Going Bananas!

 

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for all your awesome trip ideas. This really helps get the ideas rolling and as soon as we pick a destination I will let you know!

I also wanted to remind you to check out my new Races page. Here you will see what I have in store for my feet this coming year. I am excited because this calendar gives me something to work toward. I work so much better with a plan and have noticed that I am more focused and on track with my running when I have a specific race to train for.

Do  you find that you train better with a planned race calendar? Or do you find excitement by winging it and signing up for a spur of the moment race?

To start my morning off right I packed my bag for my date with the Will Run For Wine group. I missed our run on Wednesday and am feeling kind of anxious. And with a full calendar of races to look forward to, I am ready to run!

On to breakfast since the Linz was S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G this morning, kickboxing last night must have taken it out of me. Whew! 😉  

So we are going to call this a mini fruity friday. (Sorry Aneta, these guys were staring me down yesterday).  These sweet little red bananas ended up in my basket yesterday and I knew they were going to be amazing and delicious. I have seen mini bananas, but never red ones. And no, they are not rotting or over ripe, they are actually called Red Bananas.

These little guys originate in Costa Rica. And are supposed to be just as good if not better than the more conventional yellow one. So leave it to The Linz to put it to the test.

So mini. So cute. I’m a sucker for cute fruit. 🙂

In researching red banana recipes I stumbled across this one for a Red Banana Coffee Shake. I was thinking of doing something more exotic like fried bananas, (which I definitely want to try sometime), but this sounded like such a great combo. It was screaming breakfast + my morning coffee. Ahh… can’t beat that!

Red Banana Coffee Shake

1 medium banana or 3 small yellow or red bananas
1 cup strong coffee espresso
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt Greek Yogurt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar 2 1/2 tablespoons Blue Agave Nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ice cubes

Okay so as you can see I changed up the recipe to fit what I had. I also wanted to experiment a little.

I actually got the Blue Agave Nectar for Christmas and hadn’t gotten to try it out yet. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out. Check out this link on all the benefits and ways to substitute agave nectar for sugar.

As you noticed I used Greek Yogurt instead of regular plain yogurt. I felt that my shake may be missing the normal protein punch so I went this route to pump it up.

And now onto the sweet mini banana. Bananas –  B – A -N-A-N-A-S!! (I sing the Gwen Stephani song to help me spell banana, it works and it’s fun!)

 This little guy really rocked! Very banana-y but a bit sweeter. I had a bite of a regular to banana for comparison. The red banana is firmer and actually darker yellow and has bit more tart. But yum!

Once I mixed all of my ingredients into my smoothie blaster blender I was eager to try out this concoction. First try it was a little strong on the coffee taste, perhaps because I used espresso instead? So I added in a half  a regular banana (I had used all the red at this point) and a half teaspoon more of agave nectar. That seemed to do the trick. It’s still pretty coffee strong, but creamy and delicious. I would definitely drink this again.

As I said, breakfast + caffeine = one less step in my day! YAY!

 

TGIF Bloggy Friends!

Hope you enjoyed the mini fruity friday teaser, but just so you know Aneta and I will be back next week with a true Fruity Friday, well maybe Fruity Wednesday the lucky duck is leaving for Cuba on thursday. Anywho, happy running!