National Pumpkin Day Smoothie

Today is National Pumpkin Day! In honor of this beloved Jack-O-Lantern of all trades (sorry, I couldn't resist...), I present you with:

Fist-Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
(So good your brain will scramble and reduce you to a state of uncontrollable fist-pumping)

Makes 4 - 12 oz. servings

1 - 16 oz. can of pumpkin puree (just plain old puree!)
2-3 medium (5-6" long) bananas, frozen
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup fat-free or low-fat milk (substitute with almond milk for vegan option)
1/4 cup agave nectar or honey (optional, but I like things sweet)
1 cup ice

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy! I used Trader Joe's cinnamon sugar grinder to add a little topping to mine :)

This delicious smoothie packs in about 250% of your daily recommended amount of Vitamin A. Your eyes will thank you, as will your waistline, since each serving (WITH sweetener) has only about 190 calories. Leaving out the sweetener, since ripe bananas are sweet enough to pass as ice cream all on their own, makes this treat only 144 calories.

Compare that with 350 calories in a slice of pumpkin pie, without whipped cream! Not to mention that 350 calorie slice is only a little bit more than 1" wide.

Compare THAT with Jamba Juice's (which, I'll be honest, inspired me to make my own home-made pumpkin smoothie) Pumpkin Smash: 390 calories, and only 40% vitamin A!

So, yeah. Make this instead.
Or you can fist-pump away all of the holiday weight you put on eating all manner of pumpkin-spice-latte-soup-accino-smoothie pies.
Or, you know, just enjoy all those things anyways...in moderation!
;)

Butternuts! About Fall

As I sit here, relieved that at least I've finished my chemistry prelab, with butternut squash boiling away on the stove in a concoction of cinnamon, chicken stock, and milk, and slightly cooler weather than usual outside, it's obvious that my favorite season, fall, is here at last. And, as you're probably aware, with fall comes warm, toasty, aromatic foods like soup, roasts, pies, and crumbles. Squash, root vegetables, apples, plums, and more are abundant at farmers markets as well as the grocery store, and I love it.
Of course, there are things I definitely dislike about Autumn. School starts, and 40 hours of work and 17 credits at school are not a happy mix, unlike pumpkin pie spice and lattes. I'm trying to save money this year by packing more lunches and dinners from home, but I can only live on PB&Js and salads for so long. My friends think I'm weird for it, but I literally get bored of food if I eat a certain type too often. So, using one of the butternut squashes my dear, sweet southern grandmother gave us a few weeks ago, I'm sharing three recipes that incorporate the hallmark squash of fall.

Butternut Squash Soup
Delicious all on its' own, or with a grilled slice of sourdough bread and a fresh salad on the side.

2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1 cup organic milk
1 cup organic chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup water
1/4 cup onions, sauteed
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 leaves fresh sage (optional)
1/2 tsp. olive oil

Place squash, milk, stock, water, and spices into a medium sized pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Meanwhile, chop up about half of a small onion and saute it in a little olive oil until slightly browned. Once squash is fork-tender, remove pot from heat and add onions. Allow to cool slightly before blending with an immersion blender or food processor. Garnish with fresh chopped sage. Enjoy!

Vegetarian Chili with Butternut Squash 
Perfect for days when you're short on time. Full of fresh vegetables and plant-based proteins to keep you full, warm, and energized.

1 cup butternut squash, roasted and diced
1 small red onion
3 small sweet peppers
2 roma tomatoes
1 ear corn (about 1/2 cup kernels)
1/4 cup black beans
1/4 cup lentils
1/4 cup wheat berries or brown rice
2 tbsp chickpeas
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder (or to taste)
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
shredded cheese (optional)

Soak beans, lentils, and chikpeas overnight. Drain, and add to crock pot with wheat berries or rice. Dice all vegetables and place in crock pot, excluding squash. Add seasonings and cover with 1/2 vegetable stock 1/2 water. Cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 3-4. If liquid becomes too low, add just enough to cover ingredients. Enjoy with shredded cheese or diced green onion.

