The green monster....I said I would try it once

Ok so one of the recipes I found on Pinterest was for a "green monster smoothie".  Uh why would anyone drink something named that?  Then I saw the picture....why would anyone drink something that LOOKED like that??  It is a very green shade of green.  But the author called it her "top secret diet weapon".  Well hmmmmm, I could use one of those!  So I thought, "what the heck?  I'll give it a try."  I mean really, what did I have to lose?  Worst case I would be out the cost of the ingredients and would pour it down the drain.

So one day I got up my courage to give it a try.  I must admit, much better than I anticipated.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Here are some things I noted:

1.  It looks much worse than it tastes.
2.  If you closed your eyes to drink it, you might get past the mental aspect that it was green.
3.  I really only tasted the banana and peanut butter in it.

Not bad for a first run.  I decided it probably wasn't something I would fix every day, but I figured I could manage to work it into my menu once a week or so.  But I thought I might have some room for improvement.  So this week I tried again with a few minor modifications.  Here are my tips:

• Make it sweeter - the original wasn't quite sweet enough for my taste, so I added about a teaspoon of Splenda.  Much better!  
• You can add other fruit - I also added some frozen strawberries that I had in the freezer.  
• Freeze the fruit!  It was in adding the strawberries that I realized that I had missed something important....I hadn't frozen the bananas like the recipe said to do.  I realized that the frozen fruit made for a cooler temperature and therefore a more enjoyable drinking experience.

So I hope this is one you will enjoy.  You will have to let me know what you think.

Green Monster Spinach Smoothie

First add 1 sliced frozen banana, and 1 Tablespoon peanut butter in a blender. Tip: PEEL and SLICE your bananas before you freeze them, or you’ll be sorry!

Next add bulking agents for staying power, like protein-packed vanilla Greek yogurt, and creamy unsweetened vanilla almond milk. You could use any kind of milk you want – cow’s, rice, soy, etc.

Fill the blender the rest of the way up with baby spinach. I reckon I fit about 4 cups in there today!

Start the blender on “high blend” until everything’s mixed up, then switch it over to “liquify” to get the Green Monster velvety smooth.

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 frozen sliced banana

1 Tablespoon peanut butter (I like to use PB2 - it reduces the calories from 105 to 22...savings of 83 calories!)

1/2 cup 0% Vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt

1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or other kind of milk)

4 cups baby spinach (or more, or less)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Nutritional stats:

350 calories (267 if you use PB2), 10g fiber, 21g protein