in this cup LOL)

Added greek yogurt

The next four ingredients are all optional and really because I’m always doing the most and an overachiever in the smoothie department. First I added my Carlson lemon flavored cod liver oil (because I take it every morning anyway so why not toss it in my smoothie), then my beloved psyllium powder* which I’ve been taking for years as a fiber supplement. I also added rice protein (the brand of which I’m not gonna promote because I don’t like the taste at all.My favorite proteins are Jay Robb sugar free egg white protein and Jay Rob rice protein, which I can no longer find) and lastly mango nectar because … I love mango nectar.

Added fish oil, fiber, protein and a bit of sweetness

The last step is to blend. These blend-n-go cups fit right on the blender base as pictured below. I started out on the lower ‘blend’ setting to make sure everything got chopped up really well, then it it with ‘liquify’ to make sure I wasn’t drinking any spinach chunks.

Blend baby blend

Voila! This is what you’re left with, a simple yummy breakfast that’s good for you and fun to drink.

The only issue I have with this smoothie is I get literally mad whenever I hit the bottom of the cup HA!

[yumprint-recipe id=’12’]My thoughts on this smoothie is it’s yummy but I’m not a fan of the brand of rice protein that I used above and would change it in a heartbeat. Otherwise, you can make a larger serving if you’d like or add more spinach and/or protein powder to bulk it up.