Chocolate Mousse Smoothie

A few weeks ago, we had some friends over for dinner and so our two-year old kids could run around and wear each other down. I made my new favorite, spaghetti squash pad Thai and our friends brought dessert. A chocolate mousse made with avocados. It was amazing. Since then, I've been eating a similar smoothie version of this decadent, good-for-you dessert!

Ingredients

• 1/2 avocado 
• 1/2-1 banana 
• 2 T cocoa powder
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 C plain almond milk
• 2-3 ice cubes
• 1 T creamy peanut butter
• 1 T raw honey

Directions

1. Combine in a blender and blend until smooth. Obviously. (Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I blog. Example: Of course readers know that you're going to blend in a blender. And of course they know to blend until smooth since it's called a smoothie. Jeesh, Chels).

Sore Muscle Mender Smoothie Recipe!

My husband and I have been a smoothie kick lately. Usually, once a day (most often for breakfast or lunch), we make ourselves a smoothie as a meal. We fill it with fruits, veggies, proteins (found in tofu and yogurt and almond milk), and antioxidants.

A few days ago, I was feeling particularly sore after a new, particularly tough workout the day before. I did a little research before lunch and decided to try to make a "sore muscle fixer smoothie". I sipped on it for nearly 30 minutes (some of the ingredients were frozen so admittedly, it was a bit too thick to begin with...) and maybe it was a placebo effect, I don't know, but it actually seemed to ease the soreness.

Ingredients

• 1/2 C blueberries (frozen or fresh) -- Full of antioxidants. (P.S. Coffee and red wine have a good share of antioxidants, too!)
• 1 medium banana (frozen or fresh) -- Bananas=go-to for potassium. We've all heard the old wives tale, encouraging us to eat a banana when we have a leg cramp or a charley horse. It's actually logic and fact-driven. Potassium helps muscles.
• 1 T chia seeds -- I've been going crazy for chia seeds for awhile now. Basically, they give you "Energy. Protein. Omega 3 fatty acids. Fiber. Iron. Calcium." as written in my blog from a few months ago. Read it here.
• 1/4 C silken tofu or Greek yogurt -- Here's where you get some more protein. We don't use Greek yogurt, we use Mountain High and it's amazing. If you can find it at your grocery store, pick some up. You won't be disappointed.
• 1 C almond milk -- More potassium, calcium, and iron and low in calories. Plus it puts a bit more sweetness in your smoothie!
• 2-4 Cubes of ice (optional)
• 1 C fresh spinach -- Think Popeye. We all know that this stuff is full of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants.

Directions

1. Put all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.
2. Drink it up and feel all kinds of great!

Here's another exciting thing about this super-food smoothie. It's low in calories. Between 275 and 295 (depending on whether you use tofu or yogurt. The tofu is less, in case you're wondering). If you add five of the Kashi 7 Grain Sea Salt Crackers and some neufchatel cheese (1 oz., which sounds like not a lot, but it's 1/8th of a package) you are still way under 500 calories and I promise you, you will not have hunger pangs for hours. Plus, it's scrumptious. All of it.

Sources:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=43
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09355.html
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/the-healthier-choice-almond-milk-vs-milk.html
and, as always, http://caloriecount.about.com/

Banana Watermelon Smoothie

We've been eating a lot of smoothies lately. Simply put, they are easy, healthy, and filling. To me, that adds up to a perfect lunch option.

Today, I made myself a pumpkin spice smoothie (I'm pretending, since it's September, that fall weather is upon us. It's not. It's super hot outside...) and my husband came up with a really refreshing concoction... Banana and watermelon! It's so yummy and since we often have watermelon to spare, it was the perfect excuse to use some of it up.

Watermelon is rich in so many good things. It's packed full of vitamin C and lycopene. Which means it not only protects your immune system, but it strengthens your bones as well. It's also a good diuretic. Meaning it helps you pee (let's just call a spade a spade) BUT it isn't as rough on your kidneys as alcohol or coffee (which are, I suppose, by comparison, bad diuretics. I hate admitting that since coffee is one of my great loves...). And, of course, watermelon tastes great. It's a great fix for a sweet tooth and filled with water (obviously), keeping you hydrated. Oh. And as usual, I threw some chia seeds in there to give me a little energy boost.

Ingredients

• 1 C watermelon
• 1 frozen banana
• 1/2 C silken tofu
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1/2 almond milk

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.
2. Serve over ice (or you can blend it up with some ice too!)

Not pictured is the silken tofu. Because we used
it all.

