Banana Date Smoothie

With this unseasonably warm weather we've been experiencing lately in New England, I've been craving refreshing smoothies. However, I'm not quite ready for berry-flavored smoothies yet. Thankfully there are a gazillion other smoothie combinations out there though! So when I stumbled upon this banana date smoothie the other day from Steph's Bite by Bite, I immediately pinned it. And since then, it's been on my mind quite a bit (don't get jealous, Mike!!). And this past Tuesday I finally got around to making it. And then I made another one on Wednesday. Annnnd, you guessed it. I made another one today, Thursday. Uh huh. It's gooood. 

As I mentioned earlier, I first saw this recipe on the lovely blog, Steph's Bite by Bite. The proportions and ingredients listed below are what I used and are just slightly modified from the original recipe. This makes one serving.

Ingredients:

-1 medium to large banana, frozen

-1/4 cup dry regular oats

-3 pitted dates, chopped/sliced

-1/2 cup milk (I used organic 1%)

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend until everything's mixed together and fairly smooth.

Of note, the original recipe does call for a few ice cubes. Mine turned out plenty cold (for my liking) with just the frozen banana and cold milk. But feel free to add ice cubes if you'd like! It may "bulk" up the smoothie a bit too, if you add the ice.

A trick to make this easier? Slice your bananas before freezing them. If you have a super duper fancy blender you may be able to just throw a whole frozen banana in there, but my blender isn't that great so it works better for me if I slice the bananas before I freeze them. I also chopped up the dates into smaller pieces before adding them to the blender.

On one of the past three days I made this smoothie I was on the run, going from one thing to another. So, I put it in a handy dandy little to-go cup that works great for smoothies and shakes!

Another picture of ingredients in the blender; this was smoothie day #3.

If you need a reminder about how good dates are for you, read all about them here. I looove dates! If you're a regular reader, you already know this. I've mentioned my obsession with dates when I've baked with them (recently with maple date scones and a little while back with maple date bars). And I feel like every time I make something with dates, I talk about how obsessed with them I am. Guess that really just confirms the obsession!!

After blending...bubbles!

Yep, I drank my smoothie out of a wine glass. :)

If you love smoothies, especially healthy ones, go make this one! Deeeelicious.