Eat Like the Bird--Easy Vegan Recipes: "Simple Smoothie"

One of my favorite ways to start off the day is with a very simple, yet delicious fruit smoothie, created in my own blender. This is my standard recipe, but it is easily altered to create various taste sensations that fit your mood, or to use up a particular fruit that you have on hand.

Ingredients:
1 Banana
3/4 Cup Blueberries
3/4 Cup Strawberries
2+ Cups Vanilla Soy Milk

Put all of the fruit into a blender. Add enough soy milk to cover the fruit. Put lid on blender(!), and turn on low to start. Once it gets going you can switch it to high. Add more soy milk if necessary---you want the consistency to be thick, but thin enough that you could drink it through a straw, sort of like a milk shake. When you are satisfied with the consistency, turn the blender off and pour your tasty beverage into a glass. This recipe should fill two pint glasses (that's 16 oz each).

Now, my secret to this recipe is that I use all frozen fruit. I buy bags of organic frozen blueberries and strawberries to keep on hand in the freezer. I also buy fresh bananas, and freeze them as well, by peeling and then cutting into quarters or thirds, and storing in a zip lock freezer bag.


As I mentioned, you can experiment with different types of fruit. In the summer I get a bountiful harvest of blackberries from the back yard that I freeze. Raspberries, and other summer time fruit that you can pick yourself are a scrumptious addition to this recipe.

You can make a "tropical" blend with mangoes and papayas. I sometimes add a dash of pineapple or cranberry juice to the mix as well.

Another little tip-- if you only have plain soy milk, you can add a little dash of vanilla extract, and a couple dashes of cinnamon to spice it up a bit.