charlie brown (through a straw)

Growing up, one of our local ice cream places made a flavor of ice cream called "charlie brown." It was my sister Jen's favorite. It was chocolate based, and had thick swirls of peanut butter running through it. Tonight, I made a "peanut butter chocolate smoothie." Oddly enough, the recipe was in an ad in one of the Shape magazines my good friend Jacqui Stafford, Shape's wonderful style director, sent me while I was recovering. It was ABSOLUTELY delicious! Really, really, really! Here is my version: into a blender put about a cup of chocolate soy milk, 4-5 ice cubes, 2 T of creamy natural peanut putter, and 1/2 sliced frozen banana (whenever I have bananas that are about to get too ripe i slice 'em up and put them in a container in the freezer). I also added a scoop of chocolate protein powder and a scoop of fiber powder, but these are non-essential. The end result was like a chocolate peanut butter sundae through a straw.

And the best part was that the peanut butter didn't totally blend, so I'd occasionally slurp up a smooth ribbon of peanut butter encased in chocolate. Yes, folks- this one is a keeper!