Banana Sapota (Chikoo) Shake

Ok, maybe this isn't the three part smoothie I'd enticed you with at the end of that last sporadic and lengthy session. But I'll let you decide for yourselves whether adding in a slight few for ingredient number  may go further, especially when those components can play a part in the greater good. You won't regret today's read-through, learning that running less than ten of the most edifying stuff in your blender might just be your first- on prescription for better living.

Banana sapota shake is a meal-in-a-cup, often combining two of those into one sitting, for example, these days my breakfast and lunch. This wholesome wonder knocks it out to better return, renouncing  pesky unwanted calories, and assigning in their stead much decent nutritional content. And you see this could be part of the bragging rights included in those humble two glasses that  blend into being, with of course the additional merit of superior relations developed with the waistband of your jeans.

First, I am obligated to have you in on an introduction for I what feel is today's star element, one which is widely unknown to those of you who don't live in the Indian subcontinent and the market areas of the Spanish speaking world. Sapota, sapodilla, or chikoo are its names, brown, fleshy, the fruit that can almost be likened to the flavors and nub of a squishy pear. But to leave it at that is an understatement. Chikoo is pleasurably sweet, speaks in nectarish-rich notes, and has a slight maltiness to its textured body. One bite transports your mouthbuds to the poshly exotic, a magnificent relishable adventure, perhaps guising its role in these present day antioxidant and anti-inflammatory motifs.

This I did not know when I first encountered chikoo in a glass, several decades prior, its still-most popular consumption in India. It is where people line up to have the fruit churned in milkshakes, not forgoing the 28 teaspoons of sugar and two dollops of ice cream to top. The chikoo or sapota shake, is ubiquitous and hawked by many a roadside juice vendor, also sold for a tad more in sit-down restaurant menus. The highly sweetened, gratifying milky shake is greatly addicting, a fact I came to know when my daytoday corner juice stand visits provided the reason for my very happy and bulky  young adult existence. This afternoon indulgence, led to, ahem, much slab provision on both sides of thighs, and an newly inherited unrestrained girth. Was I the picture of health, or what?

Should I tell you that I may have (hmmm...) ceased to be that poster child of gross overindulgence and unhealth, go on, perhaps to contemplate thesis writing, convincing many of The Immense Property Values of the Chikoo, and how it might possibly even save the world. Maybe. If I were that disciplined. Honestly, I'm not. Though cognitively I do or can appear to be a wee, teensy bit more the wiser than then. I actually feel, chikoos have been dealt a grave injustice. I mean there is so much going on in this wonderfruit, proponents to make it well and beyond the top of the superfood list.

And these days I don't inhabit surroundings where chikoos flourish on trees, though my Asian market freezer provides me with the bounty, these besteverfinds, frozen love in 10. 58 gram packs.

Therefore today we forgo the barrel of sugar and I give you the better blueprint, a shake and blend teaming with superheroes, still enjoyable, but health-giving, and superior in every way.

So now, what goes in the shake? All the power and nobility of some of the best gems on earth, I say. Flaxseed, oats, almonds, dollop of peanut butter, and lone banana provide a legion of protein, fiber and massive cholesterol levelling benefits (and can you see those nutrition purists and pundits patting my back?). It is the formula that may take on key and crucial roles for a robusthappylife. I could go on with the many and more benevolences of each powerhouse ingredient, but I'd probably end this segue day after tomorrow.

Overnight freezing of a few bananas, you know, the ones that've probably seen better days,  helps to give banana-sapota-shake a thick, luxe body. The feeding of cold milk, of course, furthered with a bundle of stillfrozen chikoos assist also for an undeniably lush milkshake weave. Know that sugar omittance fixes what was broken, with honey assuming its sweetening-for-better mantle, pulling it all in for a matchless rejuvenating beverage.

Prepping the whole show is a nonissue, and requires maybe not more than half a minute, then the Allmentioned come together in for the final ta-da.

You're set, Champion of Good Health, done your heart, mind and belly good, without forsaking topnotch taste. You see how this could actually cut down some extra belt turns on your a.m. treadmill routine. So you can eat those Oreos. No, I did not just do that.

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe frozen banana, cut into half inch slices
• 4 frozen sapota pieces (substitute with half a ripe pear, apple, even avocado)
• 6-8 raw almonds
• 1-2 tbsp peanut butter
• 1-2 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp oats (I use old fashioned)
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• 2 c cold nonfat milk

Directions:

• Combine all ingredients in an electric blender and process on medium speed until smooth or desired consistency is reached.
• Pour into glasses and drink.

Notes~

Presoak the almonds if you desire a smoother drink, I like to chew nut bits and flaxseed while I drink, you know, trick my mind that I'm making a meal out of the whole thing.

Dates, raisins are some of the other optionals that can adjust well and taste wonderful with the others.

For a nondairy alternative, swap soy/almond milk for the regular kind.

Wow, did you know? The spoon's toss of flaxseed officiates this blended drink into the stayyoung-staystrong breed, helping  to lower the risk of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Drink up.

I have to remind myself that some superhero productions may not be as swift in the making as my little powershow here. Though they're still so worth the wait, right? Yes, I had to mention that. 

Make pretty. Crest drinks with scatters of sliced chikoo, banana. Almonds show great too.

A huge thanks to Gourmandize, those gracious foodlovers for their rank foodshare site, spreading much blogger appreciation and great inspiration. I had the awesome opportunity of an interview with one of their editors, and the esteem to be their blogger of the day. Thank you much, Ms. Gitanjali Roche, you were a doll to work with. To see what I said, click here. Otherwise, try them a visit, you'll be nothing short of enthralled at the thousands of dinner options you might be considering tonight.

******
"And we are confident that He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him. And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for." 1John 5(NLT)