On summer breakfast smoothies

What's the coolest thing about the Nordic summertime? All the berries you can find! The season starts with strawberries, soon thereafter you have raspberries, gooseberries, black and red currants, cloudberries, cherries, blueberries, a bit later also lingonberries and cranberries, just to name the more popular ones.

And with the hot days, you likely want a chillingly refreshing breakfast than hot options. So, I've been doing for the past weeks' different breakfast smoothies with berries for breakfast. You can be really creative about what to mix together. I would divide the ingredients into the following groups:

Berries

Any berries that are in the season and you can find! I've been mostly using strawberries and once they came to end, carried on with blueberries, which were next in the season. I also tried with cherries - but be careful – you should remove all the stones from cherries before, and that's quite a hassle. So, anything without small stones could be a good fit. If you are living in more tropical areas, mangos are good, as they have big clear seeds, but for example, watermelon could be way more tricky.  Usually, over 50% of stuff going to my blender belong to this berry/fruit group.

Base boost

The first weeks I was using rye flakes, the last days I've been using oat flakes. But you could also use kama flour or why not chia seeds if you have those.

Milky whites

There are quite some options here. On some days I used natural yoghurt. I have also used kefir. Also some days I used a package of curd/cream cheese + milk. If you are into soy products, soy milk would belong here. Or coconut milk for a tropical flavour.

Spicy punch

If possible, I'm always adding cinnamon to my breakfast mixes and these smoothies is no exception here. Put plenty of it. Also, a bit of cardamom is very nice. And as it's summertime and I've had access to fresh mint from the garden I'm also usually adding ca 10 fresh mint leaves. And leave one extra leaf for decoration - as you can see on my cover picture (one of the smoothies I made, this one was with blueberries), this can have a lovely decorative value as well.

A word of warning: while smoothies are super delicious, try to drink them slowly - due to being blended, they are more quickly getting used in your tummy for energy. So, to avoid a quick spike in your blood sugar levels,  grab the fresh newspaper of the day or the book you are currently reading and enjoy your big delicious smoothie cup or tumbler over a nice half-hour experience.