Spinach Smoothies….Quick, Inexpensive, Nutritious….AND Better Than I Thought!

I have several different friends who have been telling me for months about making spinach smoothies for breakfast but that actually sounded gross to me! I happen to love fresh spinach but in a drink? With fruit? No thanks!

But lately I’ve been drinking way too much coffee to try to keep up my momentum and not eating as healthy as I should and I’ve just been feeling yucky and my stomach has been upset…so, I decided to try one and see if it gave me the energy they were talking about and if I’d feel any difference AND if it tasted good, cause if it doesn’t taste good, I’m not going to drink it!

There are tons of spinach smoothie recipes out there but I wanted something as quick, easy and inexpensive as I could find without tons of calories or too much effort. I found this great website http://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/recipes/spinach-smoothie/ that has tons of different recipes and what I found out is that this is an easy drink to make, and easily adaptable to your likes and price range.

Blueberries were on sale at Safeway and with my “Just for U” savings (if you haven’t signed up for that yet and you shop at Safeway, you should do it…tons of extra savings!), I was able to buy two pints for $3.99. Spinach was on sale too for 99 cents for a 9 ounce bag (I didn’t buy organic) so this was a super cheap “experiment”.

The first smoothie I made was with 2 cups of spinach, 1 cup of blueberries, 1 banana, about 1/4 cup 2% milk and some crushed ice. It was delicious and took maybe all of three minutes to make. You could add water instead if you prefer but I need the calcium.

My next smoothie was made with peaches, also on sale.

For this drink, I again added two cups of spinach, 1 peach (chopped up), 1 banana, 2% milk (about 1/2 cup this time, just to experiment) and crushed ice. Again, it was easy, cheap and tasted great…way better than I expected!

Strawberries were on sale too so I figured, why not try them? Thank goodness my son was visiting so he could help me drink all of these!

This time I made my drink with the 2 cups of spinach, 1 banana, 1 cup of chopped up strawberries and 1/4 cup soy milk and about a teaspoon of flaxseed. Again, delicious and nutritious.

I found that using 2 cups of spinach and 1 banana was a good base, along with the liquid and some crushed ice. This is a great way to use up any fruit you have and you can use water or any type of milk you like. I froze all my leftover fruit and the next day, used the frozen fruit (I cut it up before freezing) and didn’t need to add ice. I love any recipe that you can make, using whatever’s in the fridge! The next day (when I tried the frozen fruit),  I used fat-free milk, which I don’t usually like, and I couldn’t tell the difference and saved on calories and fat.

My son and I both loved all three of the flavors, (we both preferred the blueberry) and after just three days of drinking this every morning, I could totally feel a difference in my body. My stomach felt more settled, I actually felt more energetic and it filled me up! The day I made these I filled up some smaller cups and had some of the neighbor children try them and they liked them too…and they loved the color! I didn’t tell them they had spinach in them until after they tried it though!

And just fyi…if you have any challenges with “irregularity”, this will fix you right up! Just saying…..