Drink Your Vegetables

I really needed a way to pack in some more nutrients to my maternity leave diet. Most of my daytime meals are whatever I can fix in a flash, often microwave leftovers or quick snacks with a few too many boxes of mac n cheese making an appearance. Veggies are usually for dinner only...if we're lucky.

Since I had been hearing a lot about Green Smoothies (smoothies including fresh greens such as spinach or kale), I decided to give one a try for breakfast today and I really just winged it.

First, I threw some blueberries in the freezer overnight to chill the smoothie and act as my "ice", but in the future I will likely get frozen fruit to skip this step. If I'm going to freeze it anyway, frozen fruit is cheaper and less perishable.

Next, I layered the following ingredients in my blender:

• 1 large handful of frozen fresh blueberries
• 6 fresh strawberries
• 2+ handfuls of fresh baby spinach
• 1 whole banana
• enough skim milk to cover the blueberries below

I gave it a few pulses, stirred it with a spoon to get the spinach to sink down, and proceeded to blend. This was the result:





My only trouble is I woke a sleeping baby with the blender...oops:



Here it is ready to drink, and wow was it delicious! I like spinach, but even if you are a greens hater this is a great way to hide them from yourself, or your family, because you really can't taste them!

Moral of the story: Do not fear the green smoothie (which is actually purple). I think I'll add even more spinach next time!