Let's Talk Smoothies!

Everyone knows someone who "smoothies". Some of you my have even tried it yourself. I've even written a blog post about smoothies! Matter of fact, if you Google the word "smoothie", you'll get millions of results ranging from a huge variety of smoothie recipes, to articles trying to convince you whether or not smoothies are healthy for you.

First of all, I want to say that not all smoothies are created equal. Let me say that again. NOT ALL SMOOTHIES ARE CREATED EQUAL! While you might be thinking you're making a better health decision by having a smoothie as a meal replacement, if you use lots of sugary additives, you may very well be opening the door to Diabeetus.

Many articles point to the dangers of the high sugar content in the smoothies and juices that people often think are healthy for them. As an avid smoothie-drinker of 3 years, I'm just going to posit myself as a smoothie-ologist here, and relay my personal experiences, as well as tips to help you smoothly navigate the often bumpy road of "health food".  (See what I did there?)

Smoothies vs Juices. What's the difference and which do you prefer?

One word: Fiber. Smoothies are just blended versions of fruits and vegetables, while juices are just what they sound like--the juice extracted from fruits and vegetables. Personally, I prefer smoothies, because they're more filling, and contain the fiber that we all need so much of. And, while the anti-smoothieists argue that fruit and vegetables are best when eaten raw, instead of blended, I have this to say: Who the hell wants to eat 2 cups of vegetables and fuits for breakfast? Not I, said the blind man.

What about dairy in smoothies? Yogurt? Milk?

Nope. Not for me, for several reasons. I make smoothies to help me get my fruits and veggies in for the day. If I used yogurt, it would be taking up valuable belly real estate that I'd rather be filled with spinach. Also, not many people buy plain yogurt, and tend to use yogurts that contain as much sugar as a can of coke! On the few occasions I've added yogurt, I only used Fage plain greek yogurt. I find milk to be gross, so I just avoid it. If I'm looking for a creamy texture, I use a frozen banana, unsweetened almond milk, or a small amount of coconut milk.

What about other ingredients like oatmeal, protein powder, peanut butter, or flax seeds?

Oatmeal? Nope. Protein powder? Nope. Peanut butter? I'd rather it nestled between two slices of whole grain bread with jam. I've added flax seeds in the past, but when I ran out, I never bought any more, and didn't see the need for it anymore. I am very interested in adding camu camu to my smoothies, though!

So, what DO you put in your smoothies?

The formula I tend to follow is 1 C spinach, 1 C of a fruit or combination of fruits (I usually include some berries), and 1 C of liquid--usually water. I use water instead of other liquids, because I try to avoid extra calories and added sugar. With this "formula", my smoothies are not overly sweet, and I get 3 to 4 servings of fruits and veggies in the morning. Some may be skeptical to adding spinach to their smoothies, but I promise you don't taste it! Now, kale on the other hand.....don't add kale to your smoothies unless you have immediate access to a quiet bathroom, as I nearly shat myself at the gym, mid-crunch, after drinking a kale smoothie.

What benefits have you seen from drinking smoothies for breakfast?

For starters, I haven't been sick in more than 2 years! Secondly, my hair, skin, and nails look fantastic! I've always had weak nails, and they're stronger than ever now. Lastly... the poop! The glorious regularity!


A few quick smoothie favorites of mine:

Pour liquid into blender, add fruits and veggies, blend until smooth.



1 C carrot
1 C unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
dash of nutmeg and cinnamon
 splash of vanilla extract

Doesn't it just look like strong immune system? 

1 C spinach
1 C pineapple
1/2 inch piece of ginger
1 C water













1 C spinach
1/2 C strawberries
1/2 C mango
1/2 C coconut milk
1/2 C water













There will always be naysayers when something becomes a trend. However, I strongly suggest you try smoothies for yourself, while keeping these things in mind: limit your sugar consumption by leaving out too sweet ingredients (peanut butter, yogurt--unless its plain greek yogurt), include vegetables (cucumbers, spinach, carrots, beets), and try to use water as your wet ingredient instead of juice or dairy. These tips will decrease the amount of calories and sugar in your smoothies, and increase the amount of veggies and fruits you consume. You can make your smoothie the night before, and put it in a container in the fridge, so you don't have to make it in the morning. Have fun with it! Happy Smoothie-ing!!!

