Strawberry Smoothie

When I started doing Weight Watchers back in August 2007 one of my staple snacks were the Yoplait Light Smoothie's. I tried all the light smoothies at my store and the Yoplait brand was the only one that was thick, satisfying, and not gritty. It was also only 1 Weight Watcher's point, which was a big deal. There were days that I'd drink 2 or 3 of the smoothies over the course of the day, and at over $1 each, it added up.

It took way too long for it to occur to me that I could come up with my own smoothie, for way less money. Ah, well, better late than never :) This recipe uses frozen strawberries, but I've used raspberries, blueberries, and a berry mixture. They were all good.

Note: the recipe calls for 1/4 cup sugar. You can use more if you want the smoothie sweeter, but it makes the points go up to 2 points. You can also add sweetener (I've used Splenda--1/4 cup), which won't make the points go up.

Strawberry Smoothie

1 32-oz container plain, non-fat yogurt
1 generous cup frozen sliced strawberries (they break up better than frozen whole ones)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups cold water

Combine all of the ingredients in a blender canister and blend until smooth. If you don't want the seeds, you can strain them out using a fine-mesh strainer (I take out the seeds).

Store the smoothie in a pitcher that has a cover or lid because you need to shake it before pouring yourself a glass. 6 oz of this recipe is 1 point. If you want, you can use all artifical sweetener and have 8 oz for 1 point. I use sugar because the fake-sweet gets to me after a while.

My toddler thinks this smoothie is awesome, which would save me from buying Danimal drinkable yogurt, except my 6 year-old doesn't like the flavor. Sigh. I guess she prefers the fake strawberry flavor to real strawberry flavor.

Speaking of strawberry "flavor", the Yoplait smoothie lists strawberries as one of it's ingredients; it also lists "beet juice, for color". My smoothie is pretty pink. If Yoplait needs beet juice to make their smoothie pink, exactly how many strawberries are in there? Enjoy!