Peanut Butter Power Smoothie

How does the combination of bananas, peanut butter, cashews, and cocoa sound to you? With this protein rich, energizing smoothie, filled with vitamins and minerals, you can be sure to ignite your superpowers for the day while indulging in this smooth deliciousness. The perfect start into the day or an ideal pick-me-up in the afternoon. Easy to make and ready in five minutes. So yummy!

You will need:

• a high speed blender

Ingredients:

(For 2 large or 4 smaller smoothies)

• 1/2 cup (65 g) raw, unsalted cashews, soaked for a few hours, drained
• 2 cups (480 ml) water
• 1/4 cup unsweetened peanut butter
• 3 ripe bananas (I used frozen ones)
• 1 Tbsp maca powder
• 2 Tbsp ground flax seed
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp cacao nibs
• more cinnamon or cocoa to sprinkle on top

Preparation:

Place all but the last 2 ingredients into your blender, and blend at high speed until smooth.

If you don’t feel like adding cocoa, it will be delicious already and look like this when sprinkled with cinnamon and cacao nibs:

Looks good already, doesn’t it? But if you would like to add some chocolate flavor, here it comes:

Pour about half of the smoothie mixture into glasses, then add cocoa powder to the remaining half in the container. Quickly blend again, then distribute evenly to your glasses. This is how it looks like topped with cocoa and cacao nibs, but ….. without the swirl:

So just use a spoon and give it a little stir. Top off with some more cocoa powder and a good sprinkle of cacao nibs, which will add just the right amount of crunch.

Of course you could make a swirl-less peanut butter chocolate smoothie as well. In that case, just throw all the smoothie ingredients, except for the cacao nibs, into your blender and blend until smooth. You might want to add another tablespoon or two of cocoa powder. Sprinkle with more cocoa and cacao nibs, and it will look like this:

Notes:

• I like to peel, cut, and freeze my ripe (past beautiful) bananas for later use in banana bread, smoothies, or whatever recipe calls for ripe bananas. It’s a good way to use them up and usually, when you need ripe bananas, you only find green ones.
• Another advantage of using frozen bananas is that your smoothie stays cold for a while.
• If you don’t have frozen bananas but still want your smoothie cold, just substitute ice cubes for the water. That’ll do the trick too 😉
• If you have a very sweet tooth, you could add a couple pitted dates to your blender. For my and my husband’s taste, the sweetness was just right.