Recipe Tips | Healthier Smoothies

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With the warmer weather in full bloom around here, a smoothie is a quick and refreshing snack to indulge in to keep yourself cool and satisfied. While they're easy and pretty much fool-proof, it's very easy to end up ingesting hundred of calories and lots of sugar and fat if you're not careful. Here are a few tips and things to look out for to ensure you're getting the most out of your smoothie!

1. Try and avoid a dairy base

For my own personal taste, this tip is easy for me to follow because I'm not a fan of creamy, yogurt-based smoothies. If you share a similar taste to mine, you can used the following to replace milk or yogurt in your smoothie recipe to achieve a thinner consistency:

• Water - adds a liquidy base to your smoothie without any fat, sugar, or calories.
• 100% Fruit Juice - if you choose this route, just make sure you're not using a fruit juice cocktail - those are loaded with unnecessary sugars. If you can, juice your own fruits/veggies to add to a smoothie!
• Almond, Soy, Rice, etc. Milk - if you still like a milky texture for your smoothie but don't want to use dairy, try these instead

For a thicker smoothie, still without milk or yogurt, try the following:

• Applesauce - make sure you buy the kind that has no added sugar - apples are sweet enough and don't need any help with that! Adding pplesauce in smoothies is a great way to achieve that desired consistency with some extra flavor while not overdoing it on the calories, fat, and sugar
• Chia seeds with water - chia seeds develop a jelly-like consistency when introduced to water -  perfect for thickening up your smoothie while also adding lots of nutrients
• Bananas - perfectly sweet way to thicken up a smoothie
• Avocados - gives your smoothie perfect thickness and a unique, delicious taste if you're feeling adventurous to try it out 

If you insist on using yogurt in your smoothie, try and avoid full fat yogurts with syrups/sugars added. Go for plain, low fat or non fat yogurt, Greek yogurt, or a non-dairy yogurt like soy, almond, or coconut yogurt.

I personally like the combination of water and applesauce the best. I like to mix chia seeds in afterwards because I enjoy the texture.

2. Use fresh fruit only when in season and ripe enough

A lot of people add sweeteners like agave, honey, or maple syrup to smoothies, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you do it in moderation. However, you can avoid this step altogether by using only in-season fresh fruit and subbing any out-of-season fruit with their frozen counterparts. Using fresh fruit when it's out of season can cause your smoothie to taste sour, bitter, and overall just not delicious. This is when people try and compensate that off taste by adding unnecessary sugars.

Frozen fruits and vegetables, much like the canned versions, are picked and packaged at the peak of their ripeness, so they'll always taste the way they're intended to. Plus, the combination of frozen and fresh fruits gives your smoothie the perfect consistency.

3. Be creative!

Don't stick to the normal strawberry banana smoothie everyday - it'll get really old, really fast. Incorporate your favorite fruits into your smoothies and keep making different variations of them to keep them interesting. Add leafy greens like baby kale or spinach to add more nutrients and an interesting spin on your typical smoothie - I PROMISE your smoothie won't taste weird!

Top your smoothies with something crunchy, like my homemade vegan granola, to play up different textures. Or add things like protein powder, flax seeds, and nuts to bump up the protein level and make it into a sustainable snack. 

Most importantly - have fun! Smoothies are a great way to get lots of fruits and veggies into your daily diet. You just want to make sure you're not undoing all the benefits of the fruits and veggies by adding lots of fats, sugars, and calories.

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Recipe | Vegan Strawberry, Mango, and Blueberry Smoothie

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Before we get to the recipe of this post, I wanted to update you guys really quick - I moved! Only about a half hour north from where I previously was, but I'm much closer to where I'll be working in two weeks as well as my job at the coffee shop. My apartment still isn't completely done being decorated, so I'm not going to post any pictures just yet, but they will come! I like how everything's turning out so far, but I have so much more space to work with than I did at my previous apartment so the place still looks a bit empty.

Today's breakfast was another quick, easy, and delicious one - three characteristics I require for sleepy morning breakfasts.