Butternut Squash Waffles

My personal favorite, a delicious way to add some vegetables to breakfast :) Recipe adapted from the Amish Country Cookbook, Volume 2.

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup butternut squash, roasted or boiled and mashed
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 eggs, separated


Beat egg yolks, add milk, and beat for 1 minute. Sift together dry ingredients and add to the yolk/milk mixture. Mix in squash. Beat egg whites until stiff, and fold into batter. Dollop batter onto hot waffle iron for about 5 minutes, or until steam stops and waffles are golden brown and crispy.

Serve with warm (real) maple syrup and toasted pecans. Fresh plum or pear also goes well with these.

Anxie-Tea and Smoothie

I'm going to be a little bit serious today.
At the risk of sounding like a hypochondriac, I've decided that I have a problem with anxiety. I don't know if it's GAD, or chronic anxiety, or just a tendency towards being anxious about things, but I do know that ever since I was very young, I would go through periods where I literally couldn't sleep all night because I couldn't stop thinking and worrying, and I still do from time to time. It isn't so much the thoughts as it is just the physical reactions I experience that make it hard to sleep. Prayer and reading my Bible are two things I've always gone to first when I feel anxious about anything, and I have a peace of mind in that even if my body is still spazzing out.

I try to use as few drugs as possible, so rather than trying out over-the-counter sleeping pills or anxiety medications, or recreational drugs for that matter, I started drinking chamomile tea before bed. It actually did help, whether the effects were real or just placebo. Who cares? It helped. I also noticed that once I started taking hemp or flax seed oil to get more Omega-3 and -6 fats I had an easier time sleeping and less days where I felt too jittery to eat and less nights in which I was too hot or my heart was racing to sleep.
So I got a really cool book from a tiny used bookstore downtown several months ago, and it's huge and full of nutritional prescriptions. It's basically a big reference guide to what vitamins, minerals, herbs, and foods have been scientifically proven to be effective in the treatment of certain conditions. The symptoms of anxiety, while possibly just genetic, have also been seen popping up with certain deficiencies...namely omega 3 and 6's and several vitamins and minerals. Among the recommendations were chamomile tea, as well.
So I mixed up my own concoction of foods and herbs that supplements some of the nutrients that could play a role in anxiety. If you're curious, they include:
vitamin C, vitamin E, calcium, magnesium, potassium, selenium, zinc, B vitamins, and essential fatty acids, among others.

 I don't recommend drinking this in the morning or before you go to work or driving anywhere, as chamomile tea can make some people drowsy.

Anxie-tea

Basically, this is a simple tea blend made up of two parts chamomile tea to one part dried lavender flowers. To make one cup (8 oz.) of tea:

1 tbsp. loose-leaf chamomile tea
1/2 tbsp. dried lavender flowers

Steep in steaming hot water for 3 minutes. Add honey if you want.

Anxie-tea Smoothie

8 oz. Anxie-tea, cooled.
1/2 cup ice
1 1/2 cups frozen cherries (vitamin C, magnesium)
1 whole, frozen banana (potassium, B vitamins)
1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt (calcium)
3 tbsp ground flaxseed (magnesium, EFA's)
3 tbsp hulled, unsalted, raw sunflower seeds (magnesium, selenium, vitamin E, B vitamins, and zinc)
2 tbsp honey

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Now, the taste is pretty much strawberry and banana with a slight herbal-iness from the tea. I think it tastes sort of like you blended up a parfait with the granola. This recipe makes about 28 oz., so you can share it with someone or drink it all as a meal replacement.

