Yesterday when I was telling my friend Krisz about my new smoothie blog, she shared with me her new fave smoothie recipe, and ladies and gents, it's a winner. She uses a standard blender for this mix - half a banana, 2 big tablespoons of organic peanut butter (no sugar or anything added), a spoonful of honey, about half a blender full of milk, and one ice cube. The most important part of this recipe, Krisz insisted, are the proportions, which I discovered for myself today when trying it out.
I was really excited to try this recipe, particularly because the first thing I did was throw some unsalted roasted peanuts into my Vitamix and turn them into my own home-made peanut butter.... This smoothie is absolutely amazingly delicious, and packs a great protein punch, and is the perfect cure to a chocolate bar craving.
As we all know, legumes in our diet are incredibly important, and peanuts are no exception. Full of protein, vitamins and trace minerals, peanuts have been shown to be great for the heart. Something that I didn't know until I did my homework, is that peanuts have lots of oleic acid in them (like olives), and actually rival the antioxidant content of many fruits. To my surprise, roasting them has actually been shown to increase antioxidant content by 22%! So peanut butter is great, but to be clear, I don't believe that applies to peanut butter that is so processed and full of sugar that in my opinion it cancels out whatever might be good about the peanuts... I'm talking about peanut butter with only one ingredient in it... Peanuts (go figure). FYI the peanut butter I made this morning was so delicious and creamy that you'd barely be able to tell the difference between it and the store-bought sugary brand. Do beware of the proportions in this recipe, as I added a bit too much peanut butter, so my smoothie was a bit thick and intense... Nothing a shot of milk didn't fix, mind you. But talk about fill you up!! I'm half way through my smoothie, and I'm full. Smoothie on, everyone!
