My favorite green smoothie includes spinach. Even though spinach is touted as a superfood, for some reason, I just don’t cook it enough. Recently at work, one of my colleagues has been bringing in green smoothies to work. I noticed it, but never really asked about it. One day, we started chatting about smoothies and she mentioned that she likes to add two large handfuls into her green smoothie. She convinced me that I wouldn’t even notice the spinach flavor in my smoothie because of how mild the flavor of spinach is. It took me awhile before I started to add spinach into my smoothies. This weekend, I had purchased some spinach and decided to combine two large handfuls into one of my favorite fruit smoothies. I made enough to serve two people and convinced Kevin to give it a try. Kevin, who is usually skeptical of fruit and vegetable smoothies, actually enjoyed it. He even said he did not notice the spinach in the smoothie at all. After making one of these green smoothies over the weekend, I started making even more throughout the week to drink alongside my dinner. I can’t believe it took me so long before I started making these smoothies. The spinach really is mild in flavor and I definitely didn’t notice it changing anything in my smoothie. I appreciate being able to sneak in additional servings of vegetable into a drink I already make on an almost daily basis.
Green Smoothie
· ¾ cup orange juice or apple juice
· 5-7 strawberries
· ½ a frozen banana
· Two large handfuls (about 1 cup) of spinach leaves
Directions:
1) Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth, about 5 minutes. Serve in a tall glass with a straw.
Takeaways: The smoothie can be customized in any way you like. I’ve made a version with pineapples and blueberries added into the smoothie and it was equally delicious. This version is a very basic version. I used apple juice for this smoothie, but you can use orange juice or even seltzer water, and fruits of your choice to make the smoothie your own.