My favourite smoothie recipe (... or good stuff by stealth)

I've been trying to eat a bit more healthy recently. Since I got a new job a few months ago where I'm getting up at 5am everyday, I've been really lacking in energy - never mind concentration after being bombarded with peoples complaints all day long! I've also been hoping a healthier diet might help improve the condition of my skin a bit, something I'm always fighting against. 

Two things I'm trying out are Matcha tea and more leafy greens. Matcha tea is a fine powder of whole ground green tea leaves, supposedly containing a high boost of antioxidants. The brand I bought, from Holland and Barrett, claims it contains 137 x the antioxidants of other green teas! The benefits are said to range from weight loss and anti-aging properties to improving concentration and boosting your mood. Unfortunately it tastes the same as green tea, which I don't enjoy at all. Being a powder, though, it's quite easy to mix in to other things. I've been putting it into fruit teas until now, but I thought I'd experiment with adding it to smoothies. Kale, too, is thought to be a 'super food' packed full of nutrients - it does, however, have quite a strong flavour and it's one of those things I just don't know what to do with, so I thought I'd have a go at chucking a handful of that in too.

My ingredients are banana, berries (I use frozen - cheap and just as good!), a handful of kale and a teaspoon of matcha powder. I also add a little bit of liquid in the form of fruit squash - I don't like milk in smoothies, and while fruit juice is great it does add a lot of unnecessary sugar which will already be in the fruit. Squash adds a little bit of flavour without being sugary - about half a glass is enough. 

I used my hand blender I normally use for soup making and blended it all together. It doesn't come out super thick, more like a juice.

That's the result right there... I'm not going to lie, the kale and matcha makes it come out a bit of a sludgy pink-brown colour, but don't let that put you off. The good news is it tastes much better than the colour!

...Nope, not even putting it into a cute milk bottle with a polka dot straw can help the look of this one, sorry! However, the matcha and kale, as I hoped, are entirely disguised - what you've essentially got is a nice sweet berry and banana juice with bits. Hurrah! 

Making healthy stuff taste good since 2014...