Green Is The Color Of Spring And Protein Shakes

With all the singing and craziness that’s been happening in the mornings around here, I’ve gotten back into whipping up protein shakes for breakfast instead of trying to pack things like eggs and toast to go. Sometimes you just don’t have the time but you still need to eat. It takes less than a minute to blend breakfast with ice in my Magic Bullet, and I can drink it in the car during school drop off and morning commute.

I could get even lazier if I had to and just use a shaker, but there’s just something yummy and milkshake-like when you blend a shake with ice. I’ve come up with some pretty tasty concoctions and thought I’d pass along a few recipes.

Since I’m drinking them in place of breakfast, these are higher calorie meal replacement shakes. You can easily modify them if you need to by using one scoop of protein powder. See my tips after the recipe for some ideas.

Shamrock Shake

• 2 scoops vanilla protein powder
• 8 – 10 oz water
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• Tiny splash of peppermint extract
• 4 – 6 ice cubes

Throw all the ingredients in a Magic Bullet or blender and blender until smooth. Don’t panic over the evil looking shake. It tastes good!

Tips:

1. Wash your spinach first and chop or tear it into pieces. Don’t freak out that your shake will taste like vanilla flavored spinach. I swear if it weren’t for the color, I wouldn’t even know there was spinach in there. I even use the leaves and stems since the blender liquefies it all.
2. Be light handed with the peppermint extract until you are sure of the amount you like. It could easily reach brain freeze/altoid level if you aren’t careful. Bleh.
3. Don’t be afraid of coconut oil. It doesn’t taste coconutty and isn’t greasy in your shake. It has fats that are good for you and help keep you full longer. If you aren’t using this as a meal replacement, you can cut the amount down or skip altogether.
4. Just smile and laugh at the people that give you weird looks for drinking a green shake. It’s much better for you than half the junk they eat for breakfast. Just remember to do a teeth check for spinach shards afterwards or they may be pointing at you later for a different reason. 😉

Enjoy and I’ll be adding a few more shakes to the recipe collection soon!