Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

As I've blogged about before, I am a big proponent of the smoothie.  As a busy mom it is a rare treat for me to have time to sit down with an egg and a piece of toast for breakfast, so I often run out the door or go up to the classroom with a smoothie in tow. 

You can read about a fruit smoothie I make here.

The thing I love about smoothie's is that there is no hard and fast way of how to make them.  You just throw in whatever the heck you want and go to town. 

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy folks. 

I started the South Beach diet back in August and in phase one of it you can't have any sugar.  Zilch, nada, none.  Being a lover of all things chocolate this was a huge problem. :)  When I made it to phase two and was able to have fruit (yee-haw) I started making this smoothie. 

LOVE IT!  Here's the recipe...I'll give you my taste's tolerable recipe with side notes on how to make it better (I've really sold you on this thing, haven't I?)

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Smoothie

1 cup milk (you can use anything here!  Yogurt, soy milk, almond milk, icecream...if you use icecream don't tell me...I will want to kill you in my jealous rage :) )

1 cup-ish ice

1/4 cup natural peanut butter (the obvious yummier choice would be to use peanut butter with sugar in it :) )

2 tbsp. dark cocoa powder (if I am really naughty I will use the light chocolate syrup instead and if I am REALLY naughty I throw in a couple tiny squares of dark chocolate for some chunks)

2 bananas

Whirl and enjoy.  If you want to pare this down you can. this will make you an entire blender of smoothie so it's perfect to throw in the fridge and enjoy through the day (as I do because Cal has the dumb peanut allergy) or you can share with friends and family. 

Okay now that I'm on my smoothie box I have to tell you some things that I have smuggled into smoothies. 

Back in the day when Cal wasn't talking I was DESPERATE to try anything!  My mother-in-law told me about Salba (which you know also as Chia seeds, you know from Chia pets...Obama hair???) and Kelp.  Both of these things are packed with nutrients but seriously how was I supposed to get those into Cal?  My solution was the smoothie.  I would take kelp (which comes in pill form by the way) and Salba, grind them up in an old coffee grinder and then keep that in an air-tight container.  I then would sprinkle about a teaspoon into a smoothie.  You cannot taste it at all, promise!!!  I was especially leary of grinding pills of kelp but they are tasteless (at least in smoothie form). 

My other go-to secret is spinach.  You can thrown TONS of the junk into the blender and you cannot taste it.  I was a little scared of the BRIGHT NEON GLOWING GREEN color it produced but the kids actually found it to be awesome so it was a win-win.  They get the nutrients of spinach and a fun color. 

If your kids won't try smoothie (the recipe above is brown from the chocolate) I recommend putting it in a sippie cup or travel mug.  I do this a lot with Emma and Calvin.  A lot of times if they can't see it, they'll drink it willingly (boy are we in trouble when those two hit college!)

So there are some of my tips for smoothie making.  Please let me know if you have any recipes to try or tips...I love new things!