Please note: This is not a cure or treatment for anxiety or panic-related disorders. If you're on any type of prescription medication, check your labels and with your doctor before using herbal supplements to avoid negative side effects. If the symptoms you're experiencing are effecting your quality of life at all, please talk to someone or see a professional! The recipes provided have helped me with my own physical anxiety symptoms (lack of appetite, mild insomnia, and racing heart), so I wanted others to be able to benefit from them, as well. Enjoy! :)

Delicious Deception

Lying is wrong. I learned that when I was a little girl, mostly because I lied all the time about everything, and my mom told me that if I kept it up, she would never believe anything I said when I was older. So I wisened up, and decided to earn my parents' trust so that I could have priveledges that my younger brothers would lose their minds over when I was in high school.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to do the same with my kids with a straight face, because lately, I've been lying again...

Mmm...look at those cute little hollowed-out, frozen banana pieces generously stuffed with silky smooth, indulgent, dark chocolate mousse. Aren't those sprinkles just adorable?

I made these for my swim team's end-of-the-year potluck. I figured I'm a coach, so maybe instead of bringing more cookies for the kids I've been trying to teach to live active lifestyles, I should bring them something healthier...

Oh, yeah. These are totally healthy. And I'm not just saying that because the mousse is inside of bananas. 
Because the mousse isn't regular mousse.

It's made out of avocados.

 
I adapted this idea from this via Pinterest, and a recipe I found for an avocado-based chocolate mousse. Having experimented with chocolate avocado frosting in the past, and using it as a dip, I was all for trying it in mousse. And it worked, with delightful results.

First of all, they looked cute. Who can resist a cute thing?
Second of all, they taste just like a banana filled with chocolate creamy goodness.
Childrens' eyes widened with wonder when I walked past holding these. My coworkers begged for some before I set them out to be ravened by the wolves that are swim team families at a potluck. And I withheld my secret from them all...until they tried them and loved them, of course.
Oh, I didn't mention that they only have 70 calories per banana bite?
 If only I could think of a clever name for them the way I do for my smoothies.

Chocolate Mousse-Filled Banana Bites
 Makes approximately 30

6 bananas, cut into 5ths (about 1.5")

2 ripe avocados
1/2 cup 60% dark cocoa chocolate chips
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup agave syrup
2 tbsp unsweetened chocolate almond milk

Peel and slice your bananas into 1.5" pieces. I left mine unpeeled, but the peels turned brown-black and gross looking in the fridge. With the small end of a melon baller or a paring knife, scoop out about half of the center of the banana. Try your best to keep the edges intact to hold your mousse. If you leave your bananas unpeeled, the peel helps to hold to mousse in until it sets even if you mess up, so there's a plus.

Pop the bananas into the freezer while you prepare the mousse.

Peel and dice the avocados and place them into a blender or food processor. Pulse until creamy and no longer chunky. In a microwaveable bowl, melt the chocolate chips for 30 seconds. Stir, and microwave in 10-second intervals until smooth. You could also use a double boiler. Add the chocolate, cocoa, milk, and syrup to the blender and mix until smooth. The mousse should be a creamy consistency, slightly thinner than a frosting.

Scoop mousse into a ziplock bag that has a cute icing tip inside of it (mine apparently got eaten by the garbage disposal), and pipe into the bananas. Add nuts, sprinkles, or raspberries on top for decoration, and place into the freezer or refrigerator for 20-30 minutes, until the mousse is set up.

Serve cold, and enjoy!

Also, I'm super-duper excited, because I just got some new raw honey at Sprouts today. It's new at their store, and I hope they keep it, because so far, I love it! It still has bits of pollen in it, and the honey is slightly crystallized, so there are little specks that kind of work as gentle exfoliators! It also tastes great and comes in an adorable mason jar (how many times have I described something as cute or adorable today?)!

