Fig season, short and sweet though it is in my part of the Mediterranean, warrants something special. This easy, healthy fig smoothie laced with cinnamon and bulked out with oats and Greek yoghurt sure is breakfast in a glass.
Apparently, so Red Bistro’s Facebook followers told me, figs in Malta this year are somewhat elusive. They’ve had, as my relatives in their wonderful Hampshire burr would say ‘the blight’ (with the ‘i’ sounding more like the ‘o’ in ‘blow’). I wondered why I had seen so few around.
On Tuesday night this week though, just an hour after I’d pondered the second fig season in Malta – we’ve both early and late summer crops – our former babysitter (cum garden waterer and cat sitter!) rang to see if she could pop round with a basket of figs.
Joy of joys! Figs are my absolute favourite Mediterranean fruit. While I can miss out on watermelons, despite their amazing thirst-quenching properties, I hate to miss out on fig season. Joyce, true to her word, rang the bell 10 minutes later bearing as many figs as she could spare.
They seemed blight free if somewhat ripe. No time to lose then in making them into something once I’d eaten a couple straight out of the container. Come next morning, just before the sun rose over our garden wall, I whipped them up into this delectable smoothie, feeling virtuous about my healthy summer breakfast. I sat in the still quiet of the still cool garden, thinking how lucky I was to start my day like this.
Jacob loved it too. Should I chance upon more blight-free figs in these last weeks of summer, I’ll buy them up and freeze to ensure we’ve a good stock for autumn-into-winter breakfast smoothies. I really didn’t need more to eat after a glass of this. I know figs are expensive in the UK, and probably across Northern Europe, but one large fig is enough and as said, a glass of this keeps you more than going til lunch.
All images © Liz Ayling 2014
- 1 large or two smaller, ripe figs
- 200ml orange juice (or apple if you prefer)
- 3 dessertspoons porridge oats
- 3 rounded dessertspoons Greek, or similarly thick, plain yoghurt
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- three ice cubes
- Wash and pat dry the figs and then chop roughly. Reserve a little to top the smoothie.
- Place all ingredients in an electric blender / liquidiser. If using ice cubes, ensure you start blending on the ‘ice cube’ setting. Blend thoroughly moving through settings to mouli and then milkshake setting, if your machine has those. If not, perhaps omit the ice cubes (note they may damage a plastic bowl blender) and add a little water instead to thin the smoothie, and add an ice cube whole at the end when serving, especially if having this in summer months.
- To serve, top with a teaspoon of the yoghurt, some more ground cinnamon and chopped fig.
I am not a fan of figs, but my goodness this looks so delicious. I might just have to buy some figs to try it. I hope your kitchen renovations are progressing well Lisa.