Banana Bread Milkshake
Milkshake #2 in the Milkshake Series.
Please, give me a free pass and let this be a milkshake. The healthful properties of the ingredients might be screaming out “smoothie” but I promise you - it tastes like dessert. It was so good that I felt guilty having it for lunch (I’m over that now, don’t worry) and even forgot to photograph it.
A couple weeks ago, when there was more fruit in my house than I knew what to do with but no wires yet, Susheela tipped me off to banana soft-serve, a brilliant idea from Choosing Raw. All you do is freeze a few bananas, then stick them in the food processor for five minutes while they magically turn into the consistency of soft serve ice cream. (A warning: if your freezer is especially cold, as mine seems to be, the frozen bananas may cause your food processor to rattle and shake for the first few seconds while the blade does its thing. Best to start with pulse before full on blending, but also, hold on tight.)
I’m not a vegan or even a raw food aficionada, yet it’s still a nice bonus that this looks and tastes like ice cream but is actually all natural and unprocessed. This shake, inspired by my own banana bread recipe, makes the banana soft-serve straw ready, and keeps it vegan by using rice milk instead of any dairy.
Banana Bread Shake
- one batch of banana soft-serve (mine was based on 2 medium bananas)
- 1 c. organic rice milk (but any kind of milk would work just fine)
- a couple dashes (probably equivalent to 1/4 tsp each) of:
- cinnamon
- cardamom
- nutmeg
- a handful (~ 1/4 cup) of raw cashews
Blend well until the cashews are fully dissolved into the shake. Makes one large shake, or serves two.
The cashews are totally optional, but it’s a useful little protein boost. If you’re more of a banana-walnut type, walnuts would probably work, too.
Nutritional info for the entire recipe:
Calories: 415, Total Fat: 9.55g, Total Carbs: 82.07g, Protein: 6.21g
