Cantaloupe Smoothie

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats well on less than $10/day.

Cantaloupe are tricky fruits. They have a short shelf life. It's easy to get a less than great one. And then, well, you've got so much of it. Sure, it's still good for you and low-calorie and all that, but wouldn't it be nice if it tasted great too.

Cue the almond milk and a nice ripe banana.

Why did I have almond milk (Aldi sells it; who knew) on hand? Because of some experimentation with cold summer oatmeal (but more on that later). And after my oatmeal experimentation, I had plenty of almond milk left. Abundance of almond milk meet abundance of mediocre cantaloupe. Ah, symbiosis.

I froze my cantaloupe. To do so, I cut it into inch-size pieces and put it on parchment paper on a cookie sheet in the freezer for several hours. Then I threw the cubes of cantaloupe in a freezer bag. You'll want the parchment paper; otherwise it will stick to your pan and you'll wind up hacking away at it with a metal spatula and ruining your pan and a' cussin' away; or a' bitin' your lip and wishing you could cuss away. So, yes, parchment paper.

My first round of smoothie was made with just frozen cantaloupe and almond milk. It was a bit icy. I liked it well enough, but the peanut gallery wanted something smoother. Enter the ripe banana. There's nothing better than a nice ripe banana to smooth things out. I was worried it would taste like all banana, but it didn't.

Would regular milk work instead of almond? I believe it would, though you might need to sweeten it just a tinge with a teaspoon or a few of sugar, but taste it first because that banana sweetness goes a long way.

Oh, and today when I made another batch, I may or may not have thrown in a few tablespoons of whipped cream (I had to; it would have gone bad on our trip). I didn't mind that one little bit, no I didn't.

Cantaloupe Smoothie
Serves 2-4, depending how piggy you are
Prep time: 3 minutes (after your cantaloupe is frozen)
Cost: $1.85
(cantaloupe: 1.00, almond milk: .70, banana: .15)

2 C frozen cantaloupe
2 C almond milk
1 ripe banana

Puree together till smooth. If your cantaloupe is really a super dud, you may want to add a tablespoon of sugar.

PRINTABLE RECIPE