Oh Costco...You Get Me Every Time

I can't remember a day that I haven't eaten spinach in some way or another. It's filled with tons of nutrients and you can basically put it in anything morning, noon or night. I always buy a huge box of organic baby spinach at Costco every week so I have it on hand but right next to that huge, cold, freezer part of Costco something amazing was happening and it involved my beloved vegetable. It was being put into a blender. Now, listen ya'll, normally I steer clear of ALL samples. They're a sure fire way to screw up your calorie intake for the day and you'll get sucked into their marketing vortex within seconds, BUT this was different...it was a Vitamix promo. You see, there's a special part of my heart for all kitchen appliances big and small. This tiny blender, packed with power, could turn my little spinach leaves into a fruit filled delicious smoothie and I was hooked. Damn that blender... Chris just bought me a professional grade mixer so there was no way that I could ask him to shell out over $400 for a blender at that moment BUT I could ask him to get me the $50 Magic Bullet set that was just on the row over. He thought about it over night, gave me one good, "you better use this friggin' thing" sigh, and picked it up the next day. My kids screamed "DADDY GOT YOU A MAGIC BLENDER!!!!!!" Yes, yes he did... I have used that thing everyday at least 4 times making smoothies with my fruit and spinach and it's been worthwhile. You may think you'd taste the spinach but you can't taste it at all and it allows you to get all your servings of fruits and veggies in. Here's my "green smoothie" recipe but you can switch out any fruits of your liking. My favorite thing to do is to buy a big baggie of organic frozen fruit (I like the strawberry, mango pineapple) at Costco and make single serving baggies to store in the freezer. I have all my goodness in one little baggie and just pop it in the Bullet :)

Green Smoothie

ice
orange juice (I do 1/2 water and 1/2 OJ to lower my calorie intake)
a handful of spinach
1/2 c. of frozen fruit
1/2 banana

Really hope you at least try this! It's a great way to get all of your veggies and fruits in and even my husband and boys love it...and that's saying a lot. Here's a great link about the nutrients of Spinach! VIVA LA SPINACH!!