Apricot-banana breakfast smoothie with almond butter

Summer is officially here, along with fresh corn, tomatoes, summer squash, berries and- my favorite- stone fruit. Peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, pluots and everything in between are mounting up in farmer’s markets, and if the vendors are smart, they sample them out. Unable to resist, I’ve been buying them all.

I love all kinds of stone fruits, but had never developed a taste for fresh apricots until I started buying them by the kilo when I lived in Morocco, where I discovered that apricots are not the hard, dry and bitter cousin to the peach. If purchased fresh and left to ripen, apricots are the less messy and more flavorful alternative to the peach, and they pair more easily with cheeses, nuts and honey. Baked into crumbles, sliced into cakes, or eaten fresh with yogurt, apricots hold their own in sweet and savory dishes.

Here, I’ve blended them into my otherwise-standard breakfast smoothie. The result was surprisingly sweet and nuanced- paired with almond butter, think of this as a more-sophisticated take on the peanut butter and jelly flavor profile. Jammy, nutty and sweet, this smoothie is going to make your weekday morning special, with little extra effort.

The key here is to use frozen banana as the base, which will make your smoothie taste like a thick, unctuous ice cream shake. Once again, bananas are the secret ingredient making something healthy taste deceptively dessert-like. See my recipe for paleo chocolate pudding for another paleo-friendly treat starring the banana…

Ingredients

• 1 large or 1 1/2 small bananas, frozen
• 1 large apricot, halved and frozen
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 tablespoon almond butter

How to:

1. Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Enjoy.