I’ve been feeling sort of blah lately, lacking the energy to make it to the gym regularly or yoga class at all and then getting really frustrated with the lack of progress I am seeing towards my fitness goals. Well, as the adage goes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity! So, I decided to shake things up again and do smoothies all day! Really, what a difference in how I feel already- and with absolutely NO sacrifice!!
For breakfast, I had this little delicious thing here:
This one had frozen banana and peaches, strawberries and blackberries from the FarMar, wild dandelion greens, Malabar spinach and spearmint from the garden, maqui berry powder and soaked hazelnuts. It kept me going for hours and fueled me through my workout today at the gym.
When I got home, I was sooo ready for this variation on the carrot cake smoothie:
Organic carrots, frozen banana, more Malabar spinach, vanilla, almond milk and a packet of Vega protein powder in Vanilla Almondilla flavor. So so good!
Dinner tonight was a big ol green salad and a bit of Amy’s Kitchen gluten-free vegan pizza doctored up with artichoke hearts, sautéed mushrooms, onions and red bell pepper. Maybe not health food, but good for the soul of this tired mama who did not want to cook tonight 🙂
I leave you with a vegan ice cream recipe that takes advantage of the seasonal bounty of delicious berries. I used strawberries and blackberries but any kind of berry would work here. Get your good fat on!
Berry Coconut Hemp Ice Cream with Chocolate Flake
2 cans full fat coconut milk 1 cup hemp seeds 1 cup strawberries 1 cup blackberries 1 cup coconut sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla powder or extract 1 tsp maqui berry powder (or acai)
1/2 tsp strawberry extract (optional)
For chocolate flake: 1/2 c coconut oil, melted 1/4 c coconut sugar
1/4 c cacao powder
Stir or blend until smooth
Blend in high speed blender until smooth. Transfer to ice cream maker and freeze as per manufacturers instructions adding in chocolate during the last 5 minutes or transfer to a freezer safe container, stir in chocolate and freeze, stirring every two hours until frozen. Let thaw briefly before serving.
Makes about 8 servings.
Thanks for reading!
xx
Last up in the series is the Daily Juice. They apparently have quite a few locations but we went to the one on Duval St. Let me just say- I freaking love this place. By far my favorite of the joints we tried out for raw foods in Austin. We ended up there by accident one night. My parents weren’t really into having raw food again that night and so we went to some food trucks (I had a dosa at Nomad Dosa, which was awesome by the way- pure vegan gluten-free goodness!). There wasn’t anything at the food truck court for dessert, especially not for me. I said that I had heard about the existence of a vegan ice-cream parlor and my Dad thought we should go…so I looked it up on my iphone and off we went. Well, the ice cream place was inside of Daily Juice and I insisted we come back the next day to try out their raw food. And we did!
So…Daily Juice. First off, the vibe in the place is just really cool. It is not austere in any way, very colorful and they play good music (I don’t remember exactly what was playing when we were there but it ran the gamut from drum n bass, reggae, dub, indie, trip-hop, etc.) The only photo I have of the interior is this one with my two loves.
I had a green smoothie, as did my hubby but we both had different ones. They have an extensive and amazing smoothie menu. Even my Dad had some kind of goji berry based smoothie. My Mom went for a Kombucha.
Our duo of green smoothie love going on:
Then we all had raw kale enchiladas. Well, except for my mother who had to be a rebel and ordered a vegan frito pie. Man, these enchiladas were uhmayzing. We all enjoyed them!
Of course, we had to hit up the chocolate case as well before we left! Dan was sooo excited when he saw that they had durian chocolate in there!
Sorry for the craptastic photo, but we can’t all be perfect 😉 I tried so hard to like it, but as it turns out, I just can’t do durian. This was my fourth try with durian, the other three being fresh stuff and I thought ok, surely with chocolate i’ll love it. Well, no. No, I don’t. And I want to, I really do. So, it pains me deeply to admit it but I FUCKING HATE DURIAN FRUIT!!!
But that’s ok cuz I got some amazing chocolates anyway and Dan went back and bought out the rest of the durian choccies so everybody was happy in the end.
The rest of our day involved hiking over this:
and swimming in this:
and then a beautiful drive to Luckenbach where we were blessed by an impromptu concert and a tribe of chickens.
Last weekend, I realized that I had tons of almond and hazelnut pulp stored in my freezer. And I also really wanted cake. So I defrosted the pulp and got to work creating! And here are the fruits of my labor:
First I set to work on a Carrot Cake.
Horrible pic but delicious cake 🙂 This is made with hazelnut milk pulp, carrot pulp, date past, lucuma, coconut oi and spices and topped with an amazing cashew white chocolate coating.
And then I decided I also wanted a choccie cake!
This one is made with almond pulp, cacao nibs, carob powder, lucuma, purple corn and cacao butter. I think the topping is the same one I used for the carrot cake but with some ground cacao nibs and a bit of chaga powder as well.
And if that wasn’t enough, last week when I placed an order with Raw Living to stock up on my favorite Sunwarrior protein powder, I also bought a mini Quantum Cake made by the delightful Kate Magic.
Anyone wanna pop round for some raspberry leaf/nettle tea and some cake?? 🙂
The other day, I had a massive raw chocolate making session and I came up with:
Mulberry Crunch Chocolates:
raw organic chocolate with white mulberries and buckwheaties, sweetened with local honey!
And then these Chicha Chocolates:
Raw, organic white chocolate with purple corn extract, pineapple and spices, sweetened with agave nectar.