Super Foods Green Smoothie Recipe

I'm proud of my hubby who is training for a half-marathon in April. It will be his third. He's decided that having a half-marathon to train for keeps him motivated to get out and exercise. I say, whatever it takes to get a person to exercise is good.

He really gets into it. Carries a water bottle on his training runs. Marks up the calendar with the distances he needs to run on which days to get his body ready for the 13.1 miles on the day of the race. Studies about the right energy supplements to feed the muscles. Works on having an efficient running form. And looks for nutritious smoothie recipes that will build his body.

Here's one he found in the March Outside magazine that starts with his favorite drink—coconut water. It's a great drink for breakfast. Packs a wallop with protein and immune booster foods like maca powder and hemp seeds.

Super Foods Green Smoothie

from Outside Magazine

yield 2 servings

category Drink

cuisine Vegan

ingredients

16 oz coconut water

3 Tbsp plant-based protein powder

1 Tbsp hemp seeds

1 Tbsp chai seeds

1 Tbsp maca powder

1/2 C frozen mixed berries

2 celery stalks

2 kale leaves

1/2 frozen banana

directions

1. Blend until smooth.

2. Pour into a cup, add a flex straw and enjoy!

notes: • Use handful of spinach or 1/2 C peas to replace protein powder if desired.

If you don't have protein powder on hand, use a handful of spinach or 1/2 cup of peas (frozen is good) to replace.

You don't need to be a runner in training to enjoy the benefits of this green smoothie. Add it to your morning rotation of healthy foods to get your day started on the right foot.

Try it for a fine St Paddy's Day drink to get the luck of the Irish.

Have you discovered your favorite super food?

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Thai Coconut Soup

I love Thai food. It's very vegan-friendly with the use of coconut milk instead of dairy. I had a craving for coconut milk and vegetable soup recently and experimented with putting something together. Here's what I came up with.

Thai Coconut Soup

from Chris Pedersen

yield 6-8 servings

category Soup

cuisine Thai, Vegan, Vegetarian

ingredients

1 13.5 oz  can Coconut Milk

2 cans filtered water (use coconut milk can)

2 carrots, chopped

2 C chopped potatoes

1 C green beans cut in 1-inch pieces

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

3 oz shitake mushrooms, sliced

1/8 C lemon grass cut in 1/4-inch pieces

1 tsp sea salt

1 shallot, diced

2 tsp tamari

1/2 inch ginger, minced

1/2 inch turmeric root, minced

2 Tbsp lime juice

1/8 tsp Sambal Oelek

1/2 tsp curry

Seafood (optional—shrimp, white fish, etc)

directions

1. Add coconut milk and water to medium-size sauce pan on medium heat.

2. Add carrots, potatoes, green beans and onions then heat for 15 - 20 minutes.

3. Add remaining ingredients and cook for 15 more minutes.

4. Add cooked seafood if desired.

5. Heat through and serve.

notes: • Use lite or full-fat coconut milk.

• Cook the seafood in 1 Tbsp of coconut oil in sauce pan for soup. Remove and set aside when cooked. Procedd with soup.

• Increase/decrease the Sambal Oelek to adjust the "heat."

This soup will taste even more delicious the second day as all the flavors marry.

What ethnic food do you crave regularly?

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Wisdom Wednesday

Tip:
The Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) recently released their Dirty Dozen(TM)—fruits and vegetables tested to contain unacceptable amounts of pesticides. One the other end of the scale, the Clean 15(TM) lists produce having the least amount of detected pesticides that would be considered acceptable for your family to eat. Make a note.

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Wisdom Wednesday

Tip:
Want to increase your efficiency? Add a live plant to your desk or work area. Plants in the work environment increase productivity by 15% study found.

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Thai Cabbage & Peanut Salad

I visited a high school friend recently and we took a memory-lane drive down Pacific Coast Highway to Laguna Beach. We walked around town reminiscing about the times we rented little cottages at the beach in the summer time. Lathered our bodies with baby oil. Baked in the sun for hours. Ate hamburgers and smoothies. And stayed up late.

Geting hungry for some dinner, I quizzed Siri about vegan restaurants and found one a couple of short blocks from us. She came up with Zinc Cafe and Market—a deli style cafe. I ordered three sides from the deli case. Kathy ordered the same dishes I got. "I should eat healthier," she said.

One of the salads, a Thai-style cabbage salad with peanuts, tasted delicious. Loved it. I studied the ingredients and flavor. "I must recreate this," I said.

So here it is...

Thai Cabbage & Peanut Salad

from Chris Pedersen

yield 8 servings

category Salad

cuisine Vegan

ingredients

1 1/2 C sliced red cabbage

1 1/2  C sliced Napa cabbage

1/2 half sliced yellow bell pepper

1/2 half sliced green bell pepper

3/4 C raw peanuts

Dressing:

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp olive oil

sea salt and fresh ground pepper

directions

1. Mix ingredients in a bowl.

2. Whisk dressing ingredients together and pour onto salad. Stir to coat veggeis and peanuts with dressing.

3. Serve.

You'll find this salad refreshing and delicious. A great recipe to add to your healthy lifestyle of clean eating. Remember to choose organic produce when you can.

When was the last time you visited an old... ahem... long-time friend and talked about the good ole days?

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Be My Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day, Dear Readers!

Valentine's Day is a day to show our sweethearts we care with gushing cards and gifts of chocolates, roses, teddy bears and even pajama's (or a sexy equivalent). But what about the rest of the days of the year?

