Milk shakes for breakfast? Treats do not have to be expensive or unhealthy to be good! These fruit shakes can be eaten for breakfast, snack or a refreshing dessert. They can be tailored to any dietary needs and take just minutes to make. Sound too good to be true? You be the judge!

Fruit Shakes: Basic Recipe

Serves 1 adult or 2 kids

1 frozen banana
1 cup liquid
additional fruit or flavoring
optional sweetener - grapes, dates, honey or sugar

To make, break frozen banana into pieces and put in blender. Cover with liquid up to 1 cup line on blender. Add any additional fruits, flavorings, or sweeteners. Blend until consistency of milk shake (usually 30 seconds). Serve immediately (banana will start to brown if you don't).

Enjoy!

NOTE: Clean out blender and cups immediately after drinking, since the fruit particles tend to get stuck to the container.

Ingredients

This recipe is extremely versatile. You can vary them to comply with your diet or special needs. These shakes are great alternatives for those with diabetes, food allergies and intolerances, and vegetarians. Experiment and have fun!

Here are descriptions and ideas for each ingredient

Frozen bananas - I buy them when they are dirt cheap, peel and deep-freeze in reclosable plastic storage bags. In a deep-freezer, they will keep up to a year without darkening, but in a regular refrigerator freezer, they start turning at 3 months. Frozen bananas give these shakes their creamy consistency, and you generally can't taste them. If you don't like bananas and don't want them in your drink, substitute crushed ice instead.

Liquid -You can use milk, water, soymilk, rice milk or juice. All work just fine. Milk will give you a creamier shake. If you use water, add a little at a time until you get to the consistency you like. Juice is a great way to sweeten these drinks, and it adds some fun.

Additional Fruit and Flavorings - any fruit of your choice, extracts, drink mixes, syrups, jams, or spices. You'll see lots of examples below. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

Sweeteners - if your shake turns out on the tart side, you can sweeten it naturally with honey, pitted or chopped dates, raisins, grapes or juice. You could also use the traditional method - add sugar. If serving for breakfast, try to keep it as healthy as possible.

THE RECIPES
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Vanilla
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Blend together.

Chocolate
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
a few squirts of chocolate syrup
Blend.

Strawberry Cream
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
1 handful of strawberries, washed and sliced
1-2 pitted dates to sweeten (optional)
Blend.

Blueberry Fool
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
a handful of blueberries (use as much as you want!)
Blend.

Purple Cow
1 frozen banana (or 1/4 cup crushed ice)
1/2 cup grape juice
1/2 cup milk
Blend.

Peanut Butter Dream
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
2 tsp of peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
Blend. (My oldest son loves this one - it tastes like peanut butter ice cream! Great with chocolate syrup too for a "Reese's" shake.)

Pina Colada
1 frozen banana
1 cup milk/soymilk
1-2 tsp. shredded coconut
1/4 cup chopped or crushed pineapple (fresh is best, but canned is pretty good too)
Blend. One of my personal favorites!

Apple Pie
1 frozen banana
1/2 peeled, chopped apple
1 cup apple juice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
Blend. Great substitute for applesauce! Control the consistency by adding more or less chopped apple.

Key Lime pie
1 frozen banana
juice of 1 lime, diluted with water or milk to make one cup of liquid
Blend. Use milk if you want it to be creamy, this one is really good!

Pineapple Orange Banana
1 frozen banana
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup fresh or canned pineapple
Blend.

Melon Coolers
1-2 cups chunks of frozen, seeded watermelon
1/2-1 cup of water (enough to thin consistency to milk shake)
Blend.

Watermelon freezes very well and is ideal for summer shakes. I like to deal with the storage problem of melons by cutting into chunks and freezing. If you don't want to seed the watermelon, you don't have to - the seeds will float to the bottom of the glass.

Julius Shakes
Basic recipe:

1 cup juice
1 cup water
1 egg white
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup ice (crushed is best)
Blend at high speed. Serves 2.

Note: The egg white is to make the drink frothy, which it is famous for. You can omit the white, or use that powdered egg white (I think it's called meringue powder) that is sold in the Wilton baking section of most stores.

Here's what I do: I wait for a sale on eggs, then get them home, separate into whites and yolks and freeze. I freeze the whites in small ice cube trays. I put the yolks into juice cans with 1/2-tsp salt and once frozen, put in a reclosable plastic storage bag. When I want to make a Julius or meringue, I take out the white in cubes and throw them in.

Variations
Try any juice. Some of my favorites are pineapple, strawberry, lime or cranberry. Try mixing different kinds too. Cranberry and orange would be great together, and there are so many juice blends at the store - experiment to your heart's content!

Recommended Reading: Reviewer: robert c. lafayette (see more about me) from Stillwater,Minnesota I am NOT a health freak, by any stretch of the imagination, however, my lady friend and I came across this book and have been trying its different "SMOOTHIES", as they are called. Great summer drinks that we will enjoy all YEAR AROUND! One of our favorites is the PINAPPLE AVOCADO PARADISE drink, easy to make... This book should be kept next to your blender! Great treats for your company/neighborhood BBQ's... TRY IT! (courtesy: Amazon)

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About the Author
Kim Tilley, a tightwad at heart, is a wife, a mother of three active boys and the founding editor of Frugal-Moms.com. Frugal by force and later by choice, Kim cut her income by 60% to stay at home with her children and discovered that anyone can live better for less. Her work has appeared in print publications such as The Tightwad Gazette. In her free time, she entertains herself by chasing kids and finding ways to create something from nothing!

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