Joining the Green team

I've decided to jump on the "green smoothie" band wagon.  I figured, what the heck?  I absolutely love smoothies, so what's the big deal in adding a little bit of greens to the recipe?  I've seem many recipes that include kale, but I decided to just stick with spinach.  I've also heard that kale has a very strong flavour, so if you don't want to really taste the green stuff, use spinach as it doesn't give off too much flavour.  If you use the right fruits (very strong colouring), you don't even end up with a "green" smoothie just a super healthy one!  Here is the recipe I like to use:

"Green" Berry Smoothie

Ingredients: 

1 cup frozen mixed berries

1/4 cup skim milk

1/2 cup Ocean Spray diet pomegranate blueberry cocktail

1 container (100g) vanilla yogurt (or 1/4 cup)

1 1/4 cups baby spinach leaves

 

Directions:

1.  Place fruit in blender and blend like you would if crushing ice.  Doing this first helps to eliminate chunks of frozen fruit that just won't blend.

2.  Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.

3.  Enjoy!

See? Mine did not turn out at all green!  Now, if you want to make this into a meal, you could add some protein powder, or tofu, or maybe even a tbsp of peanut butter for added protein (I added peanut butter).  And feel free to use whatever flavour of juice you like, or have on hand, and any kind of frozen fruit.  Mine was mixed berries; strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.  The raspberry colouring tends to overpower anything else, hence why I ended up with a pink/red smoothie instead of a green one!