Summer Smoothies

It’s hot as hell outside. This warm interior is complemented by an abundance of seasonal fruits like peaches, mangoes, and grapes, as well as year-round favorites like bananas in a fruit bowl on the window sill.

To avoid it turning into pulp, all of the fruit is perfectly ripe and begging to be eaten right this second.

There’s something about a full fruit bowl, with its promise of health and succulence, that makes me arrange it as still life as I unpack the shopping, only to be wrong-footed when it all ripens at the same time.

To begin with, however, with the upcoming season of summer, getting an efficient fridge repair is essential!

Now is the time to make smoothies. Smoothies can captivate even the most jaded eaters. Adults can enjoy a special treat of iced coffee when it’s too hot for tea.

The only requirement is that the fruit still smells good and not be fermented before being used, even if it is slightly overripe.

Yogurt and milk, like a meal, provide a high dose of vitamins and calcium. You are drinking your way to good health!

Providing a recipe for a smoothie isn’t required. It all depends on what you already own. Adapt and change this example to suit your needs, using it as a template. It’ll be delicious as long as you use fully ripe fruit.

As a general rule of thumb, I’d use one mango and one or two bananas in this recipe. Make a smoothie by chopping up the fruit, adding plain yoghurt, and a cup or so of milk to the blender.

Add more milk if it’s too thick for your taste. Ice cubes are a quick and easy way to cool things down.

Without peeling, slice off both long sides as close to the stone as you can., cut the flesh in a criss-cross fashion to make 1 cm cubes, then push the skin up to invert the cubes into a mango hedgehog!!

This is how the kids eat them, and it’s a messy process that requires a bath afterwards.

The following are some fruit pairing suggestions:

• Bananas, pears, and berries
• Berry and peach
• Banana and strawberry
• Banana, peach, and apricot

Any fruit in the world can be included in this list, so feel free to play around with what’s available and create your unique concoctions.

Bananas are the most likely to be overripe, but they have a velvety texture and go well with most other fruits. Use bananas and a few teaspoons of hot chocolate to whip up a decadent milkshake instead of the usual healthy fruit.

Alternatively, add a dollop of vanilla ice cream to complete the dish. It was deliciously frothy, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a reliable source of salmonella-free eggs.

You can watch the color change if you’ve got frozen berries on hand as you whirl them around in the blender.

If you can keep them in the winter, mulberries, blackberries, youngberries, and blueberries, all add deep colour and a wealth of nutrients and antioxidants that instantly boost the immune system. When the strawberry harvest overwhelms us, I usually make a strawberry puree and freeze it for later use.

Remove the stems and leaves before freezing the rest of the berries so that they are ready to use when needed. Frozen berries can also be purchased in mixed packs, which is fine.

Happy Summer!