Fruit Salad Smoothie

I attended a picnic at my parents house on Saturday, and they had an unholy amount of fruit salad leftover (it didn't complete with mom's fab pulled pork and Carolyn's delish deviled eggs). I took a Hefty sack of the stuff home, but after a day in the fridge I knew I had to take action before it turned into a huge pile of mush. I grabbed a bunch of sandwich style zippy bags and loaded each up with about 3/4 of a cup of the fruit salad. I was a bit concerned that the melon wouldn't make it, but there were no worries. I flattened the fruit so it lay in an even layer and tossed it into the deep freeze.

This morning I grabbed my first sack and emptied the contents into my blender. This salad hadn't been sweetened so I added a good squeeze of agave nectar. If you don't have agave in your pantry, stock up! This sweetner is natural, low in calories and makes a mean margarita.

The I added about a half cup of plain greek yogurt, if you've got the good ole American variety that'll work great too - it's all about using what you have on hand. I prefer Greek, see the benefits of both types of yogurt.

Next I added about 1 cup of OJ. If you wanted to, now would be a great time to flip the switch and get this sucker blending, but I added a "booster" Jamba Juice style with some Chia seeds my pal Luke hooked me up with a while back. That's right Chia, like the pet. Chia boasts endurance building properties as well as a healthy dose of Omega-3s, which is great for a gal like me that doesn't necessarily love fish and pretty much always forgets my daily dose of fish oil.

I never add ice to smoothies, preferring the frozen fruit as my chiller. This was a great morning snack and totally saw me through til lunch!