Food
Big Eat // Breakfast Smoothie
29/08/14
Big Eat – Breakfast Smoothie
There’s one big subject occupying my mind at the moment. Ask me how much I’m getting, how good it is, what positions I've had it in lately, and I’ll tell you all about it. That’s right, S…no, not that, you dirty so and sos - that’s what got me into this mess - I’m talking about SLEEP. Because, thanks to the smallest member of the Pickard household, there ain't a whole lot of it happening around these parts at the moment.
If you ever find yourself lost for conversation with the owner of a small child, fear not! Just mention the S word and chances are you won’t be able to shut them up. Mention it to co-owners of a small child and you’ll probably be able to exile yourself from the conversation all together, as a full-scale row will most likely ensue, through gritted teeth and fake smiles, over who got up more times the night before (me, always me). In the early days with a newborn, you come to realise why sleep-deprivation is used as a method of torture. You resent anyone around you who looks well rested. You resent your child, for whom it is socially acceptable to go to bed at 2pm. You resent your former self, for not realising how bloody good they had it. Above all else, you resent your partner, who apparently becomes very deaf at night and doesn't hear the baby whimpering. Everything goes on around you in a sleepy fug; you can’t hold a proper conversation, you forget what day, or even month it is, you accidentally fill the cat’s bowl with cereal and leave the house with shoes that don't match. I read somewhere that after three nights on less than six hours’ sleep, you are considered cognitively drunk, in which case I've effectively been shitfaced since December. But, at the end of the day, babies are pretty awesome, even if they don’t function according to office hours, so you do what you need to do to get yourself through. For me, that seems to mean eating the entire contents of my kitchen on a daily basis. From the very first days, where every surface in my hospital room was entirely covered in snacks, to the night time feeds, with a trusty companion of Mini Cheddars on my bedside table, food has been my BFF throughout.
With that in mind, I was tempted to make this month’s recipe a homage to the foodstuff that has contributed the most to keeping me alive these last 8 months - the humble biscuit. God I love those sugary little buggers. But since my child started eating solids, I no longer have breast feeding as a calorie-burning golden ticket to eating whatever the hell I like, and with his increasing interest in what I'm scoffing, I fear that I may soon have to consume all junk food with my head in a cupboard. So, instead, I thought it best to focus on something a little more restorative; a tonic for prolonged energy and general well-being, that doesn't depend on caffeine or amphetamines. Several years ago, I used to work as a chef in a small juice bar. When I arrived at 8am (which, at the time, I thought was offensively early), looking grey-skinned and blurry-eyed, my boss would present me with something very similar to this breakfast smoothie and it would do a decent job of returning me to a vaguely human state.
It is full of lovely energy promoting ingredients such as oats, nuts and bananas, and I've also added trendy super-food: chia seeds, which purportedly are so healthy they can turn you into a Greek Adonis, restore world peace and solve the national debt just with one sip. Being a drink, it also has the added benefit that it can be consumed one handed, won't go cold, and is of very little interest to your small, nosy child.
Breakfast smoothie (serves 2)
2 cups milk
4tbsp natural yoghurt
Runny honey, to taste (I used 2 tsp, but depends how sweet you like it)
1 cup fruit and nut muesli
1 banana
4 dates
2 tsp chia seeds (optional)
Blitz all the ingredients together in a blender. For maximum social networking points, serve in a Kilner jar, with a monochrome straw.