Last weekend I went to visit my brother and his wife in Hampshire. We spent a sunny Saturday at the allotment getting the plot ready for their first crops and looking at creepy crawlies!

After a well deserved lie-in on the Sunday morning I woke to find my sister-in-law Em and her brother Jack in the kitchen making us all a big batch of blueberry pancakes.

They were really scrummy and made with blueberries and cornmeal they were superfoodtastic! Em used this recipe from Martha Stewart but made it even more exciting by laying out a great selection of toppings. We had maple syrup, honey, almonds, bananas, walnuts and seeds to choose from.

This weekend I’ve gone smoothie mad! Smoothies have always ended up being a bit of a fad for me as I’ve tried a few times to have one a day but I often end up finding that the effort involved in cleaning the juicer/blender/jug/processor always outweighed the yumminess of the end result.

This new wave of smoothie love started off badly with my 10 year old hand blender dying a death. With a sliced banana in one hand I hurled it into my housemate’s blender and haven’t looked back. It even has a smoothie setting and completely purees an orange in seconds. It’s easy to clean too, I just whizz up some hot water and a smidge of washing up liquid and then rinse it – hoorah!

This morning’s smoothie was really simple and made enough for 2 large glasses:

Blend 2 peeled oranges with 2 peeled bananas until smooth. Pour into tall glasses and top each one with all the innards of half a passion fruit!

Other smoothie combos I’m gluzzling at the moment:

• Orange, banana, pear, fresh ginger, pinch of spirulina
• Orange, carrot, ginger

To keep up my smoothie-enthusiasm I need to get experimenting, next up I’m thinking cucumber, mint, apple and limes. Maybe some herbs too; strawberries, lemon, basil and black pepper might be nice in the summer…would love to hear some of your suggestions or your trusted favourite smoothie combos. x