Product Review: Yonanas

Last Christmas, J bought me a Yonana. I have the regular version, which costs $49.99 on their website.

Yonanas is a product made by Dole – you know, they put out fruits and vegetables, etc. They also make Yonanas, which the website describes as “The healthy dessert maker”. I used to be addicted to ice cream. I ate a cupful nightly. I saw recipes for banana in a blender and I tried to make it, but it didn’t work out that great. J bought me Yonanas to try their one-ingredient ice cream.

Ingredients: Frozen banana.
That’s it.

So all you do is feed the frozen banana into the machine, and out pours a creamy substance with consistency similar to ice cream. But no cream, no ice. Just banana.

Even neater, you can add other frozen fruits and make different desserts. The Yonana came with a few recipes. Strawberries and bananas is a simple one. I liked it even better than the banana only!

The banana dessert alone is amazing, though. And so easy. I recommend peeling and cutting up the banana into a few pieces (I’ll do 4) before freezing. Just makes things even easier. Also, you are supposed to use a ripe banana.

I will warn though, cleaning a Yonana can be a little obnoxious. The machine breaks into several pieces so you can scrape out all the banana-y goodness; this also makes cleaning easier. You have to clean the pieces almost immediately because if creamy banana dries in all those nooks and crannies, it’s a major pain later.

These are the pieces you wash:

Regardless, I am in love with Yonanas and I still use it 6 months later. It’s small and easy to store. I like to use lots of bananas at once and put what I don’t eat in the freezer to save. That way I don’t have to clean the pieces of machine as often. (Cleaning really is the only complaint I have. I also dislike cleaning my blender.)

This is what one banana made, which looks small but it’s so creamy and rich it is a good amount:

Here’s 1 and a half bananas with 5 frozen strawberries, which was way too much to eat at one time:

I give Dole 5/5 stars for their Yonanas product, because the desserts made are healthy (as advertised) and delicious. Clean up takes time but that is expected, and clean up is made considerably easier by the parts that come apart. Also, as I mentioned, Yonanas is very easy to use. Love it!

 

*This post is not sponsored or promoted by Dole. I did not receive compensation for this post. All opinions are 100% my own.*

 

Recipe: Spinach smoothie

I have updated this post here.

I bought some spinach at the farmer’s market because I had the idea in my brain that I wanted to make some spinach smoothies. For a few reasons:

• I am experimenting with cutting out added sugar from my diet.
• I LOVE the thickness of yogurt and ice cream etc, sometimes the thickness is what I actually crave rather than the flavor, so I wanted to try smoothies.
• Spinach is a great source of vitamins (http://www.mamanatural.com/top-9-leafy-greens/ spinach ranked #4) so I thought I’d try the green smoothie route, rather than all fruit, because fruit has more sugar than spinach. Even though it’s not added or refined sugar, might as well give it a try!

These were my ingredients (listed below picture):

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
2 cups small leaf spinach (pictured: 4 cups)
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 TBSP peanut butter

I freeze the banana already cut up so it’s easier for me. The recipe I was using called for 4 cups of spinach, so that’s what I’d portioned out at first, but I decided to try just 2 because of this chart I found on pinterest: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ee/53/3f/ee533f99ff62af50d2cba06acf6202c1.jpg

I combined everything with spinach on top. Our blender is pretty old and weak, but to my surprise, it blended beautifully! I had to stop once to scrape some yogurt off the side before blending one final time. LOVELY!

This is how much it made:

Trying it out. The straw went away after this picture. It was a little thick for a straw, but not impossible.

Delicious! All gone! I didn’t taste the spinach at all. I tasted the banana and peanut butter more than anything, which I loved. It made 1 serving.

I won’t take the credit for creating this smoothie. Though I’m sure it’s pretty common, my inspiration was from this site. (Like I said, I changed it slightly.)

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Easy Breakfast for the Week: Baked Oatmeal

Every morning during the week I eat an apple and a piece of toast with peanut butter and honey. It keeps me full until my lunch break. But I wanted something more fun and different, so I made baked oatmeal.

The recipe I used is this one:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Baked-Oatmeal

and I strongly recommend it!!

I had a lot of oatmeal because I stopped eating it regularly, and this recipe uses 3 cups. YAY! Now it’s almost gone.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups oats (I used Old Fashioned Oats rather than Quick-Cooking; it worked fine)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 eggs (I used cage free)
• 1 cup milk (I used organic whole milk)
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• Pan greaser (I used olive oil spray)

Materials:

• Large bowl
• Medium bowl
• Big spoon
• Whisk
• 1 cup dry measuring cup
• 1 tsp measuring spoon
• Liquid measuring cup
• 9×9 square baking pan
• Dull knife to cut from pan after cooked

The directions are super simple – I wrote them out differently so it’s easy to read:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a large bowl, COMBINE DRY INGREDIENTS: oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. Melt butter. (I chopped up 1 stick (1/2 cup) and put it in a microwave safe bowl. Microwaved for a little under 1 minute and stirred.)
4. In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk and melted butter. Stir into oat mixture until blended.
5. Spoon into a greased 9-in. square baking pan. Bake 40-45 minutes or until set.
6. (Serve warm with milk.) Yield: 9 servings.

I forgot to grease the pan until the mixture was in the pan, so I had to dump it BACK into the bowl, wipe out the pan, spray the oil, and then re-empty the bowl into the baking pan. Whoops! (I’m still new at this baking thing. At least I remembered in the end – what a nightmare that would have been!)

I cooked for about 43 minutes before checking, and it looked done, so I took it out and let it cool. I ate a couple of pieces warm, and a piece this morning after refrigerating and did NOT heat it up – it was still delicious cold!

As you can see I have already enjoyed 3 pieces. I found it difficult to cut into 9 pieces; I did 12 (3×4) instead. They are good sized.

This morning’s piece! Mmmm! APPROVED. I’ll probably eat this for dessert some days too. I’ll try to update again with how long I stay full!