Recipe excerpt from:
A Sweet Year
by Joan Nathan

To show how the times change, when I first went to Palm Springs, in the early 2000s, I discovered a date shake, something I hadn’t ever tasted on the East Coast. Of course, I knew shakes but not date shakes. Today there is every kind of sweet and savory shake for breakfast and throughout the day. Clio, my editor Lexy’s daughter, is a huge fan of date, tahini, and banana shakes, as are my grandchildren.

This is a great milk drink for Shavuot or a healthy vegan snack at any time of the year. It is also a wonderful way to use up the overripe bananas; peel them, then throw them in the freezer.

Makes 4 shakes

Ingredients

• 2 whole bananas, fresh or frozen
• 4 medjool dates, pitted, and chopped a bit if too big
• ¼ cup tahini
• 1 to 2 cups ice cubes
• 1½ cups unsweetened almond or regular milk
• ¼ teaspoon plus 4 pinches of ground cinnamon

Equipment

• Knife
• Blender
• 4 glasses

Child with Adult: Cut the bananas in four pieces, and throw them into the blender with the dates (making sure to remove the pits), tahini, 1 cup of the ice cubes, the almond or regular milk, and the ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon. Turn the blender on, and purée until the shake is smooth and creamy. Add more ice if you want it less creamy.

Child: Pour the shake into four glasses and top each with a pinch of additional cinnamon.

Note: When the banana peels start to brown, I peel the bananas and throw them into containers in the freezer, so I always have them ready for shakes, pancakes (page 106), or banana bread.

From A Sweet Year by Joan Nathan. Copyright © 2024 by Joan Nathan. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.