For 42 years I have been the head of the cooking department for a household whose dietary habits are mostly influenced by food lore and kitchen superstitions; toast and Cheerios; my blatant disregard for timing (grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast and popcorn for dinner); my life-long refusal to make fried chicken because I am not cleaning up that kind of mess and besides, my friend sustained third-degree burns when she fried chicken; my distaste for bananas; anything starting with "pancakes"; and my extreme annoyance regarding anything related to the grocery store ("can't you just eat fish sticks and dried apricots for dinner, because that's what we have and I am not going to the store now; I promise I'll make steak and baked potatoes tomorrow").
It's hot in the valley, and sometimes we like a cool drink in the afternoon. And I try to live by my motto, "let someone else clean up the mess", so we are big fans of Jamba Juice. If someone is making a Juice run, my order is "anything that doesn't have a ground-up banana in it". So, it's established we like cold, blenderized, fruit-flavored drinks.
Now, I realize that for most folks a cold, fruit-flavored drink involving the use of a blender means Daiquiris, Margaritas, or Pina Coladas. We have an entirely different idea about liquid refreshments--ours are milk based, discovered by accident! Most people call it a fruit smoothie, but we call it elixir, nectar of the Gods.
Remember my dislike of bananas? A couple months ago, I had planned to eat one banana that had been lingering or malingering around the kitchen, and then the next day I again planned I would eat it, and then the next day, I planned to throw it away. But I thought I would give a blender drink made with a banana a chance, and how bad could it be anyway, especially if Greg drank half; after all, it is just fruit, and I am not wasting food that I have had to chase myself to the store to get. I blended up the banana with a carton of yogurt, some milk and soy milk, and frozen raspberries. Oh, my gosh! I don't know the magic part of these ordinary ingredients, except that perhaps it happens when everything is whirled together. We are hooked! We have had some version of this every day except one in the past two months, and the day we didn't have it, everything went wrong!
So far, the only two required ingredients are the banana and a cultured dairy product or dairy substitute. Even if you are on a diet (especially if you are on a diet), this is a great drink as you can regulate the amount of sugar and fat. We use kefir or yogurt, the banana, soy milk and whole milk, and any kind of fresh, frozen or canned fruit. Our favorite addition is frozen mango chunks.
It is easy, it is cheap, you can keep enough ingredients on hand so you don't have to go to the store every single day, the variations are unlimited, and it can even be used as a meal, especially if you are a little old grandma or grandpa.
4 comments:
You forgot to note that hot fudge sundaes are also a good dinner. At least I remember that as an occassional meal. : )
Yeah, that's right. Sometimes all we had for dinner was ice cream sundaes, or banana splits; you know, fruit, nuts, dairy.
These drinks are totally yummy, and good for us too! But a couple of points here:
First, I see you neglected to mention your breakfast staple of cake...any kind of cake!
Secondly, I do all the dinner cleanup, so why is fried chicken so hard?
Thirdly, I think the "friend who got third degree burns" making fried chicken is a made up story to get out of making said fried chicken!
And lastly, tonight did we get those talked about steaks and baked potatoes? No we had Malt O Meal, that other staple of little old grandma and grandpa's.
I feel another batch of green enchilada's coming on. And by green, I mean the sauce, not their condition Rachel!
I expect your next blog to contain a picture of the green enchiladas along with the recipe. And now that I have been reassured that the "green" part is not caused by any stray mold cultures, I'm kind of excited to make them myself, even if it might be kind of an exotic dish for a Minnesotan to make. Maybe I could substitute potato lefse for the flour tortillas, just to keep it a little more Midwestern.
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