My Favorite Smoothie Looks Like Sludge

In October I began working with three other women to support and instruct those leading the women’s auxiliary at church in the various English-speaking congregations in Korea.  Except for the one in Seoul, those congregations are all connected to U.S. military posts and bases and tend to be rather small.  Seoul, though—despite its mega-metropolis status—has only one English-speaking congregation, and it is huge.  The children’s auxiliary has over a hundred children attending.  Although the majority of the members are American—affiliated with the military, embassy, business/industry, universities, or the network of English teachers—over twenty nations are represented in that congregation. While in Korea, if one does not attend Korean-speaking services, an English-speaking one is the only other option.

Because we wanted to meet the women leaders in each congregation and better understand the dynamics and any needs, the four of us have been traveling on certain Sundays to attend services with congregations outside of Seoul.  (The four of us all live in Seoul.)  Kim actually likes to drive (even in Seoul!) and her vehicle has a most capable GPS system, so we pile into her van and hit the highways and byways of Korea.  Our first foray took us to Daegu, where the most distant of the congregations we oversee is located.  We left early one Sunday morning in the pinky glow of dawn.  Although the GPS indicated the trip would take four hours, we arrived in three.  The return trip took SIX…thanks to the traffic heading back into Seoul on a Sunday afternoon.  Consequently, we have already had the opportunity for lots and lots of chatting and have certainly begun collecting the associated collateral learning.

For instance, we all like to read, so we talk books.  Kim and Michelle are in a book club together where recently they discussed Unbroken.  Now I will be reading Unbroken.  Both of them expressed interest in books with a Korea connection, so I mentioned two I have read that made an impression:  Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son and Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please Look After Mom.

Kim and Michelle also run, and—unlike me—Kim, Michelle, and Chu cook.  But I am interested in food and nutrition, so when Kim shared her recipe for her favorite breakfast smoothie, I took mental notes, actually even purchased the mini-blender with single-serving containers at the PX, and then tried my own variation of it.  It is now my all-time favorite smoothie. 

And with that statement, perhaps the title of this post suddenly begins to exhibit some semblance of a correlation to all that has spilled forth so far.

So, here is my recipe:

• ¾ cup of almond milk  (I use the unsweetened.)
• 1 small frozen banana
• 1 tablespoon of peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon of cocoa
• 1 hand-full of spinach
• ice as desired  (I have found that if both the banana and spinach are frozen, the drink is plenty icy)
• honey as desired  (I do not need any additional sweetner—the banana is enough—but I am not a particularly “sweet” person.  I like my chocolate dark, dark, DARK.)

And this smoothie is dark, very DARK.  It looks like swamp mud, the absolute essence of sludge! 

Yet it tastes so incredibly good!  I will come home from school craving it.

Kim actually uses chocolate protein powder, but I have never used protein powder, purchased protein powder, and have yet to do either.  However, my smoothie recipe does not work for me as a breakfast all by itself (I get hungry too soon), and that might be because I don’t use protein powder, just a tablespoon of Hershey’s Dark Cocoa powder.

 My version works exceedingly well as dessert!