simply eat. drinks // sweet green smoothies

So here it is! I did indeed promise you this recipe yesterday (if you can call it a recipe) for a 'Green Smoothie for Beginners'. Now I only recently started making smoothies with spinach myself and I have been pleasantly surprised... Although it looks like it should taste horrible the spinach just adds a 'freshness' to the smoothie, not to mention it packs an Iron punch! Which for me is an added bonus as I don't eat a great deal of red meat in my diet.

I think this recipe works because of the combination of sweet fruit as well as the spinach so it doesn't taste too different compared to the all fruit kinds of smoothie. This would be a great smoothie for sneaking veggies into a kids diet PLUS it's also an awesome super-hero green colour! 'Hulk' smoothies anyone?

Ingredients

• 1 medium Banana
• 1/2 ripe Mango
• 2 handfuls of Spinach
• 2tbsp Low Fat (0% fat) Yoghurt
• Orange Juice/Tropical Juice - Fresh stuff only please not the stuff from concentrates! 
• Nutrition Tip: The Vitamin C in Orange juice helps the body to absorb the Iron in the spinach, the perfect smoothie match!

Simply...

• Pop all the fruit and yoghurt into a blender, top up with juice until it comes around a 1/3 of the way up the fruit.
• Blend on low to start and then ramp it up to blitz all the ingredients until smooth.
• This makes one large glass serving OR two smaller glasses.

Smoothie Tips!

• I like my smoothies fairly thick but I always start with LESS juice than needed and that way you can always add more if you want.
• I like to make sure that at least one of my smoothie ingredients is frozen, in this case the banana, as it makes the smoothie lovely and cool without the need to add ice cubes which waters down the flavours.
• If, like me, you don't like drinking smoothies straight from the glass (as the thick texture can feel a bit weird) just use a straw!
• If you're making a smoothie as a replacement meal, say for breakfast, then adding in a handful of oats makes it more filling and the fibre will keep you going for longer. (Don't add oats to this recipe as the fibre can inhibit the absorption of the Iron in the spinach.)

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