Munchie Monday: Dr. Greger's Breakfast Smoothie

In the past I have mentioned Dr. Michael Greger.  He is the man behind nutritionfacts.org.    That is a wonderful website with videos and podcasts on all kinds of nutritional information.  I highly recommend it.  He has a monthly Question and Answer show on Facebook (while walking on his treadmill!!) that is always interesting.

Anyway.

Here is his breakfast smoothie recipe;

Makes 2 Servings

2 medium

• Fresh mint. 2 tsps
• Lemon. 1/2
• Rolled oats. 1 cup
• Frozen blackberries. 1/2 cup
• Frozen mango. 2 cups
• Flax meal. 2 tbsps
• Ground ginger. 1/2 tsp
• Spinach. 1 cup
• Water. 1 1/2 cups 

1. Rinse the fresh mint leaves. Peel the lemon, cut it in half and remove the seeds.
2. Combine the fresh mint leaves, half of the lemon, rolled oats, frozen blackberries, frozen mango, flax meal, ground ginger, spinach and water in a blender. Add additional lemon to taste, and additional water if needed. Blend until smooth and creamy.

This is the nearly empty breakfast smoothie container!
OR maybe not.  Maybe it was a strawberry smoothie....

What I did:

Trader Joe's had a fresh mint plant when I walked by after going to Fedex last week. I picked up the mint plant then went inside and picked up a lemon, a bag of spinach, and a bag of frozen mango.

In the bottom of our blender jar I put 6 large mint leaves, half a peeled and seeded lemon, 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats,1/2 teaspoon ginger, a lot of flax meal (since I am trying to use it up), a pint of frozen blackberries that Dear One picked last fall and that have been languishing in the freezer ever since waiting for a good recipe, and finally I put the 1 1/2 cups of water and blended for 60 seconds.

It was good.  It was not delicious/fabulous/or any other superlative because:  it was very thick.  Very very thick, in fact.  Putting in all the flax meal in addition to the oatmeal (remember this is a breakfast smoothie) sort of shot us in the foot, thickness-wise.  Dear One does not appear to like such thick smoothies, even though they did taste good.  ALSO,  there were a LOT of blackberry seeds. I am wondering if I had blended longer if they would have broken down...

Still, even with the issues, I will make it again...though I might go to frozen peaches and frozen blueberries instead of mangos and blackberries.  Sounds better, anyway.