eat fruit and run

I have been pretty ambitious in the kitchen recently, and to my surprise, pretty successful as well.  Here is a recap of the recipes I’ve tried this week:

• dark-chocolate chip banana bread muffins via Skinnytaste
• dark-chocolate chunk bread pudding via Skinnytaste
• dark-chocolate almond butter cups via Sprouted Kitchen
• fresh whipped cream (no recipe, but here is a basic one)
• baked spaghetti squash (no specific recipe, just winged it)
• challah bread egg-in-a-hole (again, no recipe, just made it up)
• Green Monster smoothie via Skinnytaste

As you can see, I was able to work my favorite ingredient–dark chocolate–into the majority of the recipes.  Luckily I did not try to add it to the squash or egg-in-a-hole…

After running to Starbucks this morning in the snow and wind–we are expecting a few inches this weekend–I whipped up my first Green Monster smoothie.  The recipe is very simple and packed with nutrients, so I thought it would be a great pre-workout meal.

I combined 3/4 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, 1 tablespoon natural peanut butter, 2 cups spinach, and a frozen banana–the banana didn’t make it into the ingredients photo–in the blender.

After a couple minutes on high, I realized why they call it the Green Monster!

You could probably add any number of ingredients to this to add more nutrition or to modify the flavor–it tastes like peanut butter and bananas, so if you’re into that this is the smoothie for you.  I could not taste the spinach at all, but it’s good to know I packed all those nutrients into one glass.  This smoothie will definitely be staying in the go-to recipes rotation!

The best accompaniment for kitchen endeavors is music; this morning I listened to Norah Jones–enjoy!