Spring is definitely back there in Paris, and there are even some summer vibes these last days. Yesterday I made some shopping and brought tons of tops, shorts and sandals to be ready for my next travel. Cause yes, I am currently planning a road trip to West USA and I am so excited about that! During two weeks we will travel in the famous National Parks (Joshua, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Zion, Yosemite, Dead Valley) and discover the legendary cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. I really look forward to walk along LA streets and discover all these scenic places. I also plan to try as much vegan food places as possible (or as my belly can accept), so if you have some good plans for healthy, tasty vegan food in LA or SF, please let me know in comments!

But lets come back to this morning breakfast. As you have understood, I was really in a summer tropical mood when I woke up, and I was looking for something quite light after the delicious but nourishing brownie of yesterday (the recipe is available on previous post). What better than a tropical smoothie to fill my cravings? This layer smoothie is the result of an unleashed shopping at the fruit merchant: I literally bought one of each tropical fruit kind (unless the cinnamon apple, I keep this one for the next time), some of them I have never eaten. So I found myself with mangoes, pineapple, pitaya, carambole, mangoustan, anone and the queen banana.

I made this smoothie by simply blending different fruits together, nothing more simple and easy to do, nothing to prepare or to bake, just let your imagination run free. Oh yes, « nearly » nothing to bake, because I am an unconditional granola lover and I never loose an opportunity to sprinkle some magic gold nuggets onto my breakfast. So I prepared a simple but always effective tropical granola by adding dried mango and coconut into my regular granola recipe. 

The final result is just perfect, an explosion of foreign flavors in a fresh and healthy smoothie with a little crunchy brought by the granola. I was particularly amazed by my first anone fruit experience: it is an amazing fruit with a firm but a little creamy texture in mouth, and with a taste between mango and pineapple – doesn’t it sound like perfect fruit? I think that next time I will try to make nicecream with it; have you ever tried? 

TROPICAL SMOOTHIE W/ GRANOLA

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Serves: 2 jars

INGREDIENTS:

For the Granola :

– 10g sunflower seeds
– 15g chopped almonds
– 20g chopped cashews
– 10g puffed quinoa
– 10g shredded coconut
– 10g dried mango
– 1 tsp ginger
– 1 tsp cardamom
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 2 drops coconut flavour
– 1 pitted Medjool date
– 50ml water

For the Smoothie :

Pink layer

– 1/2 red pitaya
– 60g frozen cherries
– 1 frozen banana
– 1 tsp acai powder

Yellow layer

– 2 ripe mangoes
– 1/2 pineapple (about 250g)
– 50g coconut yogurt

Toppings

– Pitaya and anon
– Pineapple slices
– Sliced Carambole
– Banana stars
– Coconut chips

INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare the granola

1. Preheat your oven at 150°C.
2. In a bowl, combine the sunflower seeds, puffed quinoa, chopped almonds, chopped cashews, shredded coconut, pitted dried mango and spices.
3. In a high speed blender, blend the date with the water, vanilla extract and coconut flavor. You can add more date if you want the granola sweeter.
4. Add the wet mixture into the bowl and stir roughly with your hands until everything is well coated. You might obtain a very wet mixture for a granola, but don’t worry about that, it will dry during baking.
5. Spread the mixture on a lined tray, trying to form big chunks. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. Then, let cool completely until your granola becomes totally dry (it can take about 15-20 minutes).

Prepare the smoothie

1. Start by the pink layer. Blend together half a pitaya with the frozen cherries and frozen banana. Add the acai powder and blend again.
2. Divide this mixture into 2 jars or tall glasses.
3. Prepare the yellow layer by simply blending the pineapple with the mangoes and coconut yogurt.
4. Gently put this mixture onto the pink layer, being careful not to mix the two layers.
5. Top your smoothie with granola, coconut chips, coquitos, pitaya balls and any other tropical fruit you could find!