Things to Do During Ramadan # 7: Make a Date Banana Smoothie

During Ramadan, I go bonkers over recipes that include dates. Not everyone in the family likes dates, but I love them.  The first time I had a date shake, I was hooked.  Last year I bought a blender so ever since then we've been making all kinds of shakes and smoothies. (We didn't have a blender for years).

After surfing online to find a date banana smoothie recipe, I basically just threw one together myself as I didn't have some of the other ingredients that made the recipes I saw a little more exotic.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup dates or about 4-5 medjool dates (pitted)
• 1-1/2  cups milk (I used almond soy milk though)
• 2 teaspoons chia seeds (optional, but one of the recipes I looked at called for them and I had them on hand so I used them. The recipe did advise soaking the chia seeds, but this was last minute so I threw them in anyway)
• 1 banana

And that's it! In my recently old sugar addict days I would have dumped way too much sugar in there but now I enjoy smoothies and shakes with no sugar at all! If it is not sweet enough, you could add a bit of honey or, sometimes, if a smoothie isn't sweet enough, I'll add another banana.

I saw some recipes that called for adding yogurt (my daughter said that just didn't sound right, lol, so I trusted her as she is my expert smoothie maker, having surpassed me in the art of smoothie/shake making). 

What to Do

Place everything in the blender (my blender recommends adding the liquid first) and blend. I probably needed to blend it a bit more as I had a lot of date chunks at the bottom of my glass (but they were still delicious to eat by themselves at the end.

My refreshing date banana smoothie at the end of a day of fasting: