Morning Smoothie–oooom Good!
Almost every morning my breakfast is a delicious, nutritious kefir smoothie. No other breakfast is as satisfying; I just feel better when I have my smoothie. The smoothie I like best is made with raw goat milk kefir, cocoa powder, and banana. Here’s my recipe:
1 cup raw goat milk kefir
1 small ripe organic banana (or half of a large one)
1 tablespoon raw organic cocoa powder
1 tablespoon organic flaxseeds (optional)
1 tablespoon coconut oil
2 egg yolks, from pastured chickens
Stevia to taste
Measure kefir into a beaker [I prefer to use a heavy-duty borosilicate glass beaker rather than the plastic beaker that came with my hand blender.] Add–in any order–banana, flaxseed, coconut oil, cocoa powder, egg yolks, and stevia. Using a hand blender, blend until well combined and the flaxseeds are broken up. [Note: if seed pieces in your smoothie bother you, just omit the flaxseeds. I love the chewy bits of seed in my smoothies, but not everyone likes to chew on their smoothie.]
The smoothie could be made in a regular blender, but I like the ease of cleaning up using the hand blender and beaker. I also usually just sip my smoothie out of the beaker–saves one more cleanup.
Variations:
Instead of the banana and cocoa powder, add 1/4 cup fresh or frozen organic blueberries and a dash of organic cinnamon. This is probably my second favorite. Instead of blueberries, I sometimes use mixed berries. We can get local blueberries in season, but I buy the other fruits fresh or frozen, organic, of course.
I make my own kefir and have used cow milk kefir to make the smoothie; however, although cow milk kefir is good, I really prefer the extra zing of the goat milk kefir. But for drinking plain, I like fresh raw cow milk better than goat milk.
Sources/brands:
kefir: local raw goat milk from Anala Goat Company
cocoa powder: Sunfood
coconut oil: Tropical Traditions Gold Label
flaxseed: Bob’s Red Mill Organic
Egg yolks: my favorite local farmer’s rainbow eggs–beautiful!
I do the same every morning, adding 1 T raw almond butter and greens – kale, beet , parsley, whatever I have on hand, about 1 cup. My newest addition is nopales (cactus pads). I also add 1 T of turmeric and 1/2 t of cinnamon for their health benefits.
Adding nopales sounds interesting. I’ve read that they have lots of nutrients. How do they taste?
At Fiesta they blend the nopales and give out samples. It has a light, refreshing flavor, a little sweet, a little sour. They sell bags of pieces, I put most of them in the freezer in a bag and just break off a few pieces into my shake. I freeze my bananas, too.
I’ll have to try the nopales. Several years ago I froze my bananas, mostly to thicken the smoothie to a slushie consistency, but I’ve learned that I prefer the taste of fresh banana to that of a frozen banana, even if the smoothie isn’t as thick. I don’t know why freezing a banana should change the taste for me, but it does.
Interesting, I’ve never thought about how freezing changes the taste. But I’ve got so many flavors going on I guess I haven’t noticed. I do use the quart sized smoothie jar on my Oster, blend right into it, snap on the lid, then drink all mourning at work.
Yum! I added a bit of cinnamon and raw honey instead of stevia and used cacao powder. This is exactly what I was craving! Thanks for posting!
Bet it was delicious. Glad you liked it.