Fruit Shake

Two of my three children ate a flimsy few fruits or vegetables when they were young. I managed to get fruit into them by serving a fruit shake with dinner most nights. Because it was made with real fruit, it had a lot of fiber and vitamins. I was not worried about the sugar calories for my skinny children (who rarely got their hands on carbonated sugar drinks). Here is my standard fruit shake recipe, with some further variations.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh or frozen berries (blueberries, strawberries, and/or raspberries)
1 large fresh or frozen banana (or equivalent amount of banana)
2/3 cup frozen mango
1 cup apple juice
1 cup orange juice

Directions

Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. This recipe makes enough fruit shake for about four people.

Now here are the tips and details. I usually don’t use blackberries or raspberries in the recipe because they are pretty seedy. My children preferred just blueberries and strawberries. I always poured the last glass for myself because it had most of the berry seeds in the bottom. If you use frozen fruit, the shake comes out particularly cold and sherbet-like. I usually use frozen berries and mangoes (bought packaged) for fruit shakes. Whenever I have over-ripe bananas, I break them into pieces about an inch and a half in length and put them into the freezer in a freezer bag. When it comes time to make a fruit shake, I put in the equivalent of a large banana in frozen pieces. Depending on your blender, you might have to use the ice crush setting a few times at first to get the large frozen fruit pieces started.

Over the years, we have used a number of variations on this recipe. One of my children substitutes vanilla yogurt for the banana. He makes his shake with mango, blueberries, vanilla yogurt, and orange juice. I like pineapple in the shake, but not all my children like pineapple. If I’m making one for myself, I will sometimes put frozen or canned pineapple into it. Other fruit juices work for it too if you don’t have orange or apple juice on hand. Lately we have been using strawberry kiwi juice.

Although this fruit shake is a terrific way to get plant fiber, vitamins, and minerals into your picky-eater children, it’s not a good staple in the diet of older folks since it has a lot of calories. As my daughter says, for adults a fruit shake is a meal in itself, not a drink to accompany a meal.

Eat well, be well, live deliciously!