Smoothie Talker

I hate to eat breakfast, but I go to the gym and/or run in the morning and obviously need some sort of fortification prior. I am a faithful follower of Good Eats and was pleased to recently catch the episode, “Live and Let Diet.” In this show, Alton Brown made smoothies. Now, I have attempted to make them before and they are usually pretty good, but AB presented a fool-proof formula for smoothie excellence. His recipe uses four ounces each of juice and soy milk, four ounces of frozen banana, and four ounces each of three different kinds of frozen fruit. There before me was my solution – I would start my day with a fortified fruit frappé.

I went to my favorite, Trader Joe’s, and filled my cart with frozen mango, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, organic bananas, organic soy milk (vanilla!), and Blackberry Crush 100% juice blend. When I returned home with my treasures, my kids descended upon the reusable shopping bags like flying monkeys from Oz tearing apart the scarecrow. “Smoothies!” they both shouted. “Are those for our breakfasts?!” Although it is wintertime and I prefer to send them off to school with a warm breakfast, I thought, why not.

I adapted the recipe to get about 3-10oz servings from each. Thus far, we have indulged in these two delights:

 Orange-Mango

• 8 oz vanilla soy milk

• 8 oz orange juice (with calcium)

• 2 small frozen bananas (about 6oz)

• 8 oz frozen mango

Mixed Berry

• 6 oz vanilla soy milk

• 6 oz Blackberry Crush

• 2 small frozen bananas (about 6oz)

• 6 oz frozen strawberries

• 6 oz frozen blueberries

Nutritious and delicious! I wonder what other combinations I can whirl up. I’m gonna need a bigger blender!