A Dole Smoothie Party! (And Giveaway!)

Dole recently invited my family and some of our friends to have a smoothie party using their frozen fruit! I love any excuse to host a fun time! They sent on over coupons to buy the fruit, some fun cups and straws, coasters, an iTunes gift card to download some party music, and I hit up my favorite party supply place, the Dollar Tree for the rest of the fun decorations you'll see some of in pictures. (plus the grocery store for other ingredients!)



(Note that palm tree above that I thought would be so much fun as a centerpiece? It's a cat magnet. Don't even bother setting up ahead of time if you have cats, because they will abuse it before your guests even arrive. Sigh!)

Dole has a bunch of frozen fruit available in lots of varities: Acai Blueberry, Blackberries, Blueberries, Dark Sweet Cherries, Mango, Pineapple Chunks, Raspberries, Sliced Peaches, Sliced Strawberries, Sliced Strawberries in Sugar Tub, Strawberry Variety Pack, Whole Strawberries, Wild Blueberries, Wildly Nutritious Mixed Berries, and Wildly Nutritious Mixed Fruit. (side note: When hosting a smoothie party, make sure your freezer is organized and has enough room BEFORE your trip to the store. There's nothing like flipping out two days before when you have a ton of frozen fruit, and no room in your freezer! LOL) Don't forget to have crushed ice ready to go too, and extra adds like low fat milk, yogurt, and ice cream to add to every one's smoothies.


Oh, and ask folks to bring a blender, if you can. I think my poor beloved Kitchen Aid blender got more of a work out in one afternoon than it has gotten since I bought it. LOL And the fresh bananas? To save yourself a little time when the guests arrive, cut and slice them into ice cube trays, and freeze them with some plastic wrap over them.

Here's some smoothie recipes for you to try:

Mango Smoothie
1 cup pineapple
1 cup mango
1 banana
1 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
2 cups ice, crushed (crush this in the blender first!)

Blend away. Seriously. How easy can it be?

Strawberry Banana Smoothie
1 tray worth of frozen bananas (about 1 1/2 to 2 bananas)
2 cups strawberries
1 cup vanilla yogurt or if you're not watching calories, vanilla ice cream!
1 cup milk

Fire up the blender!

Orange Peach Smoothie (recipe from Dole's website)
1/2 cup orange juice
2 cups DOLE® Fresh Frozen Peaches
8 oz nonfat vanilla yogurt
1 cup ice cubes
Dash ground nutmeg

We skipped the nutmeg because I forgot to pull it out, lol, but it still came out great!

Seriously, you can combine just about any kind of fruit together and it will come out yummy. (If you need more ideas, check out Dole's website) The big hit was blueberries and strawberries mixed with vanilla ice cream and milk. Not exactly easy on the waist line, of course, but oh so yummy! And yes, you can add your favorite hard adult beverage to many smoothies (skip the ones with ice cream and milk, and just use crushed ice and juice). It was pretty hot the day of my party, so all the action for the blending was inside. (sorry for some of the lousy pictures)

Some of the Strawberry Banana from up above before serving:


Weren't the cups they sent fun?


Alright, so I really may have had too much fun with the decorations. I'm not sure why I have no picture of my deck (what was I thinking???) but I cut up some fake little grass skirts to hang along the railing, and every one had Hawaiian leis - even the Corgis:


See? Too much fun. ;) Thank you Dole! Every one had a blast and it was fun - even if I spent most of the party attached to the blender! LOL (frozen fruit is great to bake with too, by the way. I had a handful of strawberries left over, so I added them to a batch of brownie mix later on - it came out so good!)

Win it! I have some extra coupons thanks to Dole that I want to share! Two lucky readers will win FIVE free Dole frozen fruit coupons to have a mini smoothie party of their own! To enter, tell us what ingredients you'd use to make your perfect Smoothie!

As always, you can receive extra entries for:

-Subscribing to my feed or following my blog
-Blogging about this giveaway with a link back
-Tweeting about this giveaway (leave the link or @psychotichouse)

That's four (4) possible entries! Giveaway ends August 7th at 11:59 PM PST, and please leave your email address in your entry or have it available in your profile. US only, sorry :( Good luck everyone!! :)

I received the items stated above from the sponsor in order to host a party. Many items were purchased with my own money though to supplement. All thought(s) above are my own or my guests.