Green Smoothie Week, Day Four

I think I'm dairy-ed out. Instead of whipping another yogurt or cottage cheese-based smoothie for lunch (as I've been doing for most of Kitchen Courage's green smoothie week), I decided to change things up a little. Enter the peanut butter!

This is the first green monster that I've made with peanut butter, if you can believe it. I toyed with a more traditional pairing with peanut butter this afternoon, such as the frozen banana half that is living in my freezer. In the end, though, I decided to try something new and different. I created a pumpkin spice green smoothie, complete with a spoonful of Mighty Maple peanut butter. As my husband knows far too well, I'm a huge fan of both pumpkin and maple syrup (and, more to the point, he's really, really not), not to mention peanut butter. Put all three together, and -- it's got to be good! Right?

After blending my ingredients together, I didn't feel so sure. The concoction looked remarkably like green sludge, and it had an odd baby food flavor and texture. Not exactly a work of food processed art. However, I added some more cinnamon and some sugar free maple syrup, and those tweaks seemed to do the trick. I enjoyed the texture (and fabulous fiber content) brought by the pumpkin, and the subtle maple and peanut butter flavors melded with the base perfectly. In the end, this smoothie only looked like slime, because it certainly did not taste like it!


Spiced Pumpkin Peanut Butter Smoothie

1 handful of ice cubes
1 cup fresh spinach
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 T maple peanut butter

1 T [sugar free] maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/2 packet stevia or your preferred sweetener
water or milk as needed

Blend away, Merrill. Blend away.

(Bonus points if you can tell me what movie I borrowed that quote from!)

Serves 1.