It's Smoothie Time

One day my normal Greek yogurt brand was on sale for a great price.  I wanted to buy as much as I could to save money, since it is a daily used item for me.  But there was a problem.  How was I going to eat all of it before it expired?  My husband could see my wheels turning and simply said, 'why don't you freeze it?'.  What a great idea!  So I bought 4 - 32 oz containers and stopped at the local Dollar Store on my way home to get ice cube trays.   Anxious to try this, I went to work filling by the tablespoon into each section of the tray.  A 32 oz container will fill 24 cubes.

I gave the trays a few hours (we have a wonderful deep freezer, so time is quick) and tried to get them out.  No go.  Dang what the heck!  At this point the expensive silicone trays would have been a blessing.  I didn't let this stop me.  I tried a knife around it.  No go.  So, I set the bottom of the try in some warm water in the sink, took it out after 20 seconds, tried it and WA-LA!  They came out!!  A little soft now, so I put them on a sheet pan and back in the freezer they went!  The next day I put them all in a zip lock bag and did the process all over again (4 more times to be exact).

Strawberries are my go to in a smoothie, along with bananas.  Both are great to buy on sale, slice up and freeze on a sheet pan.  Then toss in a zip lock (gallon size) bag.   This time of year they are a great buy.  So I load up on them just before they go off season (prices go up) and hope to have enough for the winter.

This is all great, if you have extra freezer room.  Any maybe my selection of Greek yogurt, honey type, was not a good idea to try to get out of the ice cube trays.  But I love the real honey that is in it and to me it is worth the extra step.

Any berry will freeze great for this.  We do blueberries as well, but my husband eats them out of the freezer, so I don't tend to get many when it comes smoothie time!