Banana Smoothies

As Matt and Melissa know (from their recent trip to MA), Dave and I have been making a lot of smoothies as evening snacks.  To keep them as healthy as possible, we start with a frozen banana. I'm not a big fan of banana, but once you start adding the extracts and spices, I don't even notice that banana-y taste!  I'm going to keep this post as a running list of our favorite flavor combos.

As a general note, when we buy a bunch of bananas, we keep them on the counter until VERY ripe.  Then we peel and quarter each one and place it in a sealed container in the freezer.  That way, whenever we want a smoothie, it is easy to take 2 or 4 banana pieces (depending on if the recipe calls for a half or whole banana), and load it up in the Magic Bullet with the other ingredients.

One more note- where the recipe asks for "milk," we found that almond milk tastes good too! :)

Pumpkin Spice
1/2 cup pumpkin (canned or freshly cooked) I used a heaping 1/2 cup
1/2 frozen banana
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I used allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and a bit extra cinnamon)
pinch of ground ginger
Dave added a teaspoon of brown sugar to his

 pumpkin spice

Mint Chocolate Chip
1 frozen banana
cacao nibs (or chocolate chips) we used grain-sweetened chocolate chips
2 drops pure peppermint extract
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup frozen spinach
Dave likes his with cocoa powder too

Vanilla Chai
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
tiny dash each: pepper, cardamom, ground cloves, and nutmeg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Other flavor combos I'd like to try....

Coconut
Some kind of combination of banana, coconut milk, coconut extract, and flaked coconut 

Chocolate Cake Batter
Recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie

Chocolate Covered Strawberry
Banana, strawberries, cocoa powder?, dark chocolate chips

Do you have any other ideas for flavors?

Photos of smoothies coming soon (Whenever I make one, I am too excited to drink it, and never end up taking a picture!!)

Food Crawl 1

Yes, I admit....this is not a recipe.  Dave and I have started a new idea for outings in Boston- Food Crawl!  Basically, we hit up a few different places and order something to split.  By only sampling one or 2 menu items, we will hopefully get a good idea of what that particular restaurant is like, without spending too much money or committing to a whole meal.  We'll be reporting back on the blog...not really for anyone else but ourselves- we want to remember where we ate, so we know where to go back!

 Our inaugural Food Crawl was Saturday, May 12.  To work up an appetite, we skateboarded around near Cambridge, stopping for a few pics along the way.

(btw, I was completely unaware that Dave was snapping these as I childishly walked around the ledge that surrounded the fountain)

It was fun to play with the camera's shutter speed :)

Our first stop?  Area Four 

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We split a scrumptious cheese danish.  For beverages, I went with an unsweetened iced tea, and Dave had an overly saccharine lemonade. (he probably won't be getting that again!)  

hooray for free wi-fi!

As per Leah's recommendation, we stopped by Baraka Cafe.  They specialize in Algerian-Tunisian cuisine.

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It was super tiny, and seemed to be a 2 woman operation (at least, it was when we were there).  One cooking, and one up in the front.  We chose to get our food to go, but hung out at one of the tables while we waited.

There's no way we were going to remember what we ordered if it wasn't for the photo above!

Inside of that bready pocket was a mixture of onions and other veggies in a spiced sauce (although not spicy).

We also got fries :)

My attempt at capturing lens flare.  Look, I got some!!

We skated back around to Boston, and stopped briefly on the Mass Ave bridge to chat with Mom.  It was Mother's Day Eve, after all.

This photo was taken by a man who was carrying a Subway sandwich around the city all day, taking pictures of it next to things.  Weird.  I'm surprised he didn't make us put it in this shot!

 The last stop on our journey was Sweet Cupcakes.

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We went with a Chocolate Covered Pretzel cupcake, and a Chocolate Coconut.

Although good (and pretty!), I'd say they were not good enough to make us want to go back.  I'm sure there must be better cupcakes somewhere in Boston!

Super cute.  I want one!