green smoothie

So, one of my friends started a healthy foods group.  I'm loving it.  Our first meeting was on green smoothies.  Hmm, this was going to be a quinoa post, but I guess I'll post about green smoothies first since I just mentioned it.  I've made a ton of these in the past few weeks.  I actually got a membership to costco again to buy their produce - particularly their spinach for green smoothies.  I'll find a picture eventually and post it.
I've seen these at various places on the web and even in books.  I saw them once on the sisters cafe, once in my $5 dinner mom breakfast and lunch cookbook, and I even checked out greensmoothiegirl.com  - although the first time I looked at her site I was lost - I have since found lots of info there and even watched some you tube videos of green smoothies and other healthy stuff.
Anyway, at our class we made them with water - I have tried them with water, milk and water, milk and juice, almond milk and juice, agave, no sweetener, and about a million combinations of fruits.  This is my basic recipe.  I use a bosch blender which measures to 6 cups on the side, but really holds more like 7.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups almond milk (or milk, or water, but almond milk is my favorite)
• 1.5 cups juice (I've used apple and white grape so far - I like juice - it sweetens it without added sweetener.)
• lots of spinach - maybe 4 -5 cups or so - I pack it into the blender - pushing it down into the liquid.
• other greens if desired - I use 4 kale leaves regularly -it has a stronger flavor, but isn't too bad.
• 1 banana (this is really key - it makes the smoothie smooth, and really helps hide the flavor of the greens - I have made them without banana, but they are better with - this from a person who doesn't care for banana.
• 1 bowl of other fruit - I really like frozen berries

Directions

1. I make these by putting the liquid in the blender with the greens and banana.  I turn my blender up full speed and head to the freezer to grab my berries.  By the time I get back, I have a nice green liquid.  I add the berries and blend for another couple of minutes until it is nice and smooth.

Things we've tried

• tropical -tried with all pineapple, and a bit of coconut extract.  Good, but needed a banana - much better with the banana.  Pineapple is grainy and will make the smoothie a bit thicker.  It will also stay green, but it is tasty, and I only used canned - fresh would be tons better, but DS asked for tropical and canned was what I had.
• chopped apple - Just core and toss in - it is good, great addition, but will make the smoothie thicker.
• cantaloupe - Another friend loves cantaloupe.   I didn't care for it.  It made the smoothie very thick and grainy.  Plus I wasn't a fan of the flavor.
• Any combination of berries - right now in the freezer we have strawberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, and loganberries.  Any combination of these have been tasty.  We've done blueberry/strawberry, strawberry/banana, mixed, strawberry/loganberry, strawberry/cherry.  strawberry/cherry/blueberry.......
• Orange - I tossed one in thinking it would be great - not so great.  Very thick -the middle of the orange didn't grind up well.  I may try this again with a better quality of orange though.  It really should be tasty.

That is what I've tried so far, but we're still trying different things.