Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Purple Breakkie

Smoothies are definitely one of my top favourite foods right now. The perfect combo of the moment:

1 banana (blends all of the flavours together, consider this the base)
1.5 cup almond or soy milk (liquid! I'm off of regular milk at the moment)
1 cup frozen fruit (fruity flavour! makes the smoothie the perfect temperature without adding just plain ol' ice)
1 tablespoon peanut butter (texture, extra energy to get you through the morning)
a couple of handfuls of spinach (Popeye, need I say more?)
a spoonful of chia seeds (omega omega)

The frozen food aisle offers loads of options for frozen fruit. While I love strawberries, they often don't have much flavour when you buy them frozen. I'm a fan of blueberry, mixed berry or tropical fruit. In summer, when local fruit is cheap(er) and a-plenty, I would stuff those little ziploc baggies to the brim with fat, juicy blueberries and freeze them. Nothing beats a Canadian berry.

In late summer in Nunavut, you can find your momma and your aunties and every other woman you know out picking berries. Not just any berry, but paunga. Similar to a wild blueberry in shape and size, it's darker. It's got a tougher skin and goes *pop* in your mouth when you bite them:

This picture makes my mouth water.

You can expect purple fingers for a couple of days after eating these. Purple other stuff the next day as well. Because once you start, you can't stop. Luckily, Inuit are similar to Mediterraneans in one aspect: they don't want you to miss out on food. They will send these berries down to Hottawa with family members who are coming. Enough that it's impossible to eat all of them in one sitting. Trust me, I've tried. They freeze well though, and you can make a King Smoothie, the Paunga Smoothie:


I'm going to head to bed, so I can dream about berries (those with experience of berry picking know what I'm talking about) and wake up to make one of these babies. :)

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