All-day breakfast

The recipe for banana smoothie (p155) is found in the chapter entitled "breakfasts". Since I'm a devoted porridge breakfaster, and since I'm not about to drag out my food processor at 6.30 in the morning, I opted instead for a mid-afternoon smoothie. And why not? A smoothie is an excellent belly-filler at any time of the day, and unless you're adding lots of ice cream or something, it's good for you too.


In case there's anyone out there who doesn't know how to make a smoothie, the basic ingredients are usually milk and/or yoghurt, and banana. Bung these in a blender or food processor and add anything else you want to put in.

The Edmonds recipe is fairly basic, consisting of either milk or yoghurt, blended with banana and honey, and garnished with nutmeg. Normally I'd put more fruit in, but kept to the recipe, and found it surprisingly tasty. Just like a honey milkshake really - I couldn't taste the banana much.


Since I'd used only half a banana for my first smoothie, I chose to use the rest in experimenting a little further the next afternoon. I had a lot of frozen blueberries (just "lying around", as it were..) so I stuck in a handful of these instead of the honey. The result was slightly disappointing, actually - blueberries may be delicious on their own, but they don't lend much flavour to a smoothie. It was a nice purple colour though!


Since both of my above attempts used milk, I decided I should also try the yoghurt alternative. Though I usually add a little yoghurt to a smoothie, I'd never made one with only yoghurt and no milk. My trusty Easiyo supplied me with plenty of yummy Greek yoghurt to play with, so I went back to the original recipe, using yoghurt instead of milk. Honey's usually a good fit with Greek yoghurt, so I was looking forward to trying it, though a bit worried about how thick it would be.


I needn't have worried: While the milk smoothies frothed up and became thick, the yoghurt smoothie went very runny and stayed that way. The result being that this smoothie was a pitiful dribble compared to the other two. Of course, there are benefits to this: With less air in the smoothie, it's easier to drink and doesn't give you a bloaty "I just swallowed a lot of air" feeling. In taste, it was ok, but mostly just like runny yoghurt. It could be quite interesting with a few more ingredients, but if I keep experimenting, I'll never get this entry posted!


On the whole, I liked the plain banana/milk/honey smoothie the best, exactly as per the recipe - but you might not agree. The Edmonds recipe is a good base for experimentation, so get out your blender or food processor and have a play. Happy blending!