Ah smoothies. We all know and love them, so much so you might be asking, why Brinda? Why dedicate a whole edition of Breakfast with Brinda to smoothies? They’re not that hard to make.

But this is breakfast reimagined. This is breakfast you can make really fast, and that’s really good for you. I will have many more breakfast instructions— I can’t call them recipes because I believe measurements are a waste of time for this kind of “cooking”— coming your way, but it only felt right to pay homage to smoothies, the original healthy breakfast on the go, as the first installment. Welcome to Breakfast with Brinda.

I should start with an obligatory disclaimer. I am in no way endorsing that you disrespect your teachers by making breakfast during their sixth hour class. But say you just happened to roll out of bed at 8:37 a.m. and have to choose whether the restroom or the kitchen is a better use of your three minutes. These instructions could allow you to choose the former, and then whip up a nice, nutritious breakfast with zero to low hassle, allowing you to pay attention to your class and do the most important meal of the day justice. I am just on a mission to make sure breakfast is eaten.

The first step to your smoothie is making oat milk. I am slightly lactose intolerant. Most of the time, I ignore it, but it makes me feel better to use oat milk instead, and breakfast is about feeling good. I am not, however, willing to shell out for oat milk because it is ridiculously easy to make on your own. Just take a vague half handful of oats and blend it up with three to four times as much water and voilà! You have made oat milk and are now well on your way to becoming a vegan hippie. If oat milk isn’t your cup of tea, though, you can use any dairy or non-dairy milk, or even yogurt and water.

Now comes the empty-your-fridge part. Just throw whatever you have in your fridge into your blender with the oat milk. I had a fourth of a carton of raspberries, so I chucked that in. My family just got a bag of spinach from Costco, so I attempted to make a dent in that as well. I promise you can barely taste it. You will taste the dates though, and if you still want to add them, just make sure to microwave them until they’re soft beforehand so they blend easier. You can add frozen fruit as well, but I personally prefer serving smoothies over ice rather than blending in frozen stuff. Dates help give it a thicker consistency without the ice. I want to reiterate: you can literally throw anything in here and it will probably taste good. I also added chia seeds, a dash of protein powder and a packet of protein chocolate milk powder.

The result is this odd greenish brown sludge that looks like it should belong in a stagnant pond by the highway but really is delicious. The beauty of these instructions is that hopefully, yours will be a different color. I’m sipping on it as I write this and it is quite a masterpiece. I look forward to making it again, knowing quite well it probably won’t taste the same. If you’ve made it this far and are tasting your own concoction for the first time, cheers, and see you next time for some cheesy goodness.

The nitty-gritty of a smoothie with Brinda:

• Choose a milk-consistency liquid
• Pour it into a blender with fruits and veggies of your liking, and ice if you want
• Jazz it up with seeds, nuts, protein powders, flavorings or anything else
• Blend and serve in a fancy glass