Recipe Wednesday - Red Berry Smoothie

Hi, it's me again!  I realized the other day that I hadn't even uploaded pictures from the camera to the computer since the middle of March!!  So I got all caught up with that (check mark!) and now I can move on with getting a few more blog posts up here.

First order of business, though, is to share this delicious smoothie recipe with you!

Since September I've been having mainly smoothies for my breakfasts.  Occasionally I'll throw in a bowl of (gluten free) oatmeal, but honestly, smoothies are just what I'm wanting right now!  (Winter weather didn't even dissuade me from having these delicious, healthy drinks.)

This morning I got out my trusty kitchen scales and measured everything as it went into the VitaMix (instead of just eyeballing it).  This mornings smoothie had just the right amount of tartness for me, you can adjust however you feel fit.  Also, if you don't have a VitaMix or high powered blender, you may want to sub some of the frozen items for non-frozen.  I usually have to use the tamper to get everything down to the blades. 

Red Berry Smoothie
1 cup Almond Milk (use whatever milk you prefer, but I love using my homemade almond milk) (8oz/228grams)
1/3 c. Dried Cranberries (56g.) (I used a quarter cup the other day and it just didn't have the right level of sweet-tartness for me)
1 c. frozen strawberries (140g.)
1/2 c. frozen raspberries (56 g.)
2 frozen spinach cubes (42 g.)*
1 Tbs ground flax seed (6g.)

Put into blender, in order listed, blend until smooth!  This made up a little over 2.5 cups of smoothie this morning.  I drank a tall (2 cup) glass and Aren drank the rest.

Nutrition info (for the whole smoothie) as given by MyFitnessPal:

Calories 358
Carbs 75
Fat 5
Protein 5
Sodium 181**
Sugar 57

*To make my frozen spinach cubes I pour about a cup of water into the blender, throw in a handful or two of baby spinach and blend on medium speed.  Through the opening in the top, while the blender is still running, I (carefully) put more handfuls until the spinach container is empty and the blender is full of liquid nutrition.  Then I pour the mixture into a silicone mini muffin tin and freeze.  Each cube is about 3 calories.

**I'm not sure what the sodium count really is for my smoothie.  I use homemade almond milk but on MyFitnessPal I only have the option of choosing a store bought almond milk.  I can't imagine my homemade milk has much sodium, if any at all.

If you try this (and please do!) let me know what you think!  I have another smoothie recipe coming up soon and a few Indian dishes planned, also!