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 | All Purpose, Everyday Seasoning Blend

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So, if you've noticed in my past recipes... I use a lot of the same spices as sort of a "base blend" and work other flavor components into that specific mix. 

Last week, my lazy self came up with a groundbreaking idea - mix those spices together so that I'm only reaching for one jar while cooking instead of 5 different ones! The ultimate lazy cook's dream. I stayed away from spices like cumin, coriander, and turmeric, because I don't think those flavors are necessarily appropriate in EVERY dish that I cook. Again, I wanted to make something that I could use in almost every recipe as the foundation of flavor, and then build up from that.

So, for the mixture, just combine the following in a mason jar or an empty spice container. If you plan on making a larger quantity, just follow the basic ratio of the 5 parts.

4 tbsp kosher salt

2 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes

Enjoy!

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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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Studying Abroad | Ireland

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In honor of my commencement that's happening tomorrow, I just wanted to take this Thursday and throw it back to the happiest four months of my life

Most of you might not be aware of the four months I spent studying abroad in Ireland during my Junior year of college. It was hands down the best experience of my life, and I would give just about anything to experience it again. I actually met Chris, my boyfriend, while abroad. Who would have known I had to travel to another continent to fall in love with someone who lived about 2 hours away from me? Anyway, the memories I made studying in Ireland and traveling to Poland and France were some of the best memories I can recall. I wanted to share some of my experience with you guys via photos I took throughout my journey.

These photos will be from my time in Ireland. There's simply not enough room to include pictures from France and Poland as well, so I'm going to break my journey up into three separate posts. Enjoy!

The whole group with our supervisor, Paul, in St. Stephen's Green in Dublin

A couple of pubs in Dublin. Yes, that's Chris in the corner of the second one.

We biked 10 miles (if I'm remembering correctly) of the Aran Islands with this hazy/gorgeous view

Theeeeeen we reached the top of Dun Aengus and tried our best not to be blown off

St. Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork, Ireland

Rachel and I in front of St. Fin Barre's Cathedral

University College Cork

Tiny me in front of a far away Blarney Castle

Beth and Chris on the way to the Cliffs of Moher 

 The Burren and some cows

The Cliffs of Moher

My feet at the Burren

Murals and Magners in Belfast

Chris and I snuck off from the group to take a picture with this horse dog (Irish Wolf Hound)

Queen's University, Belfast Ireland

Chris and I waiting to walk across the Carrick-a-Rede bridge

Yup, I walked across that

Pretty damn proud of my accomplishment

On the way to Giant's Causeway

Beth being artsy in Giant's Causeway

First night out in Galway

Live music on the streets of Galway all the time

Thanksgiving Dinner in Ireland

The Galway Christmas Market! 

Me with my coffee and French Macarons, and Chris with his kangaroo (?) burger.

This is the most accurately representative picture of these three.

Mom and Aunt Donna came to visit! (Aunt Linda, too, but she didn't get photographed with her Guinness mustache

Many, MANY more pictures were taken, but I just wanted to share a handful with you guys from my time in Ireland. It really was the best experience of my life. I urge anyone and everyone to travel abroad somewhere and really take in everything and cherish the experience. Thanks for looking/reading! Like I said, two more posts will come with my photos from Tours, France and from Warsaw and Krakow, Poland. 

Have any questions about my time abroad? Or maybe you're planning on traveling to Ireland and want come recommendations for restaurants, pubs, and sight-seeing? Definitely leave a comment below and I'll be more than happy to answer/help out!

Happy travels, everyone!

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