(Source: Live Love Fruit)

Pumpkin Spice Smoothie

Good morning! I got to bed late last night (10:45) and woke up early (5:26). I've managed to pick up the house, drink some coffee, chat with the husband, squeeze in an hour-long workout (after four days of absolute SLACKING), and make a new kind of smoothie to add to my list of favorite foods!

For those of you who are looking forward to fall because everything pumpkin spice will be available, well, you're in luck. This smoothie is DECADENT. And of course, it's totally healthy. Has anyone heard how amazing pumpkins are for your health? They're packed with fiber, beta-carotene, and one cup has more potassium than a banana. So... let's tally up what that will do for you. It will help your skin, your eyes, your hair, your digestive system, and your muscles, just to mention a few things. And the list goes on way beyond what I have listed here.

Another good thing? It's a smoothie so it only takes five minutes to throw together.

Ingredients

• 1/2 C pumpkin puree (From a can. YES. The stuff you use for pumpkin pie is just plain ol' pumpkin. No sugar, salt, etc. Just mashed up pumpkin.)
• 3/4 C vanilla almond milk
• 1 T honey
• 4-6 ice cubes
• 1 t pumpkin pie spice

Directions

1. Put ingredients into blender.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. Drink up and feel like a million bucks.

Recipe makes roughly 1 1/2 cups and has only 178 calories. YES!

(Sources: As usual, About.com's Calorie Counter and Huffington Post.)

Pizza Rolls are to Blame for My Moodiness...

I LOVE FOOD.

I love healthy food, I love unhealthy food, I love every kind of food in between healthy and unhealthy... I love gourmet food, I love processed frozen food. I love dipping food in other food, wrapping one kind of food with another food, mixing foods, putting food with other food into a dish and baking it... I love food.

...But what I have noticed lately is that I don't function properly on bad food dipped in other bad food with a side of bad food. My stomach hurts, I get almost immediately fatigued, occasionally, my muscles ache, sometimes I even get moody. Yes. All of these things happen when I eat crappy food. And they probably happen to you, too, but you've gotten so used to these side-effects that you think that any food will do this to you.

Today, I made a mistake. While grocery shopping for the most ridiculous light bulbs on the planet, I bought a bag of Pizza Rolls. And instead of just eating them plain, I dipped them in ranch dressing. And had some M&M's to go along with them... I managed to avoid the soda (I don't usually drink a lot of soda anymore anyway) but within 10 minutes of my little bad food binge, I felt horrible. Exhausted. Cranky.

This is one of those things that I keep doing to myself even though I know it does me know good.

So I decided to test my theory (and many others' theory supported by a lot of scientific research) that bad foods make you feel bad and good foods make you feel good. After the weariness/annoyance/overall crappy feeling started to set in, I got up and made a very healthy shake. Banana, cocoa powder, chia seeds, oatmeal, coffee, peanut butter, ice cubes. I mixed it all up and voila! Guess what? 10 minutes in... I felt FINE again. Energized, even.

Again, like I said, there is already much scientific evidence behind this. I know I've not stumbled on something no one else knows. But I do know that even though I've known this for a very long time now, I keep "treating myself" to foods that make me unproductive and unhappy almost immediately after entering my system. Why am I doing this to myself?!

Amazing Tasting Smoothie. Only 260 Calories.

Wanna save a few bucks and a few calories? Instead of heading over to your nearest Starbucks (I LOVE STARBUCKS, FOR THE RECORD. Always a superb product, delivered to my car window by a superb person with superb customer service skills-I just can't afford it every day...) for that granda mocha Frappuccino, try this recipe at home. And oh wait. Not only is it good tasting and almost half the calories... It's actually something that will fortify you instead of giving you a sugar hangover.

Ingredients

• 1 medium sized banana
• 1 1/2 T cocoa powder
• 1 T creamy peanut butter
• 1 C almond milk
• a few ice cubes
• Some coffee that is room temp or cooler (1/2-1 Cup, depending on how much you like your coffee)

Directions

1. Blend til smooth.
2. Pour into cup.
3. Drink.

Some other great things about this? It's roughly 260 calories as opposed to the grande mocha Frappuccino which is 420. Bananas are chalk-full of vitamins that give you that extra boost of energy. Pure cocoa powder is good for you... So you can get your chocolate fix without all of that added sugar. And wait. The best part in my opinion? It contains coffee. Which happens to be my favorite thing on this planet aside from my family and my dog.

So give it a whirl. I've been drinking one of these as a snack a few times a week now for a couple months. I really love them and they're really great at getting me out of that "It's 2 o'clock and I want to nap now" funk.