Malavika's Energising Breakfast Smoothie

Malavika Manay was our beloved baby at Harper's Bazaar. As fashion assistant/stylist she styled a fair number of shoots, carried armloads of clothes, towers of parcels, sourced accessories, and changed perhaps a 100 or so outfits on a mannequin in a day for product pages. That said, she is hardly a pushover, in fact, she gives it as good as she gets. Politely of course. Over the last year she's transformed from being a girl who'd eat pizza and kebabs everyday for lunch, to a smoothie-and-salad-loving flower child. She now manages Greenr, the amazing vegan restaurant in Shahpur Jat, Delhi, and her new life suits her. She looks happier, more radiant and at peace with herself. Of course Mals is still a bit of a brat - she was supposed to give me three smoothie recipes but I could only extract one. But this one is well worth it. It's packed with a lot of natural sugars so its perfect for  breakfast tomorrow, or to fuel yourself before a workout.

Ingredients:
150ml almond milk
2 whole frozen bananas
100ml fresh orange juice
2 dates
10gm Valrohna chocolate (this gives great flavour because its a real dark chocolate powder. If you don't have this then substitute with a good quality dark chocolate.)
5 almonds

Optional garnishes:
Granola
Sliced Strawberries
Dried marigold leaves
Coconut chips
1 tbsp peanut butter

Just blend everything together and pour into a glass to drink. If you're adding garnishes then pour into a bowl and eat with a spoon.