A New Year Super Green Smoothie

Hands up who may have over indulged ever so slightly last night then!? In fact over the last 2 weeks really.

We had planned to have a big fat breakfast today of bubble and squeak, bacon, black pudding and eggs. It's all in the fridge ready, but my insides strongly protested the idea (especially since I may or may not have snaffled a bit of cold pizza left lying around from the early hours already!)

Instead I had a hot water with lemon juice in some sort of attempt to appease the old liver and then I made the greenest of all green smoothies with whatever I could find that looked healthy in the kitchen!

It went like this:

2 handfuls spinach and 1 handful fresh mint leaves with a cup of unsweetened almond milk. Blend this up first so the leaves break down properly or you get bits. Then I added an apple, a banana for texture, sweetness and potassium and 2 celery sticks. Just in case it wasn't green enough I added 2 tspns spirulina and for energy I added a tspn maca powder.  It made enough for me and then alex to have a small glass too. 

I wasn't expecting it to taste any good to be honest but it did so thought I'd share! The mint was a good addition and went well with the apple, gave it a lovely clean, fresh taste. For a lighter option yet I could have used water instead of almond milk. 

So there we have it. Innards nicely cleaned ready for the lard up we're blatantly still going to have!

Festive spiced smoothie

Today's challenge is to eat only whole foods - which is normally not a challenge at all but a way of life.  It seems, though, that during the festive period the trend is a very different type of eating whole foods - as in stuff the whole lot in!  Last time I looked, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, bread, milk, brandy cream, chocolates etc are neither wholesome nor unprocessed but are very definitely fiddled with quite a lot from their original state and full of all manner of chemicals and sugary naughtiness.

And whilst I do enjoy all this festive fare, I can feel it too.  Headaches and heartburn abound, the gym feels more of a struggle, sleep isn't quite so deep and various inflammations are grumbling.

So before I hit New Years Eve with aplomb tomorrow, I thought a mini clean slate might be in order first today.

First up, after the usual hot water with lemon juice, a lovely cleansing breakfast smoothie.  I make no apologies for posting so many smoothie recipes. I love smoothies, they're incredibly healthy and a really quick, easy way to cram in a load of goodness before even leaving the house. Plus there are an infinite number of different ways to make them.

Here's today's:

Blend 2 big handfuls spinach with a cup unsweetened almond milk - do this before adding the other stuff or you'll end up with bits of spinach in it instead of a nice blended consistency.

Then add in:

1 banana
1 apple (cored and sliced)
3 dates
1 dessert spoon almond butter (we use Meridian nut butters, they contain nothing but nuts and are in most supermarkets or health food shops)
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn maca powder (optional)
1 tpsn baobab powder (optional)
To increase the protein content add a scoop of hemp protein powder too.

Blend it all up until nice and smooth, you may need to add more liquid (almond milk or water) to get the right consistency and you'll need to blend it for quite a while to get the dates and the apple to blend down properly.

Yum.

Next up, some kind of sprout or kale salad I think...watch this space.

Trick or Treat Autumn Smoothie

Today is Christmas day.

Well, ok, no it isn't.  But it is at my mum's house as my brother leaves to rejoin his ship in the Navy in a few days and won't return until May time thus missing out Christmas, New Year, Easter and my birthday in the process...come to think of it, we should make today my birthday as well, I'll mention it.  Anyway, because of all of that he has declared it Christmas lunch day today and we shall be gorging, I mean delicately nibbling on a full turkey dinner.

Which means I don't really want a great big breakfast.

Which means a smoothie is perfect.

And given that it's not really Christmas at all (although looking at Five's TV schedule you'd be forgiven for thinking it was), but actually looking like Autumn for once, and that Halloween still hangs in the air, I thought I'd make an Autumn pumpkin type smoothie.

The trick is the fact that rather than dash outside and chop up what's left of the slightly mouldy and probably rat infested pumpkin I carved the other day, I've used canned pumpkin.  I thought such a delight was only bestowed upon our cousins state side but seems I was wrong and picked some up the other day in my local Tesco Metro.

The treat comes in the drinking. It's yum.

So, I bunged some bits in the blender but this time I actually attempted to remember what they were so I could share on here, as follows:

-1 cup almond milk (any milk will do)

-1 banana
-6 dates
-1 laden table spoon pumpkin puree (it may have been closer to 2 really)
-1/2 an apple, skin on but the yukky core bit chopped out...you could chuck a whole apple in but I had 1/2 lying around from yesterday
-1/3 cup oats (leave those out if intolerant, obvs)
-a teeny tiny splash of pure maple syrup (not the maple flavoured stuff)
-a tspn cinnamon
-a tspn mixed spice (who am I kidding? I didnt measure the spices, I just chucked them in)
-2 dessert spoons greek yogurt
-1 tspn peanut butter (preferably a nice kind that's literally just peanuts and not full of sugar, salt or putrid palm oil...check your jar)
-optional: 1 tbspn maca powder (that was an accident, the packet tipped over and more went in, probably should be a tspn but it didn't matter, I like the taste, it's kind of a malty butterscotch taste.)