I'm always amused when I happen to visit the grocery store on Valentine's Day and see those well-meaning, yet befuddled guys, standing in the quick-check line with the leftover offerings for Valentine's Day.

Yeah... I know. It's the thought that counts.

I'm more of a realist than a romantic. My husband is the romantic. However, I'm more impressed when I see him donning a tool belt to go fix the fence that started leaning after the last rainfall. That kind of action (not in his nature) means more to me than anything he could bring home for Valentine's Day.

I like to think he appreciates that I really don't like to plan, shop and cook meals (yup... that's right!), yet I know he works hard and deserves a healthy meal when he comes home in the evening. So I do that for him.

Of course, the other part of preparing meals is getting to show him I care by making healthy food for him to eat. And ladies, sometimes that's a process that takes time for him to appreciate. Especially if  he just wants a baked potato with sour cream and butter with a medium-rare steak. Give him time. He'll come around. Mine did.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

Yes, you might be able to win a man's affections through a good meal. But I'd like to think that Proverb is more about getting to a man's heart to make it strong and healthy through nutritious meals.

Who's your Valentine? What are you planning to get them for Valentine's Day?

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Oppose the DARK Act

Without your help, the entire campaign to label genetically engineered food could be at risk!

Rep. Mike Pompeo is expected to re-introduce the Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act any day now. This biotech industry-backed bill would not only preempt state efforts to label GMOs, it would make voluntary labeling the law of the land – permanently. In other words, if the DARK Act passes, the fight for mandatory GMO labeling is over.

That’s why this week Just Label It is participating in a national week of action to call on Congress to oppose the DARK Act and support mandatory GE labeling.

Click here to join the movement, contact your representatives in Congress today and push them to reject the DARK Act!

For the past 13 years, the food industry’s voluntary labeling system has failed us. With the exception of Chipotle Mexican Grill, not a single company has disclosed whether its products contain GMO ingredients. Pompeo’s “DARK Act” would lock in this shocking, anti-consumer approach.

Monsanto and others have already spent millions fighting to keep consumers in the dark about GMOs. And with so much more at their disposal, you can bet that Big Food will be pulling out all the stops to get the DARK Act passed this year.

If you're in the dark about the dangers of GMO, check out my post Why Avoid GMO Foods?

Let’s show them that American consumers are louder than these corporate bullies!
 

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Happy Birthday to The Prisoner of Carrot Castle

I can't believe that it has been three years since The Prisoner of Carrot Castle hit the App Store for the iPad. Since then Aiden's adventures have been read to children around the world from Brazil and China to Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Through an interactive story, kids learn that eating vegetables is an action-packed adventure.

Today through the use of iPads in the classroom, The Prisoner of Carrot Castle is enjoyed on a richer level. Schools across the US are using the story with a curriculum that supports Common Core Standards. Find out how eSpark is using The Prisoner of Carrot Castle and other educational kid's apps on their platform to accentuate learning and track student progress.

If you are a teacher and wish to learn more, you can download the free curriculum at Purple Carrot Books.

For educational discounts, please contact Apple about their Volume Purchase Program.

Meanwhile if you don't have your copy of The Prisoner of Carrot Castle, you can download the app for only $3.99.

Great Zooks! Did you know over 40,000 people have downloaded The Prisoner of Carrot Castle to their iPad? Grab your cape and get your copy now!

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What Happened to My Bread?

Shopping list in hand, I flashed my Costco card and made a beeline for the back of the warehouse.  I searched the racks of fresh-baked breads. Hmmmm?

"This one's still warm," said one shopper as she picked up a loaf. Yup. That's what I was hoping for— picking up my favorite fresh baked bread to find it still warm from the oven. Something very appealing about that.

After my second pass by the two short rows of bread, I proceeded to the baking area where employees worked like busy bees to place freshly-baked breads on the waiting shelves.

"I was looking for the double-loaf of whole-grain bread in the paper-wrap."

"It's been discontinued. We stopped making that bread two weeks ago," said the soft-spoken woman. Subliminal message—where have you been the past two weeks?

Whaaaaa! That can't be! I've been buying that bread for years. I send my readers to buy that bread at Costco. How could this be?

That lovely loaf of whole-grain bread was pure. You know what I mean? It had only whole grains peppered with healthy nuts and seeds—it had whole millet seeds for crying out loud. No oil and no SUGAR. What has the world come to?

I lowered my head and walked back out to the rows of bread and picked up a facsimile wrapped in cellophane. It was squishy. Yeah, it had nuts and seeds on top, but you could have wadded it up into a small ball and pitched it across the warehouse. Plus reading the label revealed plenty of added unnecessary ingredients (soy and SUGAR for starters). MY bread would stand still when submitted to the knife for cutting. This one would have smushed flat and likely sprung back only half way—daring to be wadded up into a ball...

Well. I guess that does it. There is no longer any decent bread to buy. Fine! In the post A Word (Or Two) About Bread, I preached we should not eat bread anyway. It turns too quickly to SUGAR.

I guess we all weren't buying enough of the delicious and healthy whole-grain (no SUGAR) bread. After all, the last time I bought... correction... the last double loaf I bought was over a month ago. All I got left is the meager chunk shown in pictures here {sniff}. I'll have to ration it out now that I know it's the last of it's kind. Or perhaps I should enshrine it in the Museum of Extinct Foods That Contain No SUGAR.

FYI, I perused the organic breads at Costco and did not find even one without SUGAR. Proof! The world is about to come to an end.

What's your favorite bread? True confessions. I won't tell. 

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