One of my favorite things about traveling is all of the fresh fruit, freshly squeezed juices, and freshly blended smoothies! Costa Rica is a lush paradise where tropical fruit thrives: pineapples, bananas, mangos, maracuyás, guayabas, coconut, cas, etc. Making these easy, super-healthy batidos (smoothies) at home brings a little bit of Costa Rica to your kitchen.
Before starting, grab your world map and find the tiny, peaceful Central American country of Costa Rica. A little over 4.5 million “ticos” (the nickname used to refer to Costa Ricans) live in this beautiful, lush country. Costa Rica is famous for rainforests and volcanic mountains that host its abundant biodiversity in plants, animals, insects, and amphibians. Because of the verdant land, tropical fruits are plentiful. For these batidos, you will need some ripe tropical fruit, sweetened condensed milk (or sugar), milk, and some ice.
The word “batido” comes from the Spanish verb “batir,” which means “to beat or whip,” and to make them you will need to get out your blender.
Add equal parts milk, fruit, and ice (ice is optional), and enough sweetened condensed milk (or sugar) to taste. It is typical to make batidos out of any solo fruits or a combination of these: papaya, mango, guayava, maracuyás (passion fruits), bananas, mamey, pineapple, or berries.
Many times, different seasons will bring different tropical fruit to your local supermarket. If you do not have tropical fruits available to you, or they are out of season, look for Goya-brand “fruta pulp” in the frozen section. In these ready-for-batido-packages, we have found our favorite mamey (delicious, sweet fruit- to me it tastes like a cross between a sweet potato, a strawberry and a pear), passion fruit (maracuyá), mango, papaya, coconut, guava, and more!
What do you think? I love to hear from my readers:).