All you need to do is just whizz it all up in a blender and hey presto, abracadabra you have yourself a delicious smoothie.

The husband is a bit old school and still thinks food should need chewing and can't be doing with just drinking his meal so I also toasted him up a cinnamon bagel (and then ate some myself as was jealous of the smell!)

The only problem for me was the lack of green stuff so I'm going to make myself a green juice in a minute to make up for it.

Anyway, an all round resounding success I'd say.

Happy Halloween/Autumn/Christmas and Happy Birthday to me!

x

Smooth Operator

I'm getting quite good at this green smoothie lark now.  Occasionally I do have a bit of a smoothie disaster. Like, for example, earlier this week, when I discovered that if you lose a cherry stone whilst making a cherry cacoa smoothie, it's probably fallen into the blender and will therefore get munched up into very annoying sharp chunks all the way through your smoothie making it nearly impossible to drink. Mega fail.

 However, I made up for it today as I put into practice two, slightly more useful, lessons I also learned this week:

1. Using water as the liquid base sounds boring and revolting but actually produces a really fresh, light smoothie where you can really taste all the other flavours;

2. Whizzing up the greens and liquid first before adding the other stuff gives a much smoother, better finish without random bits of spinach floating around.

With those 2 in mind I decided to cobble a green smoothie together after the gym today.  I had some mango in the fridge so wanted to use that and fancied putting some nut butter in too. Most importantly I wanted it to taste really fresh and vibrant. So after a quick rifle round the kitchen I came up with the following which made 2 generous servings:

2 cups filtered water

2 cups spinach

1 cup mango

1 banana 

1 dessert spoon almond butter

1/2 avocado

1 tble spoon macca powder

I didn't add any hemp protein powder as there was plenty of protein in our lunch. I didn't use almond milk or too much banana/fruit/nut butter as I wanted to keep it quite clean tasting. 

The result was super yummy! It was lovely and smooth and creamy (I hate them too watery), with a delicious fruity taste and a hint of bananary-nutty yumminess without being at all heavy or stodgy. The texture was great given I whizzed up the spinach first. 

Alex agreed it was defo a success! And not a dismembered cherry stone in sight.

Think I'll be making this one again. 

A date with dates

WOW!

There are no words to describe how absolutely delicious the smoothie I just made was.

I was lying in bed perusing my pinterest board trying to decide what to have for breakfast.  Give the smoothies a rest and just have berries and greek yogurt?  Try the fruit salad with avocado that a good friend recommended to me yesterday on the back of my avocado post? Some variety of clever gluten/egg/etc free pancake?  Something to do with the coyo (yogurt made with coconut milk) that Alex bought me home yesterday (SO excited to try that), a wholemeal bagel with peanut butter (may have overindulged a tad last night, not sure the berries are quite going to cut it!)...

Then I remembered a whole heap of recipes I've seen using dates recently and that I had bought some the day before to experiment with a few, so I ended up settling on this recipe for a banana, date and almond shake on DeliciouslyElla.

Woah Wah Wee Wah!

Translated as gosh, that really was incredibly yummy.

You can follow the link above for the actual recipe.

As per usual, I didn't really bother with the whole recipe, measuring thing.  I had a brief glance at the ingredients then just sort of went from there.  I had actually run out of almond milk so I substituted with coconut milk...not the stuff in a tin, you can buy it in cartons like almond milk, soya etc as a dairy alternative.  Alpro have just started doing one available in supermarkets but there are several other brands such as Koko.  I bought some maca powder yesterday having never tried it before so seeing the recipe suggested adding some for added energy, and feeling in need of any help I can get in that area thanks to a busy week, not sleeping so well and mild over indulgence last night, I went for it.

When I first made it using the ingredients suggested, I found it quite runny (I may have used too much milk given I couldn't be bothered to get the measuring cup out to do it accurately!), so I added half a trusty avocado which not only added a few more super nutrients, but also made it super thick and creamy.

Good enough for an early morning, unwashed, no make-up selfie!

I have to tell you, it was so so delicious.  If, like me and my brother, you used to (pah, who am I kidding? Still do!) like licking the bowl/spoon when mum made cakes, then you will LOVE this.  I'm not joking, it tasted exactly like that gorgeous indulgent cake mix taste.  It didn't last very long in my glass!

The only thing is, I'm not as convinced health wise about this one.  I know the ingredients are all very good for you and are full of lots of lovely healthful benefits but I'm a little bit funny about any kind of dried fruit because of the high sugar content, so coupled with the sugar from the banana and the fat from both the nut butter and avocado (which admittedly I added myself), it certainly doesn't pack as much of a healthful punch as the green smoothies I normally drink.  To be honest I don't really mind the fat bit, but I'm not so keen on eating so much sugar first thing in the morning.

So, I think this one will be for occasional guilt free indulgence as opposed to an every day staple.

I already know that next time I have a craving for some kind of oreo milkshake or some such other naughty concoction, I will be getting out the blender and making this instead...I might even experiment with adding some cacao next for a chocolatey kick...