Smoothie: Cherry Vanilla Oatmeal

My month of smoothies starts with a make-ahead oatmeal-based smoothie: Cherry Vanilla Oatmeal

My goal is to follow the recipes as published and, for the most part, I did on this one. I had to make some minor substitutions: instead of cherry juice, I used a pomegranate-cherry blend; for skim milk, I used Coconut Dream; and I never have low fat yogurt in the house so regular went into the mix. I don’t have vanilla bean paste but the recipe offered the option of vanilla extract so I used that. It said honey was optional so I opted to add it. All measurements and directions were otherwise followed.

A typical smoothie for me is 16-20 oz. I realize that this is a large serving — or enough for two smoothies in some houses — but I love breakfast and need breakfast to keep me full until close to noon — a breakfast I consume before 7 am. When I carefully measured and blended this one out yesterday, I saw the first problem: it’s only 12 oz.

Before that, though, I had other issues. First, the 1/2 cup of dried cherries was almost an entire bag — a LOT — and second, I do not recommend blending dried fruit without soaking it first! It was as if I’d thrown rocks into my blender.

This morning, Mike asked, “What’s the brown stuff in the mason jar?”

“That’s my smoothie,” I replied.

It was the colour of whole wheat bread dough but runny and cold.

He made a sound somewhere between “Eww” and “uugh.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”

OK…. so how did it taste? Quite frankly, rather awful.

As much time as it spent in the blender, I was still left with chunks of cherries which had at least softened overnight. At least I have some bubble tea straws to make drinking a bit easier. Worse, the combo of ingredients really don’t play well together — I could taste all of the components instead of a blended whole. And the kicker? After finishing it, I’m still quite hungry.