My Quick & First Spinach Smoothie

We've all had smoothies. They come in all colors, flavors, etc. Most contain high contents of 

unwanted sugar. You can't walk into a shopping center without seeing the few smoothie vendors. For those of us, who want more out of our food, without all of the sugar often have to 

resort to making them homemade. Considering most vendor bought smoothies are $5-$7.00, as most homemade food, it's obviously cheaper anyway. Who doesn't like cheaper? 

I was in a hurry this morning as I had decided last minute to squeeze in a 5 mile run prior to heading into work.  So, time was lacking, yet I needed to feed myself before leaving. Just say my fridge and pantry isn't full of convenient foods, as I try to avoid boxed and processed junk. 

I make smoothies all of the time, but I wanted to make sure this was going to give me what I needed for my four hour work shift without needing to leave and hit a drive-thru where I would be 

sure to fail on the fat and calorie intake.  I know what you're thinking. What is wrong with you that you can't survive 4 hours without eating?

 I've often questioned whether I should get tested for worms or some other disgusting stomach eating virus.  Just say I need to eat often, all day long. I'm sure part of this is the recent marathon training. I often joke that I feel like a newborn. I only want to eat and sleep. 

I've seen and read numerous smoothie recipes on-line that included spinach. Knowing that I have the largest bag of spinach in the fridge known to man-kind, I figured I would make use of some of it and knock out a meal replacement all in the same efforts. 

Here's what I threw together in a jiffy into my big old Cuisinart blender.  

1 large handful of spinach leaves
1/3 cup frozen unsweetened raspberries
1/2 cup frozen unsweetened mango
1 peeled clementine
1/2 cup plain low-fat Chobani Greek Yogurt
1/2 cup Silk unsweetened almond milk

I was honestly surprised to see that my smoothie ended up a pinkish-brown color when done.  Most of the smoothies I've seen that contain spinach are quite green. Either others are putting a lot more spinach in it, or my raspberries bled more pink than my spinach did green.  Regardless, the outcome wasn't bad.

It wasn't as sweet as I expected, which is a good thing for me. I'm not fond of the overly sweet and sugary tasting.  I'm sure many would prefer a sweeter flavor, but this was perfect for me. 

I'm sure if you  are one that prefers the sweeter taste, you could probably add more raspberries.  As many other spinach smoothie recipes have stated, you truly cannot taste the spinach. I promise I'm not lying. I wouldn't lie to you to get you to eat something.  I would only lie to my children. 

I take small snacks to work to survive my long, drawn out 4 hours of starvation.  I usually nibble on bananas, carrots & hummus and similar healthy type foods to survive, but this is usually after eating lunch prior to heading in.  The smoothie kept me satisfied as if I had eaten a regular meal, in addition to my other snacks I carried in with me.  I think I owe this to the high protein content you get from the Greek yogurt. 

Off to cook dinner and lie to my children about what vegetables I hid in the pasta sauce!