As anyone who reads the Patricia Bech Travel Notes will know, I usually blog about travelling. Although, during lockdown and the Coronavirus crisis, it has obviously been a little bit more difficult than usual to just write about travel. It has started me thinking about other types of content that I can talk about. I don’t like to stray from travel often, but occasionally it is nice to write about something else.
I have been taking little snippets of nature videos to keep my YouTube channel going during this unusual period and my last video was all about blackberries! I was out on a walk in the countryside and I just couldn’t help but pick a few. They are so tasty! Then, I decided to take some pictures and make a mini-video about them because they are such a great sign that autumn has arrived in the UK.
It got me thinking about all the nice things that you can make with blackberries. I really like the idea of using natural ingredients for food and you can’t get much more natural than picking berries from a bush on a walk.
With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to share a recipe for a blackberry smoothie on the Patricia Bech Travel Notes. I suppose this is not entirely unrelated to travel as blackberries are big party of the UK scenery in some places in Autumn. So there is a some kind of link!!
Blackberry breakfast smoothie
Serves: 2 (makes 600ml)
Ingredients
2 medium bananas, sliced
400ml almond milk
2 tsp chia seeds
1 heaped tbsp porridge oats
150g blackberries
4 ice cubes
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup (optional)
Method
1. At least 2 hours ahead, or preferably the night before, put the sliced bananas in a plastic food bag, seal and freeze. When frozen, put the almond milk in an upright blender and stir in the chia seeds and oats. Leave to swell for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, including the banana, and whizz for 60 seconds, until smooth and thick. Divide between 2 glasses and drink straightaway.