Banana Almond Butter Smoothie: Super Creamy Sensation!
Simple banana smoothie recipes are great, but wait till you try this banana-almond butter smoothie! I started adding nut butters to my son’s smoothies, and now I’m getting addicted to them.
If you never tried adding almond butter, or peanut butter or other nut butter to a smoothie, you are in for a treat!
The banana-peanut butter smoothie combination may be the most popular variation of this recipe, but don’t stop there. Hazelnut, macadamia, cashew butter, tahini, sunflower, pumpkin, etc. – adding any of this will make your smoothie deliciously rich, creamy and distinctly buttery. Plus, the fats in these butters will help with absorption of nutrients, and slow down the release of the fruit sugar into your bloodstream (great for people with high blood-sugar level issues).
Sample Plant-Powered Menu: Protein Blueberry Smoothie & Warming Carrot Soup
Some readers have been asking me for menu suggestions.
Here is a sample day’s menu that is loaded with healthy foods:
Morning/Breakfast: Protein Blueberry Smoothie, Oatmeal (if still hungry)
Lunch/Snack: Curried Carrot Soup (with a side salad or a slice of whole wheat bread)
Dinner: Veggie burger (store bought or home made), potatoes, salad
Dessert: Home-made banana ice-cream
Curried Carrot Soup
Delightfully bright, this carrot soup recipe is packed with goodness. I like to add freshly made carrot juice, but it’s an extra step (and more cleanup), so feel free to skip it and just add a bit more water or non-dairy milk.
Freshly grated ginger gives this sweet carrot puree an extra kick of flavor and takes up the heat a notch (my 9-year-old didn’t appreciate that, so next time I’ll skip it for a milder taste). For some crunch, add a garnish of toasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, or pine nuts.
Carrot, Beet, and Jicama Salad
Three colorful root vegetables – carrots, beets and jicama – combine to make this delightful, crunchy, and nutritious salad.
Raw beets taste similar to raw carrots in that they’re sweet, juicy, and crisp. Jicama, a Mexican root vegetable that looks like a large, pale, round potato (you can see it on one of the photos below), is crunchy and mild when peeled and eaten raw. If you can’t find jicama, skip it or substitute cubed cucumber in this salad.
This beautiful combination also happens to be extremely rich in antioxidants, making it a terrific choice for preventing a wide variety of diseases. Do your best to find a fresh jicama, as it adds a refreshing taste and crunchy texture to this recipe.
Easy Berry Chia Pudding Pie (No Bake Dessert)
This weekend, I was looking for an easy recipe to make a fruit pie. I searched online and in my recipe books, looking at various traditional recipes, but then I came across this no-bake version made with berries, nuts and seeds, chia seed pudding and vanilla.
Since chia seed recipes have been on my radar lately, as well as I was looking for more ways to use my vanilla bean paste from Tahiti, I decided to give it a try.
It’s a quick and easy dessert, as no baking is required! This is nice, especially on a hot summer day (who wants to spend time in hot kitchen!)
Vanilla Bean Paste (straight from Tahiti, plus the story of vanilla)
I often use vanilla extract in my recipes, but I was not familiar with vanilla paste until a couple of weeks ago. The first time I heard and saw vanilla paste was a couple of weeks ago, when my husband brought me a jar of vanilla paste from his sailing trip in Tahiti.
It turns out that vanilla bean paste is delicious! It is much thicker than vanilla extract; it’s actually a like thick syrup. While the taste is probably a bit strong (not to mention expensive) to, for example, pour on your pancakes, but it’s delicious when added to baked goods or pancakes. You can use the paste in place of vanilla extract in any recipe where you want the beans to shine. Vanilla bean paste can often be found at specialty stores, and you can find it online easily, as well. It can be used in place of vanilla extract in any recipe. I particularly like to use it in things like banana smoothie with vanilla, vanilla pudding (like this chia seed pudding) and vanilla ice cream.
