Green Smoothie update!

I make my green smoothie every weekday as part of a balanced breakfast. Fruit, vegetables, dairy, protein. I made a post about the green smoothie back in April but I am updating the information because I have gotten into a good groove. I wanted to share that with you all.

• 1 cup of milk (or 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk) goes in first. There are measuring lines on my blender so I don’t need my measuring cup for this. I use almond milk. The original recipe called for unsweetened almond milk. You can use 1 cup of only water but the smoothie turns out awfully runny.
• 1/2 cup of yogurt. I use a large spoon (the kind I would eat with) and take 2 heaping spoonfuls of the yogurt.
• 1 TBSP of peanut butter. I use the same spoon for the yogurt – just 1 spoonful though.
• 1 frozen banana. I freeze the bananas peeled, but not cut up. When frozen in a freezer-safe bag, I am able to break the frozen banana into many small pieces with my fingers as I put it into the blender.
• 2 cups of green leafy vegetable. I use spinach, and I take 2 very large handfuls (fills my blender to the top.) I have tried kale as well – it was tougher to blend up and little pieces remained with my old blender.

I turn the blender on and while it runs I put away all my ingredients and materials.

Still delicious and very nutritious. Again, you don’t taste the spinach but it does turn the smoothie a lovely green color. I taste the peanut butter and the banana. I like that taste so I’m okay with that!

One last note… It is important to rinse your blender after using it, if you can’t wash it right away.

Breakfast of Champions to keep you Fuller Longer

I work for the public schools, and while I’ve worked on and off doing various things since summer school ended July 3rd, I haven’t had a steady 8-hour job where I have to get up early etc. Today I substituted at a preschool at 7am. Today was the test!

I was able to fit in oil pulling and while I was doing so, I made breakfast. 

Green smoothie + 2 over easy eggs with onions + water. 

Recipe for the green smoothie can be found here. 

Result? I was able to fend off hunger until lunch time at 11:30! (I ate breakfast around 6am.) I’m very pleased. If I eat just one of these items by itself, especially just the onion-y eggs, I get hungry in a few hours. That will NOT fly with my regular job. 

Easy way to make onion-y eggs: 

I keep cut onion in a glass container in my fridge. It’s cut in slices, so in the morning I just cut into little pieces straight into the pan that I’ve greased with a tiny bit of organic, unrefined coconut oil (the same stuff I use for oil pulling.) Then I crack the eggs into the pan (it’s heated up by that time.) Sometimes I make them scrambled, but I’m working on my over-easy skills for my husband’s sake (that’s his favorite). 

Tomorrow I might add toast, because I know you’re supposed to consume the majority of your calories at breakfast time. I just have to make sure nothing too sugary is on the toast so my blood sugar doesn’t crash. 

What do you eat for breakfast? How long does it last?

Recipe: Spinach smoothie

I have updated this post here.

I bought some spinach at the farmer’s market because I had the idea in my brain that I wanted to make some spinach smoothies. For a few reasons:

• I am experimenting with cutting out added sugar from my diet.
• I LOVE the thickness of yogurt and ice cream etc, sometimes the thickness is what I actually crave rather than the flavor, so I wanted to try smoothies.
• Spinach is a great source of vitamins (http://www.mamanatural.com/top-9-leafy-greens/ spinach ranked #4) so I thought I’d try the green smoothie route, rather than all fruit, because fruit has more sugar than spinach. Even though it’s not added or refined sugar, might as well give it a try!

These were my ingredients (listed below picture):

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
2 cups small leaf spinach (pictured: 4 cups)
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 TBSP peanut butter

I freeze the banana already cut up so it’s easier for me. The recipe I was using called for 4 cups of spinach, so that’s what I’d portioned out at first, but I decided to try just 2 because of this chart I found on pinterest: http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ee/53/3f/ee533f99ff62af50d2cba06acf6202c1.jpg

I combined everything with spinach on top. Our blender is pretty old and weak, but to my surprise, it blended beautifully! I had to stop once to scrape some yogurt off the side before blending one final time. LOVELY!

This is how much it made:

Trying it out. The straw went away after this picture. It was a little thick for a straw, but not impossible.

Delicious! All gone! I didn’t taste the spinach at all. I tasted the banana and peanut butter more than anything, which I loved. It made 1 serving.

I won’t take the credit for creating this smoothie. Though I’m sure it’s pretty common, my inspiration was from this site. (Like I said, I changed it slightly.)

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