Hip, hip, purée

I’ve never been a slave to fashion whether in shoes, clothes or food. In fact, I’m only just getting round to having a Rachel haircut, 15 years after it was considered stylish.

It was around the same time smoothies landed. They were everywhere and, as Bridget Jones found, not always as healthy as suggested. Smoothie makers often added heavy yoghurt or lots of sugar to make them more of a treat and less of a health food. Then came the smoothie recipe books, surely the least necessary cookbook to have on your kitchen windowsill?

I started making smoothies on a whim about six weeks ago and I’m now addicted to my morning fix of fruit in a glass. I’m even considering always taking my hand blender on holiday so I can always have a smoothie at the ready. The reason I started was because I had an over-ripe melon and some raspberries that were just past the stage you would serve them up in. So I bunged them together in a pyrex jug, added a splash of orange juice and hey presto, smoothietime was born in the household, second only to gin-and-tonic-time on a Saturday evening.

You can use whatever fruit you fancy but in my limited experience, pears are too grainy and blueberries and cherries, despite giving a great colour, have too overpowering a taste and scent. It’s a very personal thing. If tropical fruit is your thing mango works great. I’d always choose summer berries over any kind of fruit and they are plentiful and reasonable at the moment. You also don’t want to give yourself too much work – having to peel or stone fruit for a smoothie can be time-consuming.

Shop-bought smoothies are very expensive but so are home-made. You need quite a lot of fruit for one average-sized glass. But if there are two of you in the house, one punnet of berries, four bananas and a galia melon should give you three days of smoothies. All the supermarkets are selling strawberries, raspberries and melons on offer at the moment.

I sometimes add a dod of natural yoghurt if I have some in the fridge. But the ingredient I always add is one I normally don’t like – honey. Adding a tablespoon to the mix acts like a magic balancing ingredient. You needn’t worry about the fruit ever being too sharp or over-ripe, the honey simply balances the whole thing out and you don’t taste it. Adding banana gives a lovely texture and the more melon you add, the lighter and frothier it will be. I just dump a whole load of chopped fruit into a pyrex jug and blitz with an ancient Billy hand-blender I’ve had for about 15 years.

As kids across the country go back to school today, smoothies are a good option for any parents who have teenagers going through a phase of thinking breakfast is very uncool. You don’t need a smoothie maker (I was offered one last week but frankly couldn’t be bothered with all the cleaning it would entail every day) and it’s a great way to get two of the five-a-day out of the way without even realising.

Two basic smoothies (each fills two glasses)

Strawberry and banana

Third of a punnet of strawberries, halved and green tops removed

Two small bananas, chopped roughly

Glug of orange juice (or a tangerine squeezed in)

Tbsp honey

Blitz all ingredients together until smooth and rhubarb-pink coloured

Raspberry and melon

Half a punnet of raspberries

Quarter of a melon (any except watermelon), roughly chopped

One small banana

Glug of orange juice

Tbsp honey

Blitz all the ingredients together

 

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