Meatless Monday: Rice Noodle Soup

I try to let my step-sons each pick a meal from my healthy cookbooks that they want to have for dinner during the week. This way, they get involved in the process of food preparation--even if it's indirectly--which, hopefully, would get them open to eating new things. So far so good. A week or two ago, Giovanni had the honor of choosing the Meatless Monday dinner. He decided to go with a Soba Noodle Soup he found in a Vegetarian cookbook we have, since we're a house of soup lovers. I went to the store to get the soba noodles, but couldn't find them! So I had to settle for rice noodles, which, though probably not as nutritious, were damn delicious in their own right.


Rice Noodle Soup

Adapted from cookbook, "Vegetarian: Tasty Recipes for Every Day" by Helen Aitken

8 oz   rice noodles
4        baby bella mushrooms, sliced
64 oz veggie or chicken stock (organic or homemade)
4 oz   snow peas, cut into thin strips
3       small carrots, cut into thin strips
3       cloves garlic, finely chopped
6       spring onions, cut diagonally into 1 inch strips
1 inch piece of ginger, julienned
1/3 C  tamari (or soy sauce)
1/4 C  mirin (or saki)
1 C    bean sprouts
Fresh cilantro, to garnish

1. Combine veggie/chicken stock, mushrooms, snow peas, carrot, garlic, spring onion, and ginger in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add rice noodles, then reduce heat to low and simmer for approx. 10 minutes, until veggies are tender, and noodles are finished cooking.
2. Add soy sauce, mirin, and bean sprouts. Cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Divide among serving bowls, and garnish with cilantro.

Serve with Sriracha sauce and be extremely cautious, as this much deliciousness from a 20 minute meal has been known to cause minds to be friggin' blown.

Meatless Monday: Sweet Potato Leek Soup

Hi there, friends! It's been a while since my last post, but I swear I haven't been neglecting you! I was finishing up the semester, and those last few weeks tend to be the most hectic part of the entire semester. Only two more to go, and I'm finished with my Master's! How exciting?!!?

Anty-way, I've completely dropped the ball on my meatless monday meal posts, so I may as well start with what I had today for lunch to kick this thing off. I wanted to work with what I had on hand, and figured I could do potato leek soup... However....I didn't want just potato leek soup. I happened to have a sweet potato on hand that I had zero plans for, so... why not? Sweet Potato Leek soup, baby! Now, this soup is crazy easy to make. It's not a complex soup, and honestly, I may do a little tweaking to this recipe over time. But, I found it delicious and a good accompaniment to the veggie sandwich I ate it with.

Adapted from this recipe .

Sweet Potato Leek Soup

1 leeks (dark green stems removed), sliced into rings
1/2  of a large white onion, chopped
1 medium sized russet potato, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 medium/large sweet potato, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 Tbs butter
4 C chicken stock or veggie stock (organic or homemade)
1/2  C  Milk
salt & pepper


1. Fill a large bowl with water, add chopped leeks to the bowl. Separate the rings of the leeks and swish them around in the bowl of water. Let sit for 5 minutes or so for dirt to separate to the bottom of the bowl. Trust me, don't skip this step, unless you like your soup with a side of grit and earth. I'm not here to judge.

2. Melt butter in a medium pot over a medium flame.

3. Add leeks and onions. Let cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

4. Add russet and sweet potatoes, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

5. Use immersion blender and blend soup until smooth, adding milk during the blending process.

6. Add salt & pepper to taste.


If you're looking to recreate my little lunch I have there, let me tell you, quickly, how I made this sandwich--it's a favorite of mine. Ok, Boom. Here's what you'll need:

whole wheat/multigrain bread, a few slices zucchini, sliced red pepper, thinly sliced onions, sliced mushrooms (about 2),handful of spinach, few thin slices of mozzarella cheese, slices of tomato, some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

- mix together equal amounts of balsamic vinegar and olive oil to use as your sandwich dressing. VERY little goes a long way. A half a teaspoon of each should be fine. Add a pinch of salt and pepper if desired.
-put a frying pan on medium high heat, spray with cooking spray or olive oil, add sliced zucchini, and red pepper. Cook on each side for about 1 minute. Remove, and put in a dish until it's time to assemble your sandwich.
-add sliced mushrooms to pan. Cook for about 1-2 minutes, flipping halfway through to make sure each side gets browned. Remove from pan and add to same dish as other grilled veggies.
-Brush one side of each slice of bread lightly with oil and vinegar mix. Assemble grilled veggies, onions, spinach, tomato, and mozzarella cheese.
-(Optional) Wrap sandwich in parchment paper, tightly. Place it in the pan on medium heat. You can either press on the sandwich, or put a small saucepan on it to weigh it down. After 2 minutes or so, flip the sandwich over, and weigh it down again.
-Cut in half, serve with soup. Voila!

