Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie

Do you know which recipes I earmark, highlight, underline and actually make?

The ones that are easy, taste great AND are healthy! And guess what? This one completely, totally and utterly fits that bill. So, what makes this sweet potato pie smoothie so healthy? Firstly, it is free of any refined sugar and secondly it is super high in beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is pretty powerful stuff because consuming it regularly can reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. Isn’t that amazing? You see, sweet potato is packed full of beta carotene making this little smoothie my secret weapon against breast cancer. Seconds anyone?

Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie [Vegan]

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup sweet potato juice (fresh or frozen) (you need about 400g of sweet potatoes to make this quantity of juice)
• 2/3 cup almond milk
• 1/3 cup canned pureed pumpkin OR make your own using 120g butternut squash/pumpkin
• ½ banana (fresh or frozen)
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ ground ginger
• ½ tsp vanilla seeds/powder/essence

                   

Preparation

1. Get all your ingredients out and on the kitchen counter.
2. You can use canned pumpkin puree if you like. I made fresh butternut squash puree by steaming the chopped and peeled butternut squash for about 10-15 minutes. Mashed it up and measured out 1/3 cup. Making your own means you get more nutrients.
3. Place the 1/3 cup of mashed pumpkin or butternut squash into a blender.
4. Wash, peel and chop the sweet potatoes and put the pieces into your juicer.
5. Pour the resulting sweet potato juice into your blender.
6. Add the almond milk, spices, banana to the blender as well
7.  Blend until nicely combined.

Serve and enjoy

Notes

You can pour the home made sweet potato juice into ice cube moulds the night before and then take them out so that smoothie is cold and has the consistency of a milk shake. You can use pureed sweet potato, pumpkin or as I did butternut squash. Be creative and use what's local, seasonal and to your liking. As I made this during the colder months I used a fresh rather than a frozen banana, but if you prefer your smoothie a bit thicker – more like a milkshake – then use a frozen banana. I did not use any added sweetener (i.e. no added date or maple syrup as the almond milk and sweet potato make this sweet enough for me). However of course it is your choice to use one or all of the added extras I suggested. By adding the sweeteners this becomes more like a pumpkin pie dessert drink rather than a sweetish refreshing beverage.

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-recipe/sweet-potato-pie-smoothie/