Green Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

I'm always trying to think of ways to feed Dustin more veggies.  A great way is through is fruity drinks.  He loves juice and smoothies.  So, for his mid-morning snack we experimented with a peanut butter, chocolate, banana, and SPINACH smoothie.

Here is what we did:

• 1 banana
• 2 Tbsp chocolate whey protein powder
• 1 Tbsp PB2 (I ordered mine, but you can find it in some stores and most GNCs)
• 1 cup skim milk or unsweetened almond milk
• 1/3 cup torn spinach (lightly packed)

Put all the ingredients in a magic bullet or blender.  Puree until liquefied.

 

I came on here right after making the smoothie so I could remember what we put in it.  He was done drinking the entire thing before I wrote "1Tbsp chocolate whey protein powder".

 

 

If you're not a big spinach fan, start off with a little less spinach at first or add extra protein powder or PB2.  

Very Bloody Mary

One of my favorite "adult beverage" is a Bloody Mary and lucky for me, it's dairy-free and full of fiber :) Every restaurant makes them so different, but I like the ones at home the best!
To make the perfect Very Bloody Mary, you'll need:

• Black Pepper
• Celery Salt
• Horseradish
• Worcstershire Sauce
• Tobasco Sauce
• Lemon wedge (About 1/6th of a lemon)
• Your favorite vodka, but the cheap stuff works well for this
• Spicy V8, has to be spicy!

Fill your glass all the way to the top with ice. Add 3 to 4 shakes of pepper (I love pepper, so I always add a lot). Add 2 shakes of celery salt, 7 drops of Worcstershire Sauce, 3 drops of Tabasco sauce (if you want yours to tingle your lips, go ahead and add a few drops more), 1 squeezed lemon wedge, and 1 tiny dab of Horseradish on the end of a swizzle stick. Pour the vodka so that it fills 1/3 of your glass.Fill the last 2/3 of your glass with spicy V8.Garnish with your favorite items! I put an olive and homemade pickled green beans. The green beans were made by my Aunt Katie and they are SO delicious and extra spicy! Yum.

Happy and safe drinking :)

Vegan Chocolate Cake-Batter Milkshake

I tried the healthy chocolate cake-batter milkshake off of Chocolate Covered Katie's website and thought it was pretty good. The flavors were really yummy, didn't taste at all like a vegan shake, and you don't need to add any sugar! The only negative I would have to say is that it didn't taste like cake-batter.

That being said, Katie did state on her site that she had never had cake-batter flavored ice cream. So I'm probably comparing it too much to the store bought kind.

Overall, a tasty and healthy treat to try. Just go to her website:

http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/

The Perfect Dairy-free Hot Cocoa

I've always liked hot cocoa, but now that I live in Montana, I LOVE it. There's nothing better than to get in warm pajamas and sip on hot cocoa on a cold snowy day. So you can imagine my sadness when I had to stop drinking milk and temporarily hot chocolate. Well not anymore, because I found a great substitute using rice milk and adjusting the ingredients slightly to make the perfect dairy-free hot chocolate!
All you need is a few simple ingredients:

• 2 tsp cocoa


• 3 cubes of cane sugar


• 1 cup of original rice milk (haven't tried it with vanilla yet. That might be pretty tasty.)


• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract


• Cinnamon - optional
  Put, two teaspoons of cocoa in a mug . . . along with three cubes of cane sugar. I know I only have two in the picture. I started off with that many and thought it was pretty good, but when I added one more it was perfect.
  Stir in the milk and vanilla extract. The cocoa will rise to the top, that's okay. Microwave for 2 minutes, stopping once or twice to give it a stir. I love to sprinkle a little cinnamon on top of mine . . . ooo, and marshmellows too, yum. I think most of those are dairy-free, yay! Now all I need is for it to snow :)