Strawberry-Banana Shake

When I was pregnant with Al (See? I told you there'd be more than just food. Heh.), I asked for and received a Magic Bullet for Christmas. I had grand intentions of pureeing Al's baby food, just like the overachieving hippie mom I knew I'd be. Turns out, I should have just asked for shares in Gerber stock because that Magic Bullet collected dust for many, many months.

That is, until I realized that some jarred baby food is just gross. Especially bananas. Have you ever tasted jarred bananas? They're tangy. Whoever heard of tangy bananas? Tangy bananas are just bad and wrong. Alex thought so, anyway. Even though he would devour bucketloads of mashed fresh bananas, he wouldn't touch the jarred stuff.

Around that same time, I read a tip for freezing fruit and veggie purees in ice cube trays. I just happened to have a bunch of bananas that were rapidly browning before my eyes. Instead of mashing them by hand, I dusted off the ol' Bullet and got to whirring those babies up. In no time at all, I had a good stash of frozen banana cubes in a container in the freezer, which I could thaw in the microwave in a matter of seconds to mix with cereal or to feed directly to the babe.

And guess what? I still make banana cubes all the time. They're perfect for cooling and sweetening hot oatmeal, and they are a crucial ingredient in one of my favorite new near-daily treats--my Strawberry-Banana Shake. It's cool, it's fruity, and it provides a full dairy serving and a full fruit/veggie serving, for anyone who's counting.

Ingredients:

• One cup skim milk. You can use cow's milk or soy milk or rice milk or almond milk. You can use skim, 2%, whole, whatever. It depends on your taste and your needs.
• 6-8 frozen strawberries. You know those gorgeous fresh berries that are available right now? Don't you dare use those here. You eat those babies all on their own. This recipe will not do their fresh deliciousness justice. Go ahead, use the cheap frozen ones here.
• 2 frozen banana cubes. I'm not sure why, but without the banana cubes, this shake turns out runny. There's something about the frozen bananas that thicken it up beautifully. Maybe one of you scientific types out there can explain this to the rest of us.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla.
• 1 teaspoon sweetener of your choice. My choice is Xylitol. My next choice is cane sugar. I try to avoid all the artificial ones. They scare me.
  

Blend it all together until smooth. Now, here's where my Magic Bullet has really come in handy. A regular blender will work perfectly, but with the Magic Bullet, I can just blend this up in the glass that I'll be drinking it from.

See?

Estimated Nutritional Data* per serving, prepared with skim cow's milk and NO sweetener:
155 calories, 0g fat, 5mg cholesterol, 105mg sodium, 31g carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 22g sugars, 9g protein.

1 teaspoon of granulated cane sugar will provide an additional 15 calories, 4g carbohydrates, 4g sugars.


*All nutritional data derived from www.nutritiondata.com.