St. Patrick's Day Detox Green Smoothie

It is Saturday!  Woot woot!  We had a busy weekend with Luke's end of the season basketball tournament.  It was fun, but it was a lot of driving!

In other news, Saint Patrick's Day is in a week.  Look at any food blog and you will see lovely recipes featuring the color green.

Look at my blog and you see ... cookies. 

And they aren't green.

My family is very challenged when it comes to this holiday.  Most Saint Patrick's Day recipes use mint, since green food is a lot more appealing when it is minty, or cream cheese, because cream cheese is great for food coloring!  Like, you can make it whatever color you want!  Brownies, er, not so much.  And cookies, either you use a two whole containers or you end up with the most disgusting colored cookie ever.  You think this is hypothetical.

And seriously, how am  Isupposed to celebrate?  I drink, but the smoothie type.  *lightbulb*

This green smoothie has no food coloring!  Or mint!  And it is still green!  My life as a food blogger is safe thanks to this recipe. ;)

 

I really like spinach.  I have always enjoyed it in salads, in lasagnas, on sandwiches, you name it, if it had spinach, I would probably eat it.  But I had never tried it in a smoothie and that had been on my bucket list for a while.  (Yes, I have a food bucket list ... it also has copycat Twinkies and Snickers on it, so don't think for a moment I sip on these all day, every day.  Haha! - no.)

I was absolutely shocked by how good this was.  You do not taste the spinach.

(let me repeat that)  You do not taste the spinach.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

Yes, really, the spinach just makes this smoothie really green, which I was not counting on.  I mean, I expected it to be green, but not like ... this.  So if your family is anything like mine, kidnap, blindfold them, and threaten them with penalty of no Snickers for eternity, and then serve them a glass of this.  Trust me, it works this way.  This smoothie tastes like strawberries and bananas.  Sweet, creamy, and delicious.  End of story.

It looks like a tornado went through a mad scientist's lab, but hey, it tastes incredible! 

There are a couple tricks to keeping this smoothie creamy, like a milkshake (because I do not like smoothies I can drink with a straw.  I am a spoon girl all the way)  First off, you have to have frozen ingredients.  Of the three main ingredients (strawberries, bananas, and almond milk) two of those need to be frozen.  I've tried with all three, but then I needed a lot of almond milk to blend it all together.  So I would suggest sticking with just two.  For frozen almond milk, I just freeze a 1/3 cup of almond milk in an ice cube tray and then throw it in my Ninja whenever I'm ready.  For bananas, just slice them up and freeze overnight.  And strawberries - I just buy them in a huge bag.  All three of those are in my freezer at all times.  I've done this with blueberries and it is also amazing. 

Detox Green Smoothie
Recipe Source: The Sweet {Tooth} Life
Yield: 2 servings

1 cup spinach, not packed
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1 large banana
1/3 cup frozen almond milk cubes
1/4 cup almond milk (EDIT: Orange juice also tastes amazing!)
1 tablespoon sweetener, optional

Blend in a good food processor.  And, yep, you are done!