The Best Breakfast (or anytime food) Ever

One thing you may not know about me is that I read a few food blogs, in which the bloggers chronicle pretty much everything they eat over the course of a day. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with these blogs. On one hand, in most cases they are written by women who are around my age who have transformed their eating habits, lost weight, and are maintaining their new lifestyle, which I find inspirational. They also tend to have good ideas about recipes and new foods that I might not hear about otherwise. At the same time, reading these blogs makes me feel a little inadequate about my own eating habits. But that's not hard to do considering my somewhat wonky relationship with food and fitness. So I guess it's par for the course, really.

At any rate, one thing I read about close to 1,000 times on these blogs was something called the Green Monster. People rave about these things; apparently they are good for your energy levels, low in calories, pack a nutritional punch, and help promote healthy skin. That's a lot of good in one glass. I was intrigued by this from the first moment I read about it, especially considering that your basic Green Monster has a total of four ingredients, about 240 calories per serving, and potential for a lot of add-ins or substitutions. The only problem was that in my previous apartment, there was no blender, and once I realized I was going to be moving, I didn't feel like buying one. So I waited to try my hand at the Green Monster...until this morning! We now have a blender (my roommate and I, that is. It's her blender), so this past week I remembered to make sure I would have ingredients for a GM on hand. Basic ingredients are as follows (for one serving):

• 2 cups spinach (you could substitute any green here, though. I know other people use kale pretty frequently. Just keep in mind that you probably want something fairly robust [lettuce might not be the best choice!] but also on the mild side);
• 1 cup soy milk (as with the spinach, you could substitute here and use cow's milk, almond milk, rice milk, coconut milk, etc. I used the Silk Light variety);
• 1 tablespoon ground flax (once again, something you probably don't necessarily need if you don't have it on hand, but it does add fiber and healthy fats, especially Omega-3s);
• 1 banana (I froze mine but you could skip that step, I'm sure).

Put all these ingredients in your blender and blend until smooth. The result is a seriously delicious concoction that is almost like a smoothie in texture. Don't let the green color scare you--the taste is mostly banana and soy milk. I can't even say how good this was from the first sip. It's not overly sweet, and it doesn't taste disgustingly healthy. It's just really, really good. Plus, you're getting in two cups of greens without any effort at all, and that's not easy to do.

If you're looking for a quick way to get more greens into your diet, a pleasant way to refresh on a hot day, or just a fun and different snack or breakfast (I complemented my GM this morning with some yogurt and Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal, which is also really good), I think you should give a Green Monster a try!