Minty chocolate chip shake for you!

I think I have spring fever.  Last weekend made me long for the coming days of warm weather, tee shirts, open windows, and ice cream.  That made me think of milkshakes.  When my husband was on 12 hour midnight shifts, he'd leave for work around dinnertime and spend the entire night in the office.  Sometimes I'd bring him a milkshake to help his night along.  Thankfully, those days are gone, but we both still love milkshakes.  With St. Patrick's Day this weekend, I started craving a delicious minty shake with chocolate chips, but didn't want to go out and get one, because it's turned cold out again.  What's a girl to do?  I'll tell you what this girl did: improvise!

So how do you go from this:

To this?:

Pretty simple, really!  Get out your blender, here we go!

I'm only making enough for two milkshakes here.  Adjust the measurements according to your needs (i.e., if you need to make four shakes, double this recipe.  If you need to make one shake, half this recipe).

2 C vanilla ice cream of your choice
1/2 C milk (more or less, depending on the consistency you like)
1/2 tsp peppermint extract (go light on this, and adjust it to your taste)
1/4-1/2 C miniature chocolate chips (I like semi-sweet)
5-10 drops of green food coloring

Combine the milk and ice cream using your blender.  Stop mixing a few seconds before you get a smooth texture.

Add your peppermint, chocolate chips and food coloring.  Finish blending together.  Add more milk if you want a thinner shake.

Pour in your glasses and enjoy!

Of course, you can also just blend mint chocolate chip ice cream and milk together and get a very similar flavor, but where's the fun in that?

This would also taste really good using homemade vanilla ice cream, and you would have control over the ingredients in the ice cream, too.  I have an ice cream maker, but didn't have the time to make any.  When my homemade vanilla extract is ready, maybe I'll make time!