Detox green juice smoothie

Sometimes I don't fancy a smoothie for breakfast, but do fancy the nice healthy kick a smoothie gives me.

Today not only was a smoothie not on the cards but a hot cross bun was! But I wasn't happy about just having a hot cross bun which has pretty much no goodness in it whatsoever. That doesn't sit well with me. So, I decided to make a light, refreshing zingy green juicy smoothie to give me a full on health power punch before the less wholesome hot cross bun. 

I say juice smoothie because I used ingredients I would normally use for a green juice but rather than put them through the juice extractor, I put them in the blender. That way I get all the goodness, fibre and all, rather than just the juice. 

I used cold green tea rather than almond or any other milk to keep it light and fresh, and also added some coconut water to loosen it a bit.

Ingredients:

Cold green tea, probably about 2 cups (I just poured it in). We get  2 litre bottles of Ohi Ocha Ryokucha Japanese green tea off Amazon but you could just make some green tea with a tea bag and leave it to go cold!
2 big generous handfuls spinach
1 apple cored and sliced. I used pink lady as they're my favourite
A decent thumb sized chunk of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
About half a cup of coconut water. I use Vita Coco which you can get in most supermarkets.

The actual liquid and amounts thereof you can play with until you're happy with it.

Whizz the spinach and liquid up first to make sure it's all properly blended otherwise you end up with chunks of spinach in it still.  Then add the apple and whizz that, then the ginger.  I added the coconut water as it was blending at this point as I noticed it was a bit thicker than I wanted it.

Fresh, light, zingy, healthy and yummy.  It needs a quick stir every now and again if you don't drink it all immediately as the liquid separates.  There were also a few little ginger fibres every now and again but not enough to put me off making it again.  Hopefully it will help sort out my snuffles too as I've rather had enough of feeling snotty this week now thank you!

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.

Buck up your breakfast

Just in case I haven't mentioned it enough in various places, I've been off poorly these last few days.  So, it's been super important that I focus on eating right.  By right I mean making sure I'm both  getting lots of lovely nutrients and vitamin C and what have you for my cold as well as avoiding things I know increase mucus production (sorry, not pretty) so I don't make things worse.  Dairy, for example, is a great snot producer and so is being avoided.  On the other hand to help speed recovery from sciatica, I also need to make sure I'm getting lots of foods with lovely clever anti-inflammatory properties and conversely avoid foods that tend to feed inflammation.  So, for example, foods high in sugar and fat are quite inflammatory but so is beef and dairy again.  Whereas whole grains and green leafy veg have anti-inflammatory properties. As do some spices like cumin, ginger and turmeric.

Add to that I'm feeling a bit fed up and my appetite is a bit all over the place thanks to feeling crummy, weird sleep patterns from coughing all night and various pills I'm taking... and suddenly deciding what to have for breakfast has become a major mission.

Normally I make a green smoothie, bottle it up and take it to work to drink while I set my room up ready for the children to arrive.

But this week the thought of a green smoothie couldn't be any less appetising for some reason.

I fancy something hot.  But it has to have greens in...I've now got a a bit obsessive about getting veg into my breakfast!

So, the first day I have poached eggs on some crumpets my mum's husband very kindly brought round the other day when I was totes incapacitated and house bound. (Don't worry, he bought other things too, a girl can't survive on crumpets alone, although I have tried on occasion.)  But these weren't just any eggy crumpets, they were eggy crumpets nestled on a mound of fresh spinach.

Excellent. (or should that be eggsellent!?).  That's protein and dark leafy greens nailed in one breakfast and it was warm so that's that box ticked.

Second day, I don't fancy that again and anyway while it was yummy, it could have been healthier.

What I really fancy is porridge but that would be disgusting with spinach added in. Plus I'm now refusing to eat porridge until I find some steel cut oats instead of rolled ones.  I bought some whole oat groats online but that turns out to have been an accident since they take an hour to cook which isn't massively convenient.

And then...ping! goes my email.  A post from the wonderful Ella of Deliciously Ella and once more she has come to my rescue with banana buckwheat porridge!

Woop Woop! As, not only do I have 15 sacks of oat groats I shan't be using, I also have some magnesium full buckwheat from the same online place.  Plus this recipe has manuka honey in it which is touted as being some super mega food fab at fighting infection and inflammation (although I may need to bathe in my porridge for that effect, not sure), and baobab fruit which has loads of vit C and and and and...

You can read Ella's full blog post and recipe, as well as all the fab healthful benefits of all the ingredients here.

Anyway, my quick round up of the recipe goes like this:

As it's for 2 I halved everything.  The smell wafting out from the pot as soon as I added the (potassium rich) banana and (mood and energy regulating) cinnamon was soooooooo scrummy. It smelt like a cross between autumn and Christmas!  Anyway, I followed the recipe all the way through and found that after about 20 mins cooking like the recipe said the buckwheat still had quite a bite to it and I fancied something a bit more stodgy.  So, I added some coconut milk at this point and cooked it some more just to see what would happen, and it did soften a bit more so it depends on the texture you're after as to how much you'd want to cook it for I reckon.


