Sunrise Sweet Potato Smoothie

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In all the boo-hooing I did about the garden failures we had this year, I neglected to talk much about the few bright spots we had. Holy Negative Nancy, Batman! So let’s talk about one of those bright spots—sweet potatoes!

This was our first year growing sweet potatoes, and we didn’t expect much, because the sweet potato slips we ordered didn’t look so hot upon arrival. But we got them in the ground, gave them lots of organic fertilizer (this is what we usually use) and water, and the plants exploded! They took over so much space! You typically wait until the plants die back to harvest sweet potatoes, but we were getting impatient to see what was happening below ground, so we dug a plant up a few weeks back and were greeted with lots of huge, bright orange sweet potatoes. They weren’t going to win any beauty contests, but we were still super excited!

We let out a little “yip” of excitement, and rushed inside to cut into our beautiful orange root veggies. They were bright, beautiful, healthy, and super, dooper tasty! We decided right then and there that we will always grow sweet potatoes. Other than that initial burst of fertilizer, we really neglected our sweet potato vines, and they still produced us a really nice crop. We’re fans!

Now that the sweet potato vines are starting to die back, we’re harvesting them, and, well, eating them on a regular basis! I’ve been using sweet potatoes almost everyday in some sort of fun concoction. I admit, you probably will see quite the influx of sweet potato recipes headed your way over the next few weeks. Don’t mind me, I’m just basking in the glow of one of the few successes from the 2015 gardening season. You gotta take your victories where you can get ’em, you know?

I think this smoothie is a particularly interesting way to use up sweet potatoes. If you have a high-powered blender (more about that in this post), you might be tempted to throw in a sweet potato raw into your smoothie and go to town. And that’s fine, raw sweet potatoes are perfectly edible. But to get the most nutrition and flavor out of sweet potatoes, they need to be cooked.

I actually like to roast some sweet potatoes on my food prep days and stash them in the fridge. That way I have them ready for breakfast bowls or smoothies anytime I want! Enjoy.

Sweet Potato Sunrise Smoothie

Yield: 1 large smoothie

Prep Time: 3 minutes

Total Time: 3 minutes

This Sweet Potato Smoothie tastes like a pie in a glass—and it's perfectly healthy enough to have for breakfast!

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Ingredients

• 1 ripe banana
• 1 cup roasted sweet potato (either chunks or puree is fine)
• 0-1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 cup unsweetened milk (animal, nut, soy, whatever!)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Dash of cinnamon
• Handful of ice cubes

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients in the basin of a blender—sweeten to taste depending on the ripeness of your banana. Blend on high until very smooth and creamy. Pour and enjoy!