Low Calorie Strawberry Shake

As I've mentioned before, I adore my Vita-Mix blender. It never ceases to amaze me with its ability to perfectly blend pretty much anything! What I haven't had a chance to mention is that the blender came with a really handy recipe book, full of all sorts of wonderful healthy, low calorie recipes ranging from appetizers to soups, sauces, smoothies and even shakes. A lot of the recipes are really fantastic, and today I thought I'd write about a recipe for a low calorie strawberry shake that was inspired from their recipe book.

Ingredients (serving size: 1 cup, servings 2.5)

- 1 cup fresh or frozen unsweetened strawberries
- 1/4 cup ice cubes (If you don't like diluting the strawberry flavor of your shake by adding ice, use frozen strawberries instead, even freeze your fresh strawberries if you have them. You get the thickness of adding ice without the flavor dilution.)
- 1/2 cup light strawberry frozen yogurt (or light vanilla frozen yogurt)
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup (or other sweetener)
- 3/4 cup almond milk (you can use skim milk if you don't like the taste of almond milk)
- (optional) low calorie whipped topping to taste

Instructions

- Place all ingredients in blender
- If you have a Vita-Mix, start on speed #1, and quickly turn to #10, then to high. If you don't have a Vita-Mix, start on a low speed and then quickly turn to high speed
- Divide into 2.5 servings of 1 cup each
- Add low calorie whipped topping

The calories for the shake vary based on exactly which ingredients you use. Using almond milk and dreyer's yogurt blends, each one cup serving comes out to approximately 95 calories, 1 gram of fat, and 3 grams of fiber (or 2 weight watchers points). Not bad for a delicious creamy strawberry shake!

Enjoy!
Juliet