Smoothie Fun: Apple vs Cinnamon

I really, deeply, truly love smoothies. They're tasty as all hell, super-nutritious and slip one or two of your five a day down your neck before you've even noticed what's happened. And they're particularly good if you've got some exercising to be getting on with.

I've been told second-hand by someone Swedish that if it doesn't have yogurt in, it's just fruit juice, and I'm happy to go with that. Slopping some natural yogurt in there throws some protein into the mix, which is useful stuff for repairing damage post-workout. Fruit's good for you for all the reasons fruit's good for you. I like to chuck some oats in there, too, to bulk my smoothie up and add some extra carbs. Below's a rough recipe for apple and cinnamon smoothie. Apparently cinnamon raises your metabolism, so that's something, eh?

Ingredients:

Apple x 2

Banana x 1 or 2

Apple juice x 200ml(ish)

Low fat natural yogurt x 5 or 6 big dollops

Oats x some

Cinnamon x 1tsp (or to taste)

Method:

Blend ingredients together like a maniac. I like to put some more oats in once everything else is blended, since I like the texture.

All the quantities I stuck on the ingredients list are very rough guidelines. One of the beauties of smoothies is the fact that because there's no actual cooking involved you can keep adding to them until they're spot on. They're also dead easy to make and experiment with, as the flavours you're putting together make sense even if your cooking abilities extend to microwaving Chicago Town mini-pizzas.

Right, I'm off to try making pineapple and ginger smoothie, based on the fact that's a sauce used in Chinese takeaways. I'll let you know how it goes...