Cherry-Cocoa Breakfast Smoothie

There are mornings when I wake up starving; fewer mornings now that I have switched to five meals a day instead of three.

Five small to medium sized meals, some simply snacks, spread across the day. I find this helps to maintain my blood glucose levels. I have type II diabetes.

Breakfast is the most important meal; even on mornings when I am not hungry and can sit back and enjoy 2 cups of a dark roast, fair trade, organic coffee first, I grind the beans and we use a French roaster to maximize the flavour.

Breakfast varies, sometimes, oatmeal, organic naturally; sometimes, breakfast is boiled eggs with a slice or two of extra old white cheddar cheese and toast, seven grain, usually.

Other mornings it is All Bran with banana or whatever berries are in season.

At least once a week, breakfast is a smoothie. The smoothie has to be one of my favourite quick meals; it takes only two to three minutes to make and seems to have an endless array of ingredients to choose from, I prefer a milk based smoothie to a juice based one.

Sometime I freeze the milk the night before, rather than using ice cubes, other times not.

This recipe was a first and what we had for breakfast this morning.

When grocery shopping I always look for special and for seasonal items and items grown locally. The cherries used in the recipe were not local, not organic, but were certainly inexpensive and cherries are a good food so, in addition to snacking on some last night and freezing more, I decided it was time to try something new in the smoothie line, at least for me, that is.

Cherry- Cocoa Breakfast Smoothies:

Ingredients:

8 pitted cherries

1 tbsp organic cocoa powder

2 organic bananas, sliced

6 ice cubes

Cinnamon to taste

4 tbsp French vanilla yogurt

1 cup skim milk.

Preparation:

1- add cherries and cinnamon to blender

2- add ice, bananas

3- add yogurt, cocoa powder

4- add skim milk.

Blend for 1 minute until liquid is smooth. Pour and serve, makes two glasses.

This was a positive experiment and not only did the smoothie taste great but it sustained me and I was able to maintain my regular meal time table. I will be having alight snack when I have finished this hub, which will be about four hours since I drank breakfast. I am not hungry yet but know myself well enough to know that a light urging to eat will soon come.

Smoothies are not just for breakfast. I enjoy them anytime of the day. I never have more than one a day though just being careful to not ingest too much sugar. I find the smoothies make a great lunchtime meal especially when the weather is very hot. You do not need to turn on the stove or oven in order to get a tasty and healthy meal and it is so easy to make and clean up after, which is another major selling point for this meal, easy prep and easy clean-up.

The possibilities when it comes to ingredients are another great reason to enjoy a smoothie; they are a great way to enjoy seasonal fruit and an excellent use for any fruit that you have frozen, when you use frozen fruit you may not need to add ice.