Hawaii in smoothie form. My version of a tropical smoothie from my favorite coffee shop in Kauai. So tasty and refreshing.

It’s about this time of year I get a major craving to head west for a few hours and land in Hawaii. Okay soooo maybe I crave that year round. So I try to help curb those cravings with my favorite tropical smoothie.

There is this coffee shop in Kauai called Java Kai. It has the BEST coffee ever. Kona Coffee. The world’s best coffee IMO.  I am not much of a foo-foo coffee drinker, you will never see me ordering triple venti grande caramel latte mocha with extra shots of syrup from Starbucks anytime soon. But when I am in Kauai I high tail it to Java Kai for two reasons. This smoothie, the Hula Hula smoothie, and this INSANE frozen coconut mocha they make, the Maui Mocha.  Just typing this is making me want to go so bad just for the coffee. Well that and to sink my toes in that sand. Ahhhh Hawaii…

We ordered a couple different smoothies off the menu last time we were there and my younger daughter ( we will call her K 2) was a little over 1 years old and full on smoothie thief, wanted a sip of the Hula Hula smoothie, so I let her have some and she sucked down like half of it!! Rather quickly too! And they make it with a lot of ginger so I was surprised she loved it as much as she did, but shes a pretty adventurous eater so I really wasn’t too terribly surprised. I was more surprised she loved it so much because I really didn’t want to share with her so I could have it all to myself. ha ha. But she’s so dang cute she gets away with being a smoothie thief.  We were there almost every day on our last trip just for these two drinks.  They are just that good. I may have to try to recreate the Maui Mocha one of these days too.

Now you are probably wondering at this point why all of a sudden the blue background. Well I had originally planned to use the blue for this post. In fact my 4 year old daughter ( she is known as K 1 since both kids have K names) wanted to help me paint. So she painted this board for me. She helped mix the paint and actually did a good job. Even painted in some texture with getting grass on the board and thinking it was fun to paint the grass….   Well I was halfway through taking pics when I remembered I had left the boards outside to dry and forgotten I had wanted to use for the post. Also the light had shifted mid-shoot so the blue background pics were taken in a different spot, different light direction etc. I like how both styles turned out, so I am using both. My husband said he liked the blue, reminds him of the ocean. Which is were I would like to be right now, smoothie in hand, feet in in the ocean in Kauai.  At least for now I can pretend I am in Hawaii with this smoothie.

Yield: 2

Hula Hula Tropical Smoothie

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Hula Hula Tropical Smoothie Serves 2

Prep Time 10 minutes

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 can full fat coconut milk
• 1-2 bananas
• 1 c pineapple chunks
• ½ cup pineapple juice
• 1-2 tsp freshly grated ginger
• Ice 1-2 cups
• Toasted shredded unsweetened coconut for garnish

Instructions

Pour the coconut milk and pineapple juice into the blender. Add one banana, the pineapple chunks and juice and 1 tsp of the ginger and 1 cup ice. Blend well. Taste add more banana or ginger if desired or more ice for a thicker smoothie. Divide between two glasses and top with the toasted coconut. Drink up!!

Notes

I use frozen banana and frozen pineapple so the smoothie is thicker without having to add too much ice and water down the flavor. The ginger can be quite strong if you're not used to it so start with 1 tsp and add more if you are more adventurous!

Hawaii in smoothie form. Complete with dancing hula dolls. Those are a must when drinking this smoothie.