Frosty Banana Berry Smoothie
College is for experimenting, right? We know all about your gay make-out session and that time you tried to smoke catnip. When I was in college, I'd experiment with smoothies. I'd go to Smoothie King, right there in Emory Village (because I went to Emory, see) and order a Caribbean Way which was 5 squirts of this and 4 squirts of that and, if I wanted, a shot of protein powder. Then came Jamba Juice with a few more squirts of this and that and some other strange powders and I was hooked. Only, I always thought two things while consuming these smoothies: (1) what kind of junk is in this drink I'm drinking? and (2) Why is it so expensive?
Turns out both those questions can be easily put away if your make your own smoothie at home; and last week, after flipping through the lovely and useful cookbook Mad Hungry (by Lucinda Scala Quinn) I found a recipe for a smoothie that'll be my go-to smoothie recipe from now on.
Some of the ingredients are pretty obvious: a banana, fresh-squeezed orange juice, ice. But there are two secrets to this smoothie that make it truly great--secret #1 is maple syrup and secret #2 is frozen berries.
That's right, buy a bag of frozen berries at the grocery store and your bland, watery smoothie suddenly tastes perky and fresh. By using frozen berries you use less ice and that makes a significant difference. The maple syrup (natural maple syrup, not the synthetic kind) lets you sweeten it to your taste.
So, to make this, place the following in a blender:
6 ounces plain yogurt
3/4 cup frozen berries
1 banana, peeled
1/2 cup orange juice, preferably fresh squeezed
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (or honey)
1/2 cup or so of ice cubes
Blend!
Now taste. Is it too thick? Add more orange juice. Not sweet enough? Add more maple syrup. It really couldn't be easier:
It's pretty healthy too. Considering the fact that you know exactly what goes in it, you can drink this smoothie without any guilt. And if you buy all the ingredients at once--a bunch of bananas, a bag or two of frozen berries, a few oranges--you can drink smoothies for a week for the price of one giant smoothie at one of those ubiquitious smoothie chains. This is what I'd call a win-win kind of recipe.
