I use the Bella Cucina Rocket Blender
But waiiit, I had one more idea for a smoothie before it gets too cold to drink smoothies, which given how cool this summer has been could be any minute now. Actually this is a good going into fall smoothie like this pumpkin smoothie, it's not as icy as a frozen fuit smoothie.
The idea came to me from here, woah, date halvah smoothie, that pretty much fits my fruit + nut butter formula, and woah, a jar of halvah costs thirty dollars?! Both of which I expressed on facebook to which Spunk responded, tahini, seven bucks. Off to the lab!
It actually took quite a few tries to get this right, frozen fruit is generally what I use to make smoothies cold and thick. Frozen dates don't blend well at all, and for that matter regular room temperature dates don't blend much better. I tried frozen banana but blech, I can always taste banana. I mean, it's okay if I want banana. I finally went with date paste for smooth, which does up the pain in the butt quotient a little bit, ice cubes for cold, and chia seed for thick.
The result is really, really, really good, very lush, with pure date and sesame flavors.
For the date paste:
pitted dates
boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Roughly chop the pitted dates, pack them into a pint jar, and pour boiling water over them to cover. I let them soak for a few hours until the water cools to room temperature.
Dump the dates and water into the bowl of a food processor, add vanilla and salt, and process for 5-10 minutes until very smooth.
Put the paste back into the jar and refrigerate for up to three months. Haha, good luck with that.
For the smoothie:
two ice cubes
four big spoonfuls of greek yogurt
two spoonfuls of date paste
two spoonfuls of tahini
1 spoonful chia seed
water
For best results put an ice cube into the cup first, then the greek yogurt, then the other ice cube, then the date paste, tahini, and chia seed and then enough water to fill the cup. Screw on the cap, stick the cup on the motor base, and blend for 30 seconds. Then take it off the base and give it a little shake to get anything that's stuck on the top of the cup. Blend for another 20 seconds or until the smoothie is churning freely from top to bottom.
