BLUEBERRY SMOOTHIE

This morning my husband decided, after finding a pack of frozen blueberries in the freezer, that he would like to make a blueberry smoothie. He also found some coconut milk on a top shelf - from before my fat-free days. Of course, opening the fridge door was the signal for some serious help from our resident Quality Control Experts:



BLUEBERRY SMOOTHIE

Blend the following:
1 banana, roughly chunked
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup low-fat soymilk
1/4 tsp coconut extract (to replace 1/4 cup coconut milk)

All zapped in the blender - it doesn't get simpler than that - until it looked like this:



It was of course delightful (yes, I had a taste - of course!) - and I'm out to buy some coconut flavouring tomorrow to replace the coconut milk. And no, I'd not put coconut with blueberries or any berries before - that addition was suggested by Barnard and Kramer's The Garden of Vegan. What a buzz!

POSTSCRIPT (Wednesday 14 March): The coconut extract (around 1/4 tsp) worked like a charm. Why have we not used it before!

Chickpea Gumbo

The recipe is not mine to give, but I can point you to the website where I found it :) Go to:

http://www.fatfreevegan.com/soups/chickpea_gumbo.shtml

for a wonderful recipe for Chickpea Gumbo (the chickpeas/garbanzos stand in for seafood here). It is absolutely delicious. I made it in the fat-free version also suggested and it worked splendidly, but those who are not concerned with such things could, I'm sure, try the original with oil for the sautee.

There's a great illustration of it on the site, which is just as well since my own attempts at a photo came out decidedly blurry! It serves as proof of my good intentions only LOL