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.