Banana coffee smoothie.

 As you know from previous recipes, I love a good smoothie for breakfast in the mornings. I also love sipping a coffee or two in the mornings too. Yesterday whilst making my smoothie, I thought why not just combine the two? And I'm glad I did, as it was absolutely delicious! I just wish I used a little more ice cubes or used a frozen banana to make it even colder. I used half a cup of my favourite instant coffee inside of my smoothie, which is Douwe Egberts The Flavour Collective, Enticing Chocolate flavour. It smells very chocolaty and has a subtle chocolaty taste. Although it's chocolate flavoured, each cup, black, is only about 2 calories! You could use any instant coffee though, it'd be just as delicious.

Ingredients:
- 200ml unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup of your favourite instant coffee, black
- 1 banana, fresh or frozen
- 1 tbsp low-fat peanut butter
- Big handful of ice cubes

Method:
1. Place the almond milk, coffee, banana and peanut butter into the blender. Whizz until smooth and well combined.
2. Now add in the ice cubes and blend again, until smooth. Pour into a pint glass and enjoy!

Trip to Bake Farm & smoothie recipe!

Last Monday, my best friend, Emily, and I went fruit picking together at Bake Farm. I had never heard of this little place before, but Emily goes quite regularly and I asked if she'd come with me one day. The weather was perfect - nice and hot. It's such a beautiful, peaceful place, tucked away from busy main roads and houses. There are rows upon rows of strawberry plants and sooo many different varieties of strawberries to pick from! There's also gooseberries and raspberries to pick too (there's a couple other plants too, blueberries and runner beans I think, but they weren't ready for picking quite yet). It is surprisingly cheap. Coming to the till, I was expecting the fruit I picked to cost at least £10 or more... I picked a whole punnet of strawberries (mixed varieties) and about half a punnet each of raspberries and gooseberries for under £8! I will definitely be getting all of my strawberries and raspberries from here in the future - they are just too delicious to go anywhere else for them now! I have made mini lunchbox fruit salads and smoothies from the strawberries and raspberries (plus a few other ingredients from elsewhere), and I'll hopefully be making either some jam or maybe a tart with the gooseberries, if I get time to do it.

Here's the recipe for one of the smoothies I've made using the fruit I picked. I've called it 'Bake Farm Smoothie':

This recipe makes 1 smoothie (roughly a pint glass worth) at approx. 250 kcal.

Ingredients:

- 200ml almond milk

- 1 banana

- 80g strawberries

- 35g raspberries

- 25g porridge oats

- handful of icecubes

Method:

1. Put the almond milk, banana, strawberries, raspberries and porridge oats into the blender. Blend until smooth.

2. Now put all of the icecubes in and blend again until smooth. Pour into a glass, serve immediately and enjoy!

I made another smoothie, very similar to this one, using more of the strawberries and raspberries I picked from Bake Farm. I used the same recipe as above, but I removed all of the porridge oats and added in 1 small avocado. It was delicious, very smooth and creamy! Just in case you want to give this a go, this smoothie serves 1 (roughly a pint glass worth) and is approx. 300 kcal.

5-a-day fruit smoothie.

This tasty fruit combination was pot-luck really, as I made up on the spot. I'd picked up some "reduced-price" fruit from the supermarket yesterday that needed using, so I just chose other fruits we already had that I thought would compliment them in taste. I think I chose pretty well, as this smoothie is absolutely delicious! Such a wonderful, refreshing taste and looks very attractive too - a nice colour and it isn't too thick or too smooth. Perfect for a quick, healthy breakfast. I will definitely be making this again. I'm a sucker for a good tasting smoothie!

This smoothie serves 1 and is approx. 369 kcal. (You could make it into 2 smaller servings, at approx. 185 kcal per serving, but this would be more appropriate as a small side to another small breakfast dish, rather than a whole breakfast by itself, like one big serving would be - if that makes sense.. Haha).

Ingredients:
- 2 kiwis, peeled and sliced
- 1 clementine, peeled and any seeds removed
- 1 mango, peeled and cubed
- juice from 1/2 a lime
- 1 banana, peeled and sliced
- handful of ice cubes

Method:
1. Place all fruit it the blender and blend until smooth.
2. Once blended, place the ice cubes in and blend again until smooth.
3. Pour into a pint glass and enjoy!

Refreshing springtime smoothie.

Whilst I was in my local Tesco store, I picked up their free magazine "Tesco Magazine, For Real Living". It's always an interesting read and usually includes some pretty good recipes. Well, I was flicking through the "January - February 2013" issue and came across their 'Perfect Blend' recipes (page 115). They all look so colourful and appetising - I just had to give one a go. I chose to try the 'refreshing kiwi fruit, apple, grape and lime' smoothie, firstly because it sounds delicious, and secondly because I already had most of the ingredients at home and if I didn't do something with them soon, they'd probably get chucked away. The sun was out this morning (for a change) - this smoothie felt perfect to enjoy in this wonderful weather. It's got a sharp citrusy taste to it that literally tickles the taste buds! A great start to my morning - I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day!