I also added the almond butter and the baobab as Ella suggests.  I've no idea if the baobab made any difference to taste, but I had some and it's supposed to be super good for you so there we go.  The almond butter on the other hand.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  That was a game changer.  What a gooey, unctuous, delicious, creamy, warming, bowl of happiness that made!

I added some fresh berries to the top of mine, raspberries as they're good for regulating appetite, blueberries as they're just the god of all berries (and are good brain food, my brain needs feeding right now), and strawberries which have one of the highest concentrations of vit C around.  I also added a few pecans just for a little crunch.

It was delish.  Absolutely, totally yummy.  Ella says it's like a hug in a bowl and she's not wrong! It was exactly what I was craving and it totally hit the spot.  What's more, I wasn't at all hungry again for a good 4 hours, I didn't feel stuffed or bloaty or anything. Just nice and warm :).

However,  I don't know if anybody else spotted it, but there is definitely a distinct lack of green veg going on here. But never, fear. I whipped out the old juicer and made myself the most yummy, refreshing and zingy juice from 2 apples, a handful of kale (which is a right bugger to get through the juicer but will go if you're persistent!), a handful of spinach and about a thumb sized lump of the wonderful ginger.


So, there it was, a healthful, wholefoods, superfood, warming breakfast complete with super cold busting green juice.  It was SO good, I made exactly the same thing the next day too!

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. 

Hello sunshine

While I enjoy making up my own meals, I also collect hundreds of recipes I intend to try out one day.  This mango and cashew smoothie from DeliciouslyElla is one such recipe.  I love a smoothie for breakfast and love messing about trying new combos, but sometimes it's nice to try something tried and tested from somebody else.  Plus I absolutely LOVE mango, it is sooooooo nice. And so sunshiney yellow.

I was really looking forward to this one and had my first go yesterday.  I even bought some of the famed chia seeds I've been wanting to start trying and using (those aren't compulsory for the recipe so don't let that put you off).  I got everything in my blender ready, then realised I didn't have any limes.

As a result, the smoothie was lovely and creamy and did taste nice, but I thought it lacked something so decided to try it again this morning having now purchased said limes.

Second time round (now also with a smidge more cashews) it was definitely much better.  The recipe makes quite a big portion so very filling too!

For somebody who's been drinking green smoothies for a while, it didn't blow my socks off.  It was very nice, but no nicer than others I've had really.

BUT, for anybody who's yet to enter the green smoothie world, it's absolutely excellent.  Nothing about it tastes even vaguely green yet it has a whole big handful of spinach in it.  It tastes sweet, creamy and yummy like a milkshake or just a really nice fruit smoothie but is so so good for you.  The consistency is really lovely too thanks to the exact right mix of almond milk vs fruit, the banana and cashews ,and the chia seed gloop it up a bit nicely.

So, if eating spinach or anything else green for breakfast scares the hell out of you, or drinking vegetables sounds totally revolting to you, do try this smoothie and you'll be converted instantly.  Apart from the chia seeds all the ingredients can be found in any supermarket, big or small.  The only thing is, when buying almond milk, pick the one that says 'unsweetened' or else you're getting a whole load of added sugar for no reason.  Alpro do one which is stocked in every supermarket I've been in (some of the smaller ones might not carry the unsweetened variant but my Tesco Metro does).  If you fancy trying the chia seeds too, I got mine seeds at Holland and Barret but any health food shops or online whole food places will do them

If you're feeling brave, mess about trying different combos.  Bananas are a great base as they're so sweet and creamy, avocados have the same effect but aren't quite as sweet, spinach is a good green to add, or kale but I find it doesn't blend down as well and has a stronger taste.  In fact I think I'll try a kale and quinoa smoothie recipe I've spotted next...

Green goddess

Since discovering green smoothies...um, whenever it was, I do like to experiment with different varieties every now and again.  This morning I fully intended to have an almond, avocado, spinach, banana and peanut butter one. Only I didn't have any spinach or bananas which made that quite tricky.

So, I bunged in what I did have instead. Which turned out to be:
A skin friendly, anti-inflammatory, slow energy burning baby avocado
Some frozen super food, iron-rich spinach I rooted out of the freezer
An apple for antioxidants and fibre
Some anti-inflammatory celery (which uses more calories to digest than it has in it)
Almond milk (always the base of choice and always unsweetened. I hate it when they sneak sugar in for no reason)
A drizzle of pure maple syrup  - not the nasty mucky 'maple flavoured syrup' kind. It's not great but it's better than sugar especially in baby drizzles.

There are so many reasons to drink green smoothies for breko. It's a great and yummy way to get more veggies in, and super nutrient rich green veggies at that, they set you up all fresh and clear headed for the day ahead, they release energy slowly, they can be drunk on the go, they're filling and they're yummy.  Plus, if you're having one of these you're not having sugar laden cereal or lard ridden bacon butties.  I do eat other things for breakkie but a smoothie is my go to especially during the week as all I need to do is chuck a load of stuff in, whizz it up, bottle it and take it with me to school.

Anyway, the result of today's experiment was clearly quite nice as this is all there was left...