A Banana Smoothie for Breakfast

Yay, a new breakfast recipe! I always bring breakfast to work (and my lunch, for that matter). Usually I bring in oatmeal with topped with chopped nuts and berries, but I needed some variety. I have mentioned how I started trying out some recipes from the Bon Appetit Food Lover's Cleanse, which is where I found this. I have to admit, the cleanse was a bit hard to follow when you are just cooking for one person. I ended up just picking 1-2 things I wanted for lunch and dinner and made enough to last a few days to get me through the week. This recipe was one of them, and is very quick to throw together.

Yes, a big change from the tasting menus and lamb loins.
This is all you need...

Thirty seconds later, you have this!

Voila!  I make this the night before, pour it into a blender bottle, and grab it on my way out when I leave in the morning. Yes, I kind of look like a bag lady with my gym bag, purse, and lululemon lunch bag filled with snacks, but I've soooort of gotten used to it.

Banana Almond Smoothie, recipe from Bon Appetit

Serves 1

Ingredients

• 1 whole banana, chopped, and frozen
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 tbsp. almond butter

Do Ahead: The recipe calls for frozen bananas. I learned the hard and dumb way that you can't freeze a whole banana, and then try to peel it. Oops. Now, I chop up the banana and put it in a tupperware or a ziplock bag in advance of making this. I usually chop all my bananas for the week on Sunday afternoon after I've gone grocery shopping (and put each banana in a separate container, so I know exactly how much I am using). By the time I'm back in the kitchen in the evening to prep my breakfast for the next morning, it is frozen. 

Combine all ingredients in a blender, and blend till smooth. I run my blender run 30-60 seconds to get it extra frothy. 

Variations: I was reading Into The Gloss and found out Blue Dog Cafe has a "King of the Jungle" smoothie that has banana, almond milk, kale, and spinach. Feeling inspired to add more greens to my day, I threw about two handfuls of spinach into my smoothie and it was great!