Shake 'n' Date for 1

Submitted by COOKGIRl

"A delicious date shake reminiscent of Middle Eastern flavors, I concocted this shake a few mornings ago to help reduce a surplus of milk and bananas. (With a little bit of inspiration from npr.org website.) Organic ingredients are preferred for this recipe. Note: this is not a thick shake. Yields one large sixteen ounce beverage or two smaller eight ounce beverages. Be sure your milk or milk substitute is well chilled before preparing."

 

• Ready In: 5mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Yields: 16 ounces
• Serves: 1

ingredients

• 4 dates, pitted (I used two medjool and two deglet nours)
• 1 pinch ground cardamom
• 1 small banana, peeled and cut into chunks (a partially frozen banana is okay to substitute)
• 3 drops almond extract
• 1 cup milk (I use whole milk but you can use another milk alternative ( almond, rice, coconut milk, soy, etc.)
• 2 -3 tablespoons tahini or 2 -3 tablespoons plain yogurt
• 1⁄2 tablespoon honey, to taste (or other sugar alternative such as agave, unbleached cane sugar, etc.)
• 1⁄4 teaspoon orange blossom water
• cinnamon, to garnish

directions

1. Take a sharp knife and run it under hot water. Remove the pits and cut the dates up into very small pieces.
2. Place the dates and the remaining ingredients *except* for the cinnamon in a blender. Blend on HIGH speed a full 1 minute. (Some of the date pieces will not blend and that is okay and to be expected.).
3. Pour shake into a tall glass. The small dates pieces that didn't blend will sink to the bottom. Have a long sundae spoon handy to eat them!
4. If desired, [lightly] sprinkle cinnamon on top.
5. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Sydney Mike]

Well, I did want to make this as frosty & thick as I could, so I changed it slightly, using 2 large frozen bananas & 6 Medjool dates, but after that, I followed the recipe right on down! Loved the taste & as many smoothie recipes as I have on hand for variety, I'll be adding this one to the stack! Thanks so much for sharing it! [Made & reviewed in New Kids on the Block recipe tag]

 

[UmmBinat]

Very fun drink. I love it. I love orange blossom water in anything cold and sweet. I used date molasses instead of dates, threw in whole seeds from a green cardamom pod, did not use any almond extract as we do not consume alcohol in any amount, but I did add a small hand full almonds to ice cold water to make my milk, almond milk, I used the 3 tbs 3% yogurt, honey, the banana which was refrigerated and the cinnamon garnish. I will make this again! Made for Veggie Swap 36 ~ July 2011.

 

[Sharon123]

Used almond milk and left out the extract. I used the seeds from one cardamom pod and don't have access to orange blossom water so left it out too. Delicious! Thanks! Made for the Sun and Spice event in the NAME forum.