Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Mangoes and Bananas for Breakfast

I love summer in New England for fresh fruit and produce, warm, sunny days, and shorts and flip-flops. I also love summer in New England because the weather is just right for fruit smoothies! I make smoothies for breakfast at least a few days a week. I am always mixing up the fruit combinations but three ingredients always remain constant - plain non-fat yogurt, orange juice, and a banana. When I use Greek yogurt, which I did today, I always add in some honey to balance the tang of the Greek yogurt. The different fruits that I use include mangoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and peaches. Occasionally I'll add some protein powder to the mix but it changes the consistency of the smoothie and my wife Jeanine doesn't like it.

This morning I made a couple mango banana smoothies, one for me and one for Jeanine. A picture of a smoothie isn't all that sexy so I'm not including one, but here is the recipe I used for the smoothies this morning. So here is how to make mango banana smoothies:

Mango Banana Smoothie
1 cup non-fat, Greek yogurt
1 cup orange juice
1 banana, broken into a few pieces
2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 cups frozen mango

Put everything into a blender and blend until smooth. The consistency should be perfect for sipping through a straw and the balance of protein and carbohydrate should keep you going for a while.

Do you like piƱa coladas? Try this smoothie instead - replace the orange juice with coconut milk and the mango with frozen pineapple! Have the day off? Add some rum!

4 comments:

  1. My husband, a.k.a. Mango Man, will love this. Instead of the honey, I'll swap in some agave nectar, which is low on the glycemic index but has the texture of honey.

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  2. Hi Lydia, I've never tried agave nectar but I'm sure it will do the trick. My wife is a mango fanatic too!

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  3. ooh, this is good timing seeing as it's *Mango Week* on our blog this week so I'm all about mangoes right now! Kate posted a smoothie too, and now I'm totally craving one. That sounds so good!

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  4. Hi Sara, I followed along during Mango Week - you put up some fantastic recipes that I've bookmarked and will be trying out soon. Thanks!

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