Smoothie Experimentation

Since I got my Ninja blender and started following the (never home)maker blog, I’ve been itching to make some smoothies. Last night and this morning I tried out some smoothie recipes inspired by (never home)maker and Lemon Drop.

For dinner and dessert last night, I created my own interpretation of (never home)maker’s Chocolate-Peanut Butter Green Smoothie.

I used the following ingredients:

1/2 cup Yarnell’s blueberry frozen yogurt
2 heaping handfuls of spinach
1 tablespoon Nutella
1 tablespoon peanut butter
2 teaspoons Nesquick
1 cup almond milk

I threw all the ingredients into the blender pitcher for my Ninja, and blended it until smooth. It looked pretty disgusting, and I probably should have taken a picture. It was all green, brown and gloopy. However, it tasted delicious. It pretty much tasted like a peanut butter and chocolate shake. It was a little overly sugary for my taste; probably because I used Nesquick instead of cocoa, Nutella and peanut butter instead of almond butter, and frozen yogurt instead of fresh fruit. I couldn’t taste the spinach at all, in spite of feeling like I’d added a lot to the smoothie.

This morning, I (mostly) ran 3 miles, so I wanted something easy for breakfast after I came home and showered. I had a peach in my refrigerator, as well as more blueberry frozen yogurt and peach frozen yogurt. I wanted to avoid having more chocolate again, so I took my inspiration for this smoothie from Lemon Drop’s Blueberry Peach Smoothie.

I used the following ingredients:

1/4 cup Yarnell’s blueberry frozen yogurt
1/2 cup Yarnell’s peach frozen yogurt
1 cup almond milk
1 peach, pitted and peeled
1 heaping handful of spinach

I figured I couldn’t really taste the spinach in last night’s smoothie, so I’d see if it was just the nut butters covering up the flavor, or if it just integrated well into the smoothies. Granted, I used less spinach this morning compared to last night. Again, I put everything in my Ninja blender pitcher and blended until smooth. It turned out a sickly green color, but again lacked any flavor of spinach. Unsurprisingly, this smoothie mostly tasted like peaches; I could taste very little of the blueberries. It appears to be the frozen yogurt that is contributing pretty heavily to the sweetness as this smoothie was still sweet for my taste. I’ll probably price some fresh and frozen fruit next time I’m at the store to see what I want to pick up for future smoothies.

My takeaways from my experimentation so far:
-Adding spinach to smoothies doesn’t seem to affect the flavor one way or the other, so putting spinach in a smoothie is probably a good way to make it healthier (though it may make it look less appetizing).
-Using frozen yogurt makes smoothies too sweet for my taste; I will try to start using plain fruit instead, with perhaps some plain yogurt for thickness.
-Putting nut butters in smoothies makes them really rich, and quite delicious!