happy (belated) birthday to me.

For my birthday, my wonderful little (as in, little sister in my sorority) got me something I had been dying for all summer:

That's right... after reading so many foodie blogs with delicious looking smoothies, I was craving a blender.  Obviously with this new toy, the first thing I had to do was go out and get smoothie ingredients.  I have read quite a bit about Green Monsters, and I'm intrigued!  I like spinach - but can it possibly taste good in a smoothie?  But, I had to try it.  So I read through about 100 different recipes and decided on my own.  Smoothie #1 contained:

1/2 cup of skim milk, 6 oz fat free strawberry yogurt, one big handful of spinach, and 7-8 frozen strawberries.  I put the ingredients in in that order, and got ready to blend:

I knew I was going heavy on the strawberry and light on the spinach, but I was a little worried about how spinach-y it would taste.

I don't really have any good smoothie glasses (something to add to the list of things I need for my kitchen!) so I served myself in a fancy beer glass.  Good enough for the time being!  The blender worked great - so thanks to my little for a great present!  (Note: her present wasn't late - I'm just a month late posting about my birthday present!  I obviously didn't take the blender on vacation, so this week was my first chance to use it!)

So, my very first smoothie turned out pretty good.  It wasn't too sweet, or to spinach-y.  I will definitely have to add a bit more spinach next time to see how much I can handle!  However, I made about twice as much smoothie as I really needed.  So next time I'll have to decrease the milk/yogurt/number of strawberries.  It was the right consistency, so I'll probably reduce all three a bit.  One problem: how do I use less than a container of yogurt?  What do I do with the rest?  Put it back in the fridge for a day or so?  Will it go bad?  Who knows.

Off to a conference now, with a sore throat!  Lots of zinc and vitamin C and liquids for me!