Recipe: My Favorite Smoothie

 My go-to breakfast is a homemade smoothie, which I started doing because I noticed that Zach and I were hardly eating any greens. (Salad can be hard to eat sometimes!) A tasty, berry-heavy drink that you can sip through a straw first thing in the morning is a pretty easy way to start the day with some nutrition, and this recipe is pretty filling. Plus, it doesn't have a million ingredients, and you can make it even in a fairly weak blender.

The basic recipe (serves two): 

• 1 cup plain yogurt

• Big handful of greens (fresh or frozen; we like kale, collard greens, Romaine lettuce, spinach, or a combo of these. You can't taste them in the final blend.)

• 1 banana, fresh or frozen (2 if you want it to be sweeter; if your blender is weak, I recommend not using frozen)

• Large handful frozen mixed berries

Optional add-ins:

• 2-4 tablespoons peanut butter (I always add this, for the protein; it also makes the smoothie thicker and richer and adds a nice taste to complement the berries)

• Spoonful each: chia seeds, sauerkraut (if you have a high-speed blender), elderberry syrup

Directions:

Blend the yogurt, greens, and optional mix-ins first, especially if your blender isn't very strong. The key is to make sure the greens are completely pulverized before the smoothie gets too thick!

Then add the banana and berries, blending until the smoothie is the consistency of a shake. Pour it into glasses and sip through a straw. Delicious for breakfast, lunch, or dessert!

Note: 

If you want to make prep easy in the morning, you can portion all the ingredients except the berries into containers (I use quart yogurt containers) at the beginning of the week. Then each morning, dump in one of the containers (the ingredients should blend easily, even with a weak blender), then blend in frozen berries. Voila! 

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