A non-confrontational teddy bear of a smoothie, this sweetly pumpkin pie spiced breakfast is a comforting way to start the day.
This is the first October that I’ve been blogging, and I have to say I’m simply floored by the seasonal change in all the American food blogs I follow. Who knew pumpkin pie spice was such a big thing? Not me!
Turns out New Zealand and America have quite different approaches to pumpkin. We virtually always use them as a savoury ingredient, either roasted or in soup, while Americans have fully embraced the sweet option and seem to use pumpkin in pies, desserts and baking at least as much as, if not more than, in savoury dishes. And canned pumpkin puree, wow. Who knew such a thing existed?
My Mum made pumpkin pie occasionally when I was a kid, and I always loved its sweetly spiced flavour. So I can absolutely get in behind the idea of adding pumpkin pie spices to, well, everything.
Pumpkin pie spice is a mixture of sweet, warming spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and sometimes mace or allspice too. In America it exists as a pre-blended spice. That’s not the case in New Zealand, but it’s very easy to make.
To make this smoothie, you can just measure each spice and add what you need, or you could make a larger batch of the spice mixture if you want to have some waiting for next time. And there will be a next time. I made this smoothie three days running, and every day was a bit sad when I got to the bottom of my glass. It’s simply delicious.
The proportions I used are a 4:1:1:1 mix of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. So, for example, you could make a batch of 4 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp cloves, which would be enough for four smoothies.
I also added rolled oats to make this more filling, and LSA (linseed, sunflower seed and almond meal) as a source of omega fatty acids.
This smoothie is a bit carbolicious due to the banana, dates and maple syrup, but it also has 14.2g protein, 12.3g fibre (50 per cent of daily requirements) and 20 per cent of your daily iron requirements. Not a bad effort before you’ve even left the house for the day. Leave the maple syrup out if you want to trim the sugar down a bit.
- 1 banana
- 2 medjool dates
- 1/4 cup rolled oats
- 1 tbsp LSA
- 1 tbsp maple syrup optional
- 1 cup soy milk or almond milk
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- Put all ingredients into your blender and whiz until smooth. If you like your smoothies extra cold or thick you could use frozen bananas.
- Recipe for LSA (linseed, sunflower seed and almond meal).
You could even add a spoonful or so of canned or homemade pureed pumpkin to this with no detrimental effect. 🙂 Growing up in Germany, the only way we ever had pumpkin was pickled, which I found thoroughly disgusting. Now I am so enamoured with the sweet and savory possibilities of pumpkin that I tend to always have at least one can in the pantry, in case the mood strikes.
I’m sure that would be delicious! Next time I make pumpkin soup I’ll keep some pumpkin aside and give it a go. Canned pumpkin doesn’t exist in New Zealand (actually there’s bound to be somewhere that imports it, but I’ve never seen it), I was truly surprised to learn of its existence in other countries, lol!
Aha! I did not know that. Although I’m not sure if we’ve got canned pumpkin back home by now. Fortunately, mashed pumpkin freezes excellently well.
What is LSA???
Hi John, I’ve added a link to a recipe for LSA, which is linseed, sunflower seed and almond meal. It’s not essential to the recipe, but has a nice nutty flavour and is a good source of omega fatty acids. In New Zealand it’s easy to buy store bought too. https://quitegoodfood.co.nz/lsa-linseed-sunflower-seed-and-almond-meal/