Pucker Up

When I was a kid, my dad used to come home from work everyday for lunch, cut up a metric ton of of fruit - peaches, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, whatever he could get his hands on - and make smoothies for me and my sister. California isn't a terrible place to live if you like fresh produce, so these frozen treats were goddamn delicious and packed with the sorts of vitamins that small humans usually hate...win-win. Now I don't need quite as much convincing, but this Cherry Smoothie still hits the spot!

The vibrant colors in this smoothie = so. many. vitamins. Cherries are packed with Vitamin A, bananas are loaded with potassium, and blueberries have a bunch of cool antioxidants that studies have shown can improve your memory. This tangy smoothie will provide you with an impressive amount of everyone's best friend, dietary fiber.

A word to the wise: not all cherries are made equal. And by that I mean that some are delightfully tart while others are so sour they'll make your face implode. If you end up with the latter, just add a little brown sugar to the mix to mellow things out!

Cherry Smoothie
Inspired by Averie Cooks and Natasha's Kitchen

Makes 2 giant smoothies

1 banana
1 cup blueberries
1½ cups cherries
1 cup coconut milk (or soy/almond/rice/hemp/whatever!)
½ teaspoon vanilla
brown sugar, to taste

Carefully slice your cherries in half and remove the pits, then cut up your bananas into chunks. Toss everything, including the blueberries, into a big bowl and pop it in the freezer for about 2 hours. Freezing the fruit means that you can make your smoothie nice and frosty without adding ice cubes and watering down the fruit flavors!

Remove the bowl of fruit from the freezer and dump everything into a blender. Pour in the coconut milk and vanilla, then give it a whirl! You might have to pause a couple of times to scrape down the sides of the blender - use this as an opportunity to taste test and add sweetener as needed.

When you've reached optimal flavor and consistency, pour into 2 large glasses and enjoy!