Green Smoothie - Simple Saviour

I know I have blogged about green smoothies before, but I feel like I have just stumbled onto one of the simplest, tastiest ones ever.

I always reach for my blender when I am feeling under the weather because green smoothies are packed full of revitalising feel-good nutrients. This morning, after a series of sleepless nights, and too many refined and processed take-out overindulgences, I reached for it once again.

Smoothie making usually requires a bit of creative flair, with just the right mix of seemingly random ingredients - anything ranging from an array of nuts, seeds, whole grains, sprouts, vegetables, and fruit, to power packed extras such as cocoa, spirulina, maca powders, or herbal extracts like ashwaganda, ginseng, and ginkgo biloba.

But, when I looked in my larder this morning, I was met with empty shelves and 0 inspiration. (I really should have done some shopping last week!). This resulted in the use of 4 seemingly 'boring' ingredients - all the healthy stuff I could find really. However, the end product certainly is worth blogging about.

4 Simple Ingredients
a handful of spinach from my garden (store bought is great too!)
1 over ripe pear
1 over ripe banana
2 generous tsps peanut butter
(and approx. 100ml tap water)

I call this one Simple Saviour.

In under 10 minutes you can make your own Simple Saviour. The perfect shade of green, not too rich, but with a really refreshing just-sweet-enough taste to cure that 'morning after' feeling. All you need to do, is keep your kitchen stocked with these 4 healthy ingredients, and get yourself a blender!

A note on peanut butter:
I always have peanut butter in my cupboard.
- I only buy peanut butter made from pure lightly roasted peanuts. Lightly roasting peanuts is actually a good idea, because they are legumes, not nuts, and this makes them more digestible.
- Most commercially mass produced peanut butters have added sugar, vegetable fats ('yummy-trans fats!'), and other stabilizers etc. Natural peanut butter can be purchased from whole/health food manufacturers, or health shops.

A note on spinach:
Spinach has long been a staple part of my diet.
- It is much greener than other leafys like lettuce and cabbage, which is indicates that it contains antioxidant flavanoids and magnesium rich chlorophyl. It is also a good source of Vitamin A, C, B6 and folic acid, potassium, calcium, and iron - A cocktail of nutrients that are linked to healthier skin, eyesight, and energy levels, with anti-cancer properties!
- It tastes great in everything: raw in salads, as well as cooked. I like to add it raw into smoothies because the blender breaks down some of the fibre, thereby liberating nutrients for better absorption by the body.