Green Mango Dessert Smoothie

Is it a smoothie or is it a dessert? The Vega Sport Protein Powder with its 20 grams of protein, high quality ingredients, and a smooth viscosity pretty much rocks in this recipe, but another vanilla hemp or rice protein will work too. You can increase protein powder to two servings and add a little extra water for a more traditional smoothie result and less of a dessert.

2 heaping cups frozen mango chunks
1/2 cup hemp milk
1/2 cup water
1 scoop vanilla flavored Vega Sport Protein Powder
touch of white stevia, to taste (optional)
2 Tbsp shredded coconut (optional)

Blend mangos, hemp milk, water, and protein powder together in a blender until completely smooth. If desired, boost sweetness with a touch of stevia, to taste, and blend again. Serve in a bowl and top with shredded coconut. Serves 2.

Healthy benefits: High protein, low sugar, gluten-free, fiber, chlorophyll

Yet there’s something about this blend, with its thick frosty creamy mangos and sweetly inviting flavor that makes it more than “just a smoothie.” I make it a little extra thick, throw it into a bowl, and eat it with a spoon as a quasi-sherbet-like dessert. So is it a smoothie? Is it dessert? Unnecessarily complicated semantic questions like this demand unpronounceable answers, don’t you agree? Therefore, I think this treat is best summed up as a smoossert.

By the way, I’m kinda in love with Vega’s new Sport Protein Powder — 20 grams of protein, high quality ingredients, and a smooth viscosity when mixed up into drinks. Another hemp or rice-based vanilla protein powder would probably do the trick here too, but the Vega blend pretty much rocks.

Green Mango Dessert Smoothie

You can increase protein powder to two servings and add a little extra water for a more traditional smoothie result and less of a dessert.

2 heaping cups frozen mango chunks
1/2 cup hemp milk
1/2 cup water
1 scoop vanilla flavored Vega Sport Protein Powder
touch of white stevia, to taste (optional)
2 Tbsp shredded coconut (optional)

Blend mangos, hemp milk, water, and protein powder together in a blender until completely smooth. If desired, boost sweetness with a touch of stevia, to taste, and blend again. Serve in a bowl and top with shredded coconut. Serves 2.

Since my good ol’ Southern California home isn’t exactly designed for the makings of a picturesque white Christmas, the past week I’ve taken it upon myself to maintain festive cheer the one way I know best: sharing good food. Steamed local cauliflower and hearty kale salads have become some of the staples for dinner, and it’s inevitable that the almond gingerbread men and acai berry fudge plate gets at least 3 visits a day.

But the big hit this season has been, indeed, in the hot chocolate category: my uber awesome recipe for Candy Cane White Hot Chocolate.

Homemade, using ingredients you can feel really good about, and scoring 1000% on the “special” test, make this delight for yourself and those you love and tell me you don’t see smiles. Luxuriously creamy and sweet with a tickle of candy cane flavor, this warm drink is like confronting a polar bear who (instead of being big and scary) was really friendly and gave you a belly rub and a candy cane for your time. I know these things.

Happy Holidays & Good Tidings!

Everyday, thousands of packages of this “concoction” (anonymous leading brand candy) are purchased in grocery stores, sold as “food,” and bought with the assumption of being “safe to eat.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s probably not exactly a good thing when the safest items on your ingredient list are “sugar” and “salt.”

To be fair, even those of us drowning in complete nutrition ignorance have at least a general notion that candy is bad. No breaking news here – eating candy is clearly a conscious choice to partake in its sinfully sweet “badness.” I get that, and I’m sure the guy who’s chewing his fillings out right now on some sugary garbage gets that too.

I don’t think it’s cimantics though when I suggest that there’s “bad” and then there’s “unnecessarily bad” – the latter being the road modern day candy manufacturers have taken. Looking at the list above, it seems almost an act of cruelty to formulate what ends up inside some of those colorful wrappers. The ridiculous part is that for thousands of years many cultures have made and enjoyed candies — truly delicious candies — a large portion of which are not “unnecessarily bad” (or even “bad”) in the slightest. Using whole ingredients like nuts, dates, natural syrups and spices, these candies are sweet, flavorful, and are quick to satisfy even the most hard-core sugar cravings. One of the first ever documented candy recipes comes from ancient Egypt — 1600 BC style. This authentic recipe looks fantastic (source – Scholastic):

You’ll need a cup of fresh dates, a teaspoon full of cinnamon, a half teaspoon with cardamom seed, a half a cup of fresh walnuts, a little bit of warm honey, and dish full of finely ground almonds. Mix the dates with some water to paste. Mix cinnamon and cardamom seed through the paste. Knead the ground walnuts through it. Roll these into candy-sized balls. Spread the candies with honey and then dip these into ground almonds.