Super Delicious Smoothies - Part 2

I'm still on my conquest to make delicious and healthy frozen drinks, and this week we had so many organic peaches from our co-op that we had to freeze most of them. So naturally, I made smoothies.
Sorry, no grainy, washed-out-color photos today! I'm sure your feelings are all hurt ;)
This smoothie is very basic, with just four ingredients. I call it

The Beaches 'n Cream
(Because it'll help you get that beach body ;) )

1 cup chopped peaches, frozen
1 container (6 oz.) low-fat or fat-free vanilla bean yogurt (I used Brown Cow brand, which uses only real fruit and ingredients for flavoring and sweetening. I really like their vanilla yogurt because they have actual vanilla bean in it, which I love).
3 medjool dates, pitted
1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup ice

Blend all ingredients together until smooth. Makes two 12 oz. smoothies. In case you're curious, here is the nutrition information:

 

Nutrition Label made on Recipal.com

This smoothie is a great 'energy drink', as its sugar all comes from real food and no processed sugars are added. The protein from the yogurt also helps to slow down the absorption of sugar, which helps stabilize blood sugar rather than giving you an immediate sugar rush and its ensuing sugar crash. It's also a great way to get a serving of fruit and lots of calcium. To give yourself an additional boost, you can replace the almond milk with green tea for some extra antioxidants and, yes, caffeine. Enjoy! :)

Super Delicious and Also Nutritious Smoothie - Part 1

I love drinks. Juice, lemonade, tea, coffee, even soda sometimes provided it's not full of junk. But my favorite drinks of all - especially during summer time - are the frozen kinds. Blended coffees, tea blends, shakes, and smoothies. I could probably survive on an entirely liquid diet, and I pretty much do during the summer. However, for normal people who actually have time to eat real food, drinks are also one of the most devastating ways to add totally unnecessary calories to your daily diet. Liquid calories are way less filling than solid calories, so it makes sense that you would be able drink over half of a day's worth of calories in one milkshake alone.
But I have a solution to this problem. And it doesn't involve drinking straight black coffee, bitter tea, or slightly lemony water. Hallelujah. It's pretty trendy right now to do juicing and all that, so it should come as no surprise that I'm talking about smoothies (also the title of this post might have given it away, too).
But let me be honest. I have a pinterest. I see all of those juice and smoothie recipes. And they all look and sound like they'd taste like my garbage disposal. Seriously. Kale, celery, and green apples? Sure, it's full of no calories, vitamin K, and some other good vitamins and minerals. But can't anything healthy actually taste good anymore? Let's be real. You aren't going to pass up on your Starbucks (or Coffee Bean, or Dutch Bros., or whatever...) for that. You're going to take one look at that bubbling witches brew and think, "great now I have to clean my blender". Plus, you could've made a salad out of that kale or even some delicious soup that would've been way more filling.
Disclaimer: I have a juicer, and I totally love drinking juice, but it's expensive to blend up five pounds of fresh produce for a quart of juice that'll last about 20 minutes and then make you pee rainbows.

So if I'm going to go for a healthy drink, I go for smoothies. This smoothie has no added sugar (if you leave out the chocolate chips, but let's be real...), and is also full of things that are a) raw, b) nutrient-dense, and c) delicious. So it's just like juice, only a little more filling, and smooth and creamy. And it has a super cute name.

Not-So-Chunky-Monkey Smoothie
Yield: 1 - 16 oz. smoothie and 5 kilowatts of immense joy

Ice
1 small banana (about 6")
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (it MUST be almond milk!)
1/4 cup or a couple handfuls of blueberries
1/2 tbsp ground flax seed
2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tbsp dark chocolate chips (optional!)

See nutrition information here. You can save 70 calories by leaving out the chocolate chips!

Place all ingredients into a blender and smash it up! It tastes like an almond joy, with all the joy and none of the heart-wrenching guilt ;) The coconut and chocolate chips will still be chunky in it unless you have a super blender, unlike me. But it is delicious, and I like some texture. I would even suggest throwing in a handful of almonds if you want. Enjoy!

More smoothies to come!