This smoothie serves 2 and is approx. 138 kcal per serving. (The two servings are very small though, so if you like a big smoothie, like me, this would only serve one). The only things I did differently are using a Gala apple instead of the ones they suggested, as it's all we have in our house at the moment. I also used plain soya yoghurt instead of vanilla yoghurt.. But I'm sure these tiny changes wouldn't have made much of a difference to the taste of the finished smoothie.

Ingredients:

- 3 kiwi fruit, pealed and cut into pieces

- 1 apple (such as Cox or Golden Delicious), cored and cut into pieces

- Large handful of green grapes

- 1 lime, juiced

- 100g low-fat vanilla yoghurt

- Large handful of ice

Method:

1. Put the fruit into a blender, then add the lime juice, yoghurt and ice. Whizz for about 1 minute until smooth, then pour into glasses and serve.

Sweet smoothie surprise.

I fancied a smoothie for lunch today and decided to experiment, and this is what I came up with! I've called it 'Sweet Smoothie Surprise'. It is the sweetest drink I have ever tasted (definitely not exaggerating) and the after taste is incredible! If you don't like really sweet things, I wouldn't try this. But this is excellent for anyone with a sweet tooth or a sugary craving! This is probably a smoothie that's a bit like Marmite - you'll either really love or really hate it. The first little sip I wasn't too sure of.. But the more I drank the more I loved the taste! It is approx. 252kcal for the whole lot - so not too bad considering how sweet and sugary it tastes! Yummm!

Ingredients:
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 small pear
- 1 small squirt of honey (this is what makes very very sweet, it's strong so I wouldn't add too much)
- 1 cup of Alpro almond milk
- a small handful of ice cubes

Method:
1. Chop the pear up into small pieces.
2. Add all the ingredients into the blender and whiz it up until smooth!
3. Pour into a half-pint glass and enjoy!

Heavenly fruit slushie!

I improvised a smoothie with a choice of my own ingredients this morning. But it went wrong.. Well not actually wrong - cos it tasted amazing! ..But wrong as in it was suppose to be a smoothie but turned out to be more like a slushie. But it was absolutely DELICIOUS! I will definitely be making it again! Hopefully if I do make it a second time it'll turn out slushie-like again - hoping this wasn't just a one off. But if it does turn out like a smoothie that's fine, cos the flavour is amazing! It turned out soo thick that I had to use a spoon to eat it! It's 283 kcal and it pretty much makes a whole pint.

I have named my creation 'Heavenly Fruit Slushie', simply because it tastes heavenly!

If you'd like to make it, here's what I did:

Ingredients:

- 1 cup of frozen strawberries.

- 2 cups of frozen pineapple.

- 1 fresh kiwi.

- 1 cup/200ml of Alpro almond milk.

Method:

- Stick all the ingredients in a blender and whiz it up.

- Pour into a pint glass and enjoy!

(If you do try this, comment and tell me if yours turned out like a smoothie or a slushie! I'd love to know!)

Smoothie time!

It's that time in the morning again - smoothie timeee!

I've made another smoothie from http://www.hellifignaw.com.  This smoothie is called 'Killer Strawberry Kiwi Green Smoothie'. The ingredients I used are in the photo above.. But I had to miss a few of the ingredients out - the wheatgrass and flaxseeds - because I have no idea what they are or where to get them from! This makes one pint sized serving (I drank quite a bit before I took the photo - sorry) and is approx. 246 kcal (that is without the wheatgrass and flaxseeds in).



To begin with I found the colour of the smoothie really off putting (it looks quite a lot darker in person than it does in the photo) but the taste is incredible! The kiwi and strawberry are very strong. You can't even taste the spinach or almond milk. I added 1 tsp of splenda sweetener to the smoothie, because I do like my smoothies sweet to taste. I let my mum and sister try a sip, my sister didn't like it cos she
thought the kiwi was too strong but my mum loved it too!

I will definitely be making this smoothie again soon - it's far too tasty not to!

My first ever homemade smoothie!

For my breakfast this morning I made my first ever homemade smoothie - it was delicious! I don't know why I've never made them before.


I got the recipe for this smoothie from http://www.hellifignaw.com/. This particular smoothie is called 'Peanut Butter Delight' (ingredients shown in the photo above). I've worked it out to be 308 kcal per serving (and 361 kcal if you add 1 tbsp of cocoa powder). It's pretty filling and quite a big serving too - makes just under a pint!

I originally made it without the cocoa powder but when I tried it I thought the banana was a little too overpowering, so I blended in the cocoa powder afterwards. I may have put a bit too much in though, so next time I'll probably only use 1 tsp of cocoa powder instead of 1 tbsp.

I highly recommend you all try this smoothie! It's great for people who have a sweet tooth but don't want to pig out on fatty, chocolaty treats. I shall definitely be making many more smoothies from http://www.hellifignaw.com! There's loads on there and they all sound delicious!