Funny, no Red #40? I’m shocked.

To my palate, the Greeks really have the candy thing down with their traditional Pasteli, which is essentially a chewy and crunchy treat usually made from just sesame seeds and honey. Such a simple combination, yet as sweetly comforting as it gets, with its pure whole food ingredients. In my version, I like to use yacon syrup (from the yacon root) instead of honey, as it lends a more sophisticated flavor alluding to molasses and hints of apple. Plus yacon syrup has about half the calories of honey, a substantially lower amount of sugars, and the bees get to have the rest of the day to go off and do bee things.

Here’s my version of Pasteli candy, which, in addition to the yacon syrup, has one more superfood secret fantastically tucked away inside . . .

Sweet Seed Candies

Similar to the traditional Greek sesame candy “Pasteli,” which is made with honey and sesame seeds, these superfood candies take advantage of yacon syrup’s more complex flavor and healthy benefits. Crunchy and chewy at the same time, these all-natural candies are addictingly delicious. If you cannot find pre-roasted/toasted sesame seeds, use raw ones — just pop them in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees ahead of time.

INGREDIENTS:
½ cup  yacon syrup
¼ cup hemp seeds
½ cup toasted sesame seeds

DIRECTIONS:
Oil a baking tray.

Over medium-low heat, warm the yacon syrup for a minute until it gets bubbly. Reduce the heat to low, add the seeds, and simmer for 3-4 minutes longer, stirring constantly.

Spread the mixture onto the pre-oiled tray into about a ¼ inch layer. Let cool completely (about 15-20 minutes). Use kitchen scissors to cut into squares or desired shape. Makes about 2 dozen candies.

healthy benefits: gluten-free, calcium, protein, essential fatty acids, low(er) sugar, prebiotics (healthy digestion)

© 2009 www.juliemorris.net

Probably the single easiest concoction to make at home, you really can’t really mess up a smoothie – it’s not like baking where the proportions have to be perfect . . . with smoothies, just keep adding things until it’s tasting good! There’s literally thousands of ways to make a smoothie, but here’s my fool-proof strategy for healthy, simple, and delicious results:

Ice: Always start with a handful of ice at the bottom of the blender. Smoothies are meant to be cold, and putting the ice in first ensures the blender blades crush the cubes thoroughly.

Banana: Bananas add a creaminess and density to smoothies, yet are low in calories. Use ripe (even overly ripe) bananas because they will provide more natural sugars and flavor. Mangos are a good substitute if bananas are not on your “love-it” list.

Frozen fruit: Add next a cup or two of frozen fruit like blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, acai, etc. Although fresh fruit is more than fine, frozen fruit is often less expensive, lasts longer, and provides a better frozen-treat texture.

Nutmilk: Pour in about a cup of unsweetened nutmilk like almond or hazelnut for healthy and delicious creaminess. Allergic to nuts? Try hempmilk, ricemilk, or soymilk instead.

Superfoods and power powders: Here’s where the creativity really sets in. Add in a few spoonfuls of protein powder, superfood powders, freeze-dried greens, etc to really charge up this nutritional meal. Get ambitious and choose your own blend of powders, or find a high-quality whole-food premixed blend.

Stevia (optional): I always put in just a tiny dash of stevia to further draw out the natural sweetness of the ingredients without raising a single calorie. A touch goes a long way/

Water: Top off your smoothie by pouring water into the full blender, just about an inch or two above the rest of the ingredients, so that it’s easy to blend.

Of course the biggest rule is to customize, customize, customize until it becomes your unique and perfect blend! Make your smoothie into something of a daily “healthy insurance policy,” as no matter what happens food-wise the rest of the day, you’ve had at least ONE amazingly super-charged meal to keep you going strong. Your body will love you for it.

Here’s a recipe for an old standby my personal blender has come to know — my Chocolate Goodness Smoothie. Fabulous.