Banana Goodness

I love bananas. The flavor, the texture, the smell, all of it. I prefer green bananas but brown ones are perfect for recipes. I only wish Ryan loved bananas as much as I do. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for a peanut butter banana smoothie I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get fruit into his meat and potato diet.

The recipe is four ingredients (FOUR!). Bananas, oats, peanut butter, and milk. To make the smoothie you'll need:

     - 2 bananas frozen and sliced
     - 3/4 cup of milk
     - 1/4 cup of oats
     - 1/4 cup of peanut butter

One word to the wise, slice your bananas first BEFORE throwing them in the freezer. I froze them first - mulling over whether or not I actually wanted to do smoothies - and then sliced them. Needless to say, my fingers were cold! And it's more difficult to cut them frozen solid. Another helpful hint: rinse your measuring cup with water before scooping out peanut butter - it doesn't stick (as much) and you don't have to spend minutes getting every last bit of peanut butter.

I used Quaker Oats, regular Skippy peanut butter, 1% milk, and two 6-8 inch bananas, which is what the calorie count at the bottom will reflect.

The original recipe called for the use of a blender. Well, I don't have one, so I used my food processor. First throw in your oats and turn on the processor until they're fine and small.

Once that's set, you dump everything else in and turn it on until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

 

It's thick and really cold from the frozen bananas. Delicious! You get a big banana taste with an after taste of peanut butter. So my husband, who I thought might like this because of the peanut butter, didn't like it. Boo! But that meant more for me. Yay! This simple recipe took all of five minutes to make. Since Ryan didn't want his, I threw the smoothie in the refrigerator to have for breakfast this morning. It was like a banana sorbet and heaven in my mouth. Even better!

Try out this recipe and let me know how it comes out for you. Do you have any fruit smoothie recipes that are delicious?

Recipe Makes: 2 Servings
Calories per serving: 394
Calories by ingredient:
     Bananas: ~250
    1% Milk: 82.5
     Quaker Oats: 75
     Skippy PB: 380
If you want more peanut butter flavor, I would suggest adding an additional 1/4 cup of peanut butter and up the milk from 3/4 cup to 1 full cup to ensure the smoothie isn't too thick. The calories based on the adjusted recipe is 598. Let me know if you tried the recipe with extra PB and milk.