Smoothies

I have been interested in making smoothies for a while, but our blender was big, bulky and required more than necessary assembly each time it was cleaned so I had yet to delve into the smoothy market, until Monday night. I went ahead and put in orange juice, a banana, a strawberry and some ice. Wasn't that bad. Had a lot of ice chunks though.

My wife doesn't care for banana so I went to make her an orange julius. I put the blender on high and left it running a bit longer in an attempt to get rid of ice chunks. Well, I burnt up the blender.....it started smoking and somehow managed to leak some black liquid into the smoothy.

It was 8pm and Big Lots was open so I went to look at their choices. Two cost $20 and one $15. The Hamilton Beach blender had about 12 buttons so I opted for the 2 button blender with the glass container. I LOVE IT! Easy to clean and it really chops up the ice.

I am looking for some HEALTHY smoothy options for the upcoming weeks. This morning I just had orange juice with a banana, no ice. Not bad. Got any recommendations?