A few years back I decided to try green smoothies. What's not to like about drinking a fruity smoothie packed with the goodness of spinach, particularly when "you can't even taste the spinach at all!"? So I tried it. Ick. Nasty. The Hubs and I couldn't even finish our single cups of green disgustingness. It tasted like fruit...wrapped in a bag of spinach...and covered in spinach sauce. Ew. I had no idea how anyone could believe the green smoothies didn't taste like spinach.
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| Spinach: great in salads, not my favorite in juice form. |
Fast forward to July of 2012. I figured that I should include more healthy foods in my diet to replace the unhealthy ones I was cutting back on. That was when I discovered the Green Monster Smoothie. I honestly don't know which site was the first one I saw that showed me the correct way to make a green smoothie. A Google search will yield quite a few sites that lead to the same Green Monster Smoothie recipe. It's pretty basic: milk, yogurt, spinach, banana, and sometimes some peanut butter. That was my breakthrough. I
finally tried a green smoothie that
didn't taste like spinach with a hint of other flavor. Woot!
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| Banana weighs down the spinach...and covers the flavor |
I tried several other recipes after that which had much less spinach taste than I was used to. They all had one thing in common: banana. It's like it cancels out the taste of the spinach. It works wonders with kale, too. And kale's flavor is quite a bit stronger. No one ever pointed it out that I saw, but a banana makes ALL the difference. Now I have green smoothies several times a week and love them all. They got me used to the flavor of spinach in my smoothie so that when I make one without banana I don't hate the taste. Win, win.
The Green Monster was my gateway smoothie, but I have since found a favorite way to make a Green Monster Smoothie. It is the
Chocolate Green Smoothie. For a large single serving it is:
One cup chocolate almond milk
1/2 cup vanilla flavor Greek yogurt (also tasty with strawberry flavor)
Two handfuls of spinach
One frozen banana
Layer the ingredients in the blender as listed and blend until smooth.
I could drink this every day. EVERY day. If you want to be all cutesy you can drink it from a mason jar with a striped straw. I don't have those. Sorry. Mine goes in the souvenir cup we got at the zoo with the fattest straw I could find at the store. It still tastes good. Give it a try. "You can't even taste the spinach!" ;) It's also a great post-workout drink.
