AKA the longest smoothie name ever.

Okay, so maybe not ever.

If you’re in that “Omg, why is she posting about pumpkin already?!” camp, blame Allie @ ForgottenBeast. She started it. I know it feels like we’re rushing to October way faster than we should be. After all the complaining about the hot weather we had, it’s already back to 70° and raining tomorrow. See? Two obligatory weeks of summer. It’s kind of like a cruel joke. It’s just enough time to get a sweet sunburn and go revert to being a pasty pale beacon of light [j/k, I wear sunscreen religiously to promote my pasty paleness]. I didn’t even get a sweet flip flop tan this year.

So yeah, the smoothie. I kind of like coffee a lot. I don’t, however, like Starbucks. At all. With places like Spella, Courier, Ristretto, Extracto, Coava, Water Avenue, and Stumptown all within walking distance from almost anywhere I’m likely to be, why would you? That said, pumpkin spice lattes did make me happy when I was an ignorant teenager who didn’t know any better. Besides, if you load up that latte with so much sweetener and milk and pumpkin, you actually might drown out that gross burnt coffee flavor! Novel! In reality, I avoid most sweet coffee drinks in my old age. It’s usually a macchiato or Americano for me, unless I get wild with a cappuccino [thanks, Italy!]. Or drip, but that doesn’t count.

Smoothies though? Smoothies I can get crazy. So when Allie posted up her pumpkin spice latte pudding, I knew I’d picking up a can of pumpkin at the store. It’s actually hard to find when they aren’t throwing it in your face for pumpkin pie holidays. It was hiding on the bottom shelf with all the other canned fruit. Poor thing. While Allie used instant ground coffee, which I doubt I’ll ever have in the house, I soaked a 1/2 tablespoon of coffee grounds in the milk in the fridge for the night. Kind of like cold brewing. If you have a high powered blender, you don’t even notice it the next day. No straining necessary. You might have to strain it otherwise. I don’t really know for sure. It’s just a hint of coffee with an overwhelming taste of pumpkin. It thickened up quite a bit thanks to the natural consistency of pumpkin and the frozen banana.

And I added frozen spinach, as usual, so this looks exactly like every other green smoothie on the planet. Is it really all that post worthy? Debatable, but I like it, I like coffee, and I like that Roma photobombed the photos. Everybody wins.

Inspiration: ForgottenBeast

Ingredients

3/4 cup milk [coconut for me]

1/2 tablespoon ground coffee

1 tablespoon chia seeds

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 frozen banana

1-2 handfulls frozen spinach

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

4-8 drops of vanilla liquid stevia [or sweetener of choice]

water, if necessary, to thin to a drinkable consistency

Preparation