Almond Banana Smoothie

Here is a smoothie/drink recipe that I adapted from the South Beach Diet summer cookbook. We make a lot of smoothies for breakfast at our house. I find it is a good way to get things into my preschooler without a fight. He loves to help make them, too. I thought this one was a good twist on the usual ingredients and it packs at least 5 grams of protein into a 3/4 cup serving. Now, the original recipe calls for you to puree sliced almonds with water and you can surely do that if you like. However I decided to take a shortcut and just use almond milk, which is easy to find at any regular grocery store near the rest of the milk. If you decide to do the puree thing, use 1/4 cup of sliced almonds with 1 cup of water. I also decided it needed an extra banana!

What You Need:
1 cup almond milk
2 bananas, peeled {obviously!}
1 cup low-fat plain or vanilla yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
ice cubes

Directions:
In a blender, combine all ingredients until mixture is smooth and thick. Fill four 8 oz glasses with ice and pour  over ice. Serve immediately. Enjoy!