Turkey Lasagna!

One of my favorite things to make (and eat) is lasagna. However, every time, I make it I come to the realization of two things:

        1. This is definitely not going to be the healthiest thing I eat all week.
        2. Why did I decide to make lasagna? It takes FOREVER!!

Well one of those things still holds true. Lasagna takes forever to make, but it's a labor of love, because its deliciousness is well worth the effort. Lasagna doesn't, however, have to be that unhealthy. Matter of fact, it can almost be kinda healthy. Imagine that? The trick is to use all clean or mostly clean ingredients, and stuff as many veggies as you can into it!

I was inspired by a friend who has a lasagna recipe using thinly sliced zucchini as lasagna noodles  for a low carb rendition of this tasty meal. However, I knew I couldn't use just zucchini as the pasta. My family would disown me. Therefore, I decided to alternate between the zucchini "pasta" and Bionaturae organic lasagna noodles.

My favorite marinara sauce!

It only has 7 ingredients and they're all natural, which I love!

Lower Carb Turkey (and veggie!) Lasagna


2 large zucchini, sliced lengthwise 1/4" thick (like a thick flat ribbon of zucchini)

1 rib of celery, diced

3/4 C diced bell pepper
1 C chopped mushrooms
1 medium carrot, grated
1 medium onion, chopped
4 gloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs olive oil

1 lb ground turkey

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tsp italian seasoning

1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce or 25 to 28 oz of homemade sauce

1/4 C parsley, chopped

1/2 C frozen peas

Salt & Pepper

1 egg

1 3/4 C ricotta cheese

1/2 tsp dried basil

6 lasagna noodles (or as many as you need for 2 layers in your baking dish)

4 C mozzarella, shredded, and reserve 2 C for top of lasagna

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Heat olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Add all vegetables, and saute until veggies start to let out moisture (Approx. 5-7 minutes). Stir frequently to avoid browning or sticking to pan.

3. Add ground turkey, red pepper flakes, and italian seasoning. Let cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly to incorporate turkey into vegetables and to reduce clumping.

4. Stir in tomato sauce, parsley, and frozen peas. Cover and reduce to low flame. Let simmer for as long as you'd like up to 45 min (I let mine simmer for about 30 minutes). Be sure to check on it and stir frequently to ensure turkey is well broken up, and nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. While sauce is simmering, place thinly sliced zucchini strips on baking pan (or pans. You may have to use more than one) in a single layer. Let bake for 10-15 minutes until soft. Let cool.

Before baking

6. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water until JUST BEFORE al dente (approx 6-7 minutes). If you're using no-boil noodles, then just sit on your pretty little ass for 6 to 7 minutes and take a few sips of that coffee you made to get you through this laborious task.

7. In a bowl, mix together egg, ricotta, and basil until well combined. 

LASAGNA ASSEMBLY AT LAST! I don't have measurements for this, as I tend to eyeball it, so here's the basics.

In your baking dish, spoon 1 cup of meat/veggie mixture and spread into an even layer.

1. Add a layer of lasagna noodles.

2. Ricotta mixture

3. Meat/veggie sauce

4. Mozzarella

5. Zucchini strips

6. Ricotta mixture

7. Meat/veggie sauce

8. Mozzarella

Nobody said this would be pretty

One cup of Mozzarella 

Repeat as many times as you have to. Make sure to press each layer down a bit with a spatula. 

Use 1 cup of your reserved mozzarella to top lasagna. Put into oven to bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle remaining mozzarella, and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes.

I usually like the middle a little more brown, but we were in a rush and hungry. Still delish though! 

I have a tendency to not let my lasagna cool enough before cutting it, and it ends up being a blob of gooey deliciousness instead of a tower of deliciousness. If you want your lasagna to actually stay in layers, let it cool for at least 10 min. I didn't know this until a week ago. LOL! 

Bon apetite! 