5 Workout Tips for Lazy People

I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoys going to the gym and working out. Part of it stems from my years of competitive swimming, when I would work out intensely 2-3 times a day. Part of it is from my admittedly-vain desire to stay in the same shape I was my junior-senior year of high school. A good part of it is from the 'work out high' triggered by the release of all of those endorphins. And sometimes, the entire thing is one massive outlet of frustration and stress caused by school, work, and, of course, other people. If I have to be completely honest, if it wasn't for verses like Ephesians 4:26 and the accessibility of going for a swim, doing a quickie-yoga session, or running, I would have probably punched quite a few walls and people by now, and maybe thrown a computer or two.

But sometimes, particularly on weekends, in the middle of summer when everywhere is too hot for anything, and during the school year (so, pretty much all the time), I just don't feel it. I prefer swimming and using weird weight machines to doing body weight exercises in my dim, gross carpeted room. Once I actually do it, I feel great, but the mental wall of actually getting up from watching Hulu on my day bed to do a few dissatisfying squats and maybe a crunch or twelve, totally gets in the way. So here I present to you, tactics I use to motivate me to workout at home.

1. Do some wall sits while surfing the web.
This is kind of like that 'do crunches during commercial breaks' tip you see everywhere, only in this day and age, nobody watches TV with commercials anymore. So you're sitting down anyways, right? So why not unplug your fully-charged laptop and bring it on over to the wall with you? I'm literally doing it right. now. I can guarantee that the distraction of cute cats will override the burning sensation you feel in your hammies. You can even do intervals: one cute cat video of wall sitting, one cute bunny video of rest. Repeat 3-5 times.

2. Do it right before you're going to shower.
One thing that usually stops me from working out at home is that "ughh, now I have to shower after". If I'm swimming, it only feels natural to shower after, but for some reason showering at home is just really demotivating to me. So plan a little workout for right before your morning/afternoon/nighttime shower. Then you can feel fit and clean. Then you can go eat some nice wholesome food and feel super good about yourself.

3. Wear workout clothes as pajamas/house wear.
I'm pretty sure most people do this anyways, but if I happen to pull on a pair of jeans first thing in the morning, I'm not going to work out that day unless I schedule a trip to the gym in somewhere. I'm really the world's biggest walking oxymoron, because I am generally a hard worker, and love working out, but I am so lazy, I won't work out if it means I have to do the remedial task of changing into a pair of shorts. It's mostly because when I feel like I need to work out, I really just want to do it and get it done. Which leads me to my next tip.

4. Just freakin do it.
At the risk of sounding like a Nike commercial, seriously, just do it. If you feel the urge to get down and do some push-ups, do it. It'll take all of two minutes, and it's better than just sitting there. I often fit body-weight exercises into random times during the day. Particularly slow day at the aquatics center while I'm at the top of the slide? Lunge time. Waiting for my homework assignment to upload? Squat it out. Shoot, I'm doing elbow planks as I type.

5. Have something to work towards.
This is the single most motivating thing I do for myself. I don't use pictures of dehydrated, haven't-eaten-anything-but-brown-rice-and-lettuce-three-days-before-the-photoshoot athletic wear models to motivate myself, and neither should you. Just read that description of said model, and realize that it is not a reasonable or realistic image to attain. Even athletes make the mistake of believing that 'fitness' equates to 'low-to-no body fat', but your body needs at least a little bit to function.I believe that fitness is the ability to perform activities at an above-average level. You can run 3 miles without dying. You can lift 50 pound plus objects when moving out of your apartment. Definition is just a nice bonus to treating your body with respect and taking care of yourself. So rather than lusting after that picture on Pinterest, sign up for a sports club (my city has a free running club), where you'll be held accountable, and have goals to work towards. Sign up for races, that way you have to train. Shoot, if you absolutely feel you have to improve the way your body looks, set a realistic, attainable goal that won't leave you disappointed and discouraged. Just give yourself a reason to do something, and you probably will.