Smoothie

Before I start in on today's post I want to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I have good reason though! I found out a few weeks ago that I'm pregnant. My husband and I are very excited. I'm now through my first trimester and feeling better, but for a while cooking or writing about food sounded less than appealing. I'm very happy to see though that it was short lived! I thought I would start back with a recipe that I find very comforting and a great and quick way to start off the day. I'm sure you've come across many smoothie recipes. I'm fairly sure you haven't seen too many with oatmeal in it though! I got the idea from a few years back when my husband and I were following the Abs Diet it was a very sensible way of eating that basically focuses on a core group of healthy and fresh foods. The oatmeal in the shake gives it a great creaminess and also helps to add fiber and it sticks with you all morning long. In smaller quantities it also makes a great mid day snack. Feel free to play around with all the ingredients in this recipe. I hesitated in labeling this recipe as a specific smoothie (I would have labeled it a banana peanut butter smoothie) because I didn't want to turn anyone off, as you could add whatever you had on hand or were in the mood for. What I'll do is when I'm making oatmeal for breakfast, I'll make extra- then there is oatmeal cold and ready to go whenever I need a quick breakfast. Give it a try and see what you think!



Smoothie (makes 1 large meal sized smoothie)

1/3 cup cooked, cold oatmeal
1 small banana or 1/2- 2/3's of a large
1 TBS peanut butter (preferably natural without any added sugar or salt)
1 TBS of vanilla flavored protein powder*
1/4 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 cup milk (whatever kind you want or you could replace it with soy milk ect.)
3 ice cubes

*for the protein powder I used a whey protein powder- vanilla flavor. This adds some sweetness to the shake along with extra protein. You could also use a soy protein powder if you wanted, if it's not flavored or you want to skip the protein powder all together you might want to add a tsp of honey, maple syrup or sugar. We've made it without any added sugar or protein powder but be forewarned that it's definitely not very sweet. The protein powder or added sugar doesn't make it overly sweet just adds a little more flavor.

Put everything but the ice in a blender, blend until smooth and then add the ice cubes and blend until all the ice is blended in.