Citrus Cream Smoothie

It's Friday, but we're in no rush this morning to get ready for school.  There aren't any lunches to pack, shoes to find or messy hair to brush.  It's almost 9:30am and we're all still in our PJ's.  The kiddos have the day off (parent/teacher conferences).  Since there's no rush, I thought it would be nice to try a new smoothie recipe this morning.  I saw Giada De Laurentiis make this smoothie yesterday on her show.  I love oranges and bananas together and wanted to see how they would come together in this smoothie.

Ingredients (recipe from foodnetwork.com by Giada De Laurentiis)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3 cups plain Greek yogurt
1 1/4 cups orange juice
2 medium bananas, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons grated orange zest (from 1 large orange)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup ice
Directions
In a small saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil over medium-high heat. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved, about 5 minutes. Cool for 20 minutes.

Pour the cooled syrup into a blender. Add the yogurt, orange juice, bananas, orange zest, vanilla extract, and ice. Blend until the mixture is smooth. Pour into glasses and serve. 

The most time consuming part is making the simple syrup and letting it cool.  This takes about 25 minutes.  In the future, I would make the simple syrup ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator to have it ready when needed.  This would save a lot of time in the morning.  Since I had a BIG bag of oranges, I made freshly squeezed orange juice to use in this recipe.  Of course it would also be faster if I had used already prepared OJ. 

The Results...
2 out of 3 kids at our house liked this smoothie.  My son didn't like it.  He prefers thicker, richer smoothies.  My kids usually aren't big breakfast eaters.  I liked that this smoothie has some protein and vitamins packed inside to get them going in the morning.  Overall, I liked this smoothie.  I thought it was very refreshing and had a nice creamy texture.  But, I thought the orange zest was a little overpowering.  Next time, I would significantly reduce the amount of zest and see if that helps.  Citrus Cream Smoothie was still a delicious start to our "day off."