Tropical Canadian Smoothie

I've been having the occasional smoothie for breakfast lately but something was missing. I was hungry too soon afterward so I thought I'd try adding some oatmeal.

The first time I did, I just put about 1/4 cup of oatmeal in my smoothie cup and blended it up with everything else. The problem with that was there seemed to be too many hard chunks of oatmeal for my liking.

Today I thought I'd try my new Hand Blender chopper attachment. I used about 1/4 cup of oats (quick cook, not large flake) but I found that the chopper blade isn't low enough to properly grind up the oat flakes.

Hand Blender Chopper Attachment

So out came the coffee grinder. Not the one I use for coffee, the one I use to grind up spices, seeds and nuts. Again, I put 1/4 cup of oats in the cup and pulsed for a couple of seconds. WOW, Perfect! That's what I was looking for, almost a oat flour. When I added that to my smoothie, it was awesome!

Black & Decker Coffee Grinder

So here's what I used in my smoothie:

1 small banana
1/2 mango
1/4 cup ground oat flakes
1/4 cup Saugeen Country Yogurt
1/4 cup 2% milk
1 tsp Maple Syrup
1 drop of almond extract

handful of ice cubes

Yum!