My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Kitchen.

As a distraction from the fact that my husband is taking the biggest test of his life, to date, as we speak, I'm going to talk about breakfast.

As I've mentioned in the past, Hugh and I don't see eye-to-eye on eating. I think three balanced meals and two snacks are a necessity. Hugh, on the other hand, is content to consume all of his day's calories in one sitting, usually sometime between the hours of 4 - 7pm.

When we first moved in together in 2005, this made me crazy. I would obsess over how to make Hugh eat like a normal person. And Hugh would ignore me, eat nothing all day, get home from teaching at 3:30pm, and raid the kitchen. Because he was starving, he would say. Um, yes, that is usually how one feels when one does not eat for TWENTY-THREE hours. I would come home from work at 6pm ready to make dinner, and Hugh would be "not that hungry." And I would lose my shit.

Oh, figuring out how to live together when you are twenty-one. Glad that's over. Fortunately, we've ironed out the system a little in the last six years. I've (mostly) stopped trying to force my (biologically necessary) eating habits onto him. Doing his part, Hugh humors me and tries to eat either breakfast or lunch. And I try to come up with things that are easy to make, easy to eat, and nutritious.

Enter, the Green Shake:

Thing I love most about this drink: it's loaded with spinach. But the only indication that it's loaded with spinach is the color. It tastes like bananas and vanilla. It's light and easy to drink, even if you aren't a breakfast-eater, but it still keeps you full for a few hours.

Also, this is obviously a smoothie. But Hugh calls it his Shake. And if he's consuming two cups of spinach, a glass of milk, and a piece of fruit before 8am, I don't care if we have to call it Hugh's Magic Muscle Milk. In fact, I think that is what we should call it:

Hugh's Magic Muscle Milk
Adapted from Ducks in a Row
serves 2

1 1/4 cups Vanilla Almond Milk
2 bananas*
2 giant handfuls spinach (approximately 4 cups)
1 scoop Vanilla Protein Powder
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
10ish ice cubes (more or less depending on how icy you like it)

Throw all your ingredients in the blender or food processor. Blend until completely combined, about one minute.

Drink it up.

Grow giant muscles.

Or at least stay full for a few hours. And appease you wife.

*You could also use one banana and one piece of another fruit. This will make it less sweet, but still delicious. Suggestions: a cup of ripe blueberries or strawberries, a mango, or a peach.

In a show of true love, I was up this morning before 6am to make Hugh his Shake before he left for his test. And, because he loves me too, he was drinking it. Don't you just love being married?

Post Script: As I get ready to publish this, Hugh has been testing for one hour. I will now spend the next seven hours trying to find things to distract me from my crazy butterflies. Seriously, I could not be prouder of that guy. Or more excited for 3:30pm. Tick tock, tick tock...