We foodies are a tight-knit community; we learn from each other, encourage each other, and score tons of great recipes from each other, too! This is why I get excited about fun events like Smoothie Week 2014 on the Williams-Sonoma website! I want more smoothies in my breakfast arsenal, and I can hardly wait to see the new recipes that will be featured during this week over on the site.

I have several go-to smoothies, like my kids’ favorite, The Purple Cow, but recently I wanted a special one for fall, my favorite season!

So, for those of you who, like me, truly love the flavor of the gorgeous orb of a squash called the pumpkin, who like it in things other than just a pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread, I offer you this unique concoction: the pumpkin smoothie.

It’s really fitting that we should make and enjoy a cold pumpkin smoothie here in East Texas; while other areas of the U.S. are having cold weather already, we East Texans often have 80-degree weather during fall months. I’m not happy about that, but enjoying a cold drink that has the delicious flavors of fall makes me feel a bit better.

This recipe is one that I tweaked after seeing several others and, upon trying them, found them unsatisfactory. I wanted the drink to taste like pumpkin, yes,  but I also wanted it to be sweet enough to be enjoyable, and other recipes were not giving me that. They were too much like drinking a vegetable. I’m just not that kind of girl. 😉

The pumpkin in this drink will give you a nice dose of vitamin A (254% RDA!), and the healthfulness of the rest of the ingredients are up to you: skim milk, whole milk, or soy milk? Fat free yogurt or regular? I’ll let you play with it and decide how you enjoy it most.

I also suggest that you use a good blender to make your smoothies; I used to have a rather poorly-made blender and it just wouldn’t chop up the chunks of ice or frozen banana. Now I have a shiny stainless blender with a powerful motor and a roomy glass jar; no more issues! (Take a look at their gorgeous blender selection at Williams-Sonoma! Everything there is well made and useful in your kitchen. Maybe add something from their site to your holiday list! You deserve good tools in your kitchen.)

Here’s what I did:

Mama Steph’s Pumpkin Smoothie

• 1/3 cup canned or homemade pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
• 2/3 cup milk (I used light vanilla soymilk)
• 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 TBS Splenda (or whatever sweetener you prefer, to taste)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 ice cubes – I also think frozen coffee cubes would be fabulous

Place all ingredients in blender, and blend until the smoothie is…well…smooth.

Taste before you pour it in glass to see if you need to add anything else to make it YOUR favorite concoction; you could even add some vanilla coffee syrup, or caramel syrup, perhaps. Delicious!

Another idea is to add half a scoop of vanilla protein powder if you are trying to incorporate more protein into your diet and don’t want it all to come from meat.

Use this basic recipe as a jumping off point to create your own favorite cold pumpkin drink. I’d love to hear how you made yours afterward!

Related: You might also like my Pumpkin Blondies or my borderline ridiculous Quik frozen banana-coffee smoothie. So good!

Now, check out the list below and make sure you add some of these things to your own list this fall:

Happy fall, my friends! Enjoy!

Copyright 2014 Stephanie Hill Frazier. All rights reserved.