Avocado toast with a delicious vegan strawberry, mango, and blueberry smoothie. Yeah, a SMOOTHIE! I finally have a blender! Which is good news for you guys as much as it's good news for me, because that means I'll be whipping up lots of smoothie, blended soup, and maybe even some frozen cocktail recipes for you guys in the upcoming future.

Avocado toast is pretty self-explanatory... plus I've already let you in on my spice combination that I top my avocado toast with, so on to the smoothie recipe!

Here's what you'll need:

1/2 cup mango lemonade (you can easily use some mango nectar/juice and the juice of 1/2 lemon, but Trader Joe's has an amaaaaazing mango lemonade that I used)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
4-6 strawberries, depending on their size
8-10 chunks of frozen mango, again depending on their size
1/4 cup frozen blueberries

Blend all the ingredients on high for a couple minutes, or until your desired consistency has been reached, and enjoy!

What are your favorite smoothie/juice ingredients?

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Recipe | Winter White Sangria

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Okay, I know I'm bad at keeping promises when it comes to this blog (*cough* fotd friday *cough*)... so here's a sangria recipe to help you get over it.

1.5 liter of Moscato, or your favorite white wine
1 Granny Smith, or any other tart apple, sliced
the juice of one orange
another orange, sliced
about 2 cups of fresh cherries
1 pear, sliced
1/4 cup grenadine
juice of half a lime, the other half sliced
1/4-1/2 cup honey whiskey
optional - club soda to top off the glasses once served.

Combine all of the fruits, whiskey, and juices with the wine in a large pitcher or punch bowl. You can make it a sparkling sangria by adding the club soda to the pitcher, or you can just use it to top off each glass of sangria served. This step is also totally optional as the sangria will taste just fine without the bubbly.

Let the sangria sit and chill for at least an hour before you plan on serving it!

Enjoy :)

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Recipe | Vegan Blackberry Jam

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If you're anything like me, you love a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich... quite frequently. However, buying organic jellies and jams all the time can end up being expensive. Not to mention, a lot of times companies will use gelatin (an animal product) to thicken their jellies and jams. So, a simple solution to these issues: make your own! This recipe is really simple and very easy to customize to your own preferences.

12 oz bag of frozen blackberries (or any frozen fruit, really), thawed
A few tbsp raw sugar (I used about 4 tbsp)
The juice of one orange
The juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tbsp calcium water
1 tbsp fruit pectin

A couple things that should be explained right off the bat:

1. I think it's standard that all packets of fruit pectin come with a separate packet of monocalcium phosphate to activate the pectin to do its job. Mine did, and that's what the "calcium water" in the ingredient list refers too. My box of pectin called for that to be mixed with water and added to the recipe before the pectin. Just follow the directions on your box and you should be okay.

2. I enjoy a jam that is less sweet and a little bit more runny/not as gelled up. Therefore, I did not add nearly as much sugar as some recipes call for and I added less than the suggested amount of pectin to my fruit mixture. Customize this recipe to cater to your preferences! It's very adjustable.

Combine the bag of thawed, frozen fruit, orange juice, and lemon juice in a sauce pan. Begin mashing up whatever fruit you chose. Mash it to the consistency that you desire. I left mine quite chunky. Bring to a simmer on low heat and dissolve the sugar. Add your pectin according to the directions on your box. You can transfer your fruit mixture to whatever you plan on storing it in, leave the lid off, and put it in the fridge for a few hours to cool off. It will continue thickening as it cools.

If you actually go the length to steralize a mason jar for this, your jam should last for quite some time in the fridge. I'm impatient so I just washed my mason jar really well. I don't expect it to last very long in my fridge because I'll eat it all before it has a chance to go bad.

Enjoy! :)

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Recipe | Fruit Salad

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I just wanted something fresh to have on hand for breakfast or random snacking throughout the day, so I threw this together in about 10 minutes and now have a huge batch ready for me whenever I want it. Again, this is so painfully easy I feel silly writing it out.

2 mangoes, diced
3 kiwis, chopped
a handful of blueberries
a handful of blackberries
the juice of 1 lemon
the juice of 1 orange

Combine and enjoy

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