I eat avocado with everything

Crustless Spinach Zucchini Pie

As usual, I was sitting innocently on my couch one morning, writing my daily to-do list, and I got an instant craving for something: spinach pie. I've never made a spinach pie before, but I knew that they tend to have crust and I definitely didn't want that. I'm making a more conscious effort to exclude refined carbs from my diet, and also excluding carbs where they're not needed. So I googled: crustless spinach pie. After several recipes that looked very "blah", I found one that seemed good enough to satisfy my craving! While getting the spinach from the veggie crisper drawer, I saw a stack--yes an actual stack--of zucchinis that I bought a few days ago. Not exactly sure what I intended to do with all of these squashes, but I decided they'd go just fine with my spinach pie!

Here's the original recipe.


Spinach Zucchini Pie

1 1/2 C     Spinach, chopped
1/2 C        Zucchini, chopped
1 C           Ricotta cheese
2              Eggs
2              Egg whites
1/4 C        Parmesan cheese, grated
1              Small onion, finely chopped
2              Garlic cloves, finely minced
 Salt & Pepper    (Use your judgement here on how much you want. I used about 1/2 tsp of salt)
1/2  tsp     Tabasco or other hot sauce
1/2 tsp      Nutmeg
1/4 C        Mozzarella cheese, shredded


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook spinach and zucchini in pan until wilted, let cool.
3.  In a bowl, mix ricotta, eggs, egg whites, parmesan cheese, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, hot sauce, and nutmeg until well incorporated.  Add spinach and zucchini to bowl.
4. Spray pie pan with cooking spray and pour mixture into pie pan.
5. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.
6. Bake for 40 min or until knife comes out clean.


Yield:  8 slices
Calories per slice: 95 measly calories per slice!

Mm... bubbly cheesy goodness...

Seriously, thats it. It's THAT easy. Now you have a yummy breakfast, or brunch, or lunch for a week! You're welcome.  :)

Served with chopped avocado and tomato salad

Kale Chips! My Beloved!!

       Soooo.....I attempted to make kale chips earlier in the week. All of the recipes I read involved baking them for 10 minutes or so at around 300 to 350 degrees. Pssshhh! That sounded so easy! Well, I tried that method, and it tasted like the inside of a forest fire. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with these kale chips everyone keeps raving about. But, I bought a gigantic 3 to 4 lb bag of kale this week that was on sale for $2 (Seriously, would you walk away from that?), so I had to make SOMETHING of it! I wanted to try to make the chips again.. But I wanted to do it right. So back to Google I went.

     After some intensive Google research, I deduced (<---college education right there) that the best method of making these chips was by dehydration. I don't have a dehydrator so back to the Google I go. You can totally use your oven to dehydrate things! Jerky! Fruit! Chips! The possibilities are endless!

     One of the really cool things about kale chips is that you can essentially season it with any flavors you love. I decided to roll with parmesan and garlic.


Parmesan Garlic Kale Chips

Here's what you'll need:

Kale          I'm not sure how much. I probably used a pound.
2 Tbs         Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1-2 Tsp      Garlic powder
2-3 Tbs      Parmesan cheese
                 Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Put oven on "Warm" setting. This setting is less than 200 degrees, so that the food isn't baked, but we're creating a "dehydrator-like" setting. Let warm up for at least 10 minutes.

2. In the meantime, clean the kale. I mean REALLY clean it. I used curly kale, which has very curly leaves that dirt often gets trapped in. I filled my sink with water, soaked the batch of kale, and individually rubbed each leaf. I know it's tedious, but I didn't want to take any chances crunching down on sand that was stuck in the curly leaves.

3. Once properly cleaned, wrap the bunch of kale in a towel and squeeze/pat dry. Remove stems from each kale leaf, and tear leaves into "chip-sized" pieces. Place into a large bowl.

4. In a small bowl, mix together garlic powder, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. Add olive oil to mixture, and mix well until incorporated.

5. Add dressing to kale chips, and massage it into leaves, making sure each chip gets a little bit of love. Trust me, this will be worth it in the end. Each chip will be coated with awesomeness.

6. Arrange chips on a baking sheet, making sure they don't overlap each other. I had to use 2 baking sheets for this.

7. Place into oven. LEAVE OVEN SLIGHTLY CRACKED. This is imperative in making the oven act as a dehydrator. While the oven door is ajar, the moisture that leaves the kale leaf will exit the oven. The kale leaves will stay beautifully green, but get very crispy and crunchy.

8. Leave in oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour, occasionally checking it's readiness by sneaking a chip or two out of the batch for a "taste test". The chips will get a little more crispy once you remove them from the oven.

9. Enjoy your delicious healthy snack!!

See how they maintained their gorgeous green color?

I was actually surprised at how insanely delicious these are. Play around with more flavors. I know I will!