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!!!

Side Dish Alert!! Garlic Roasted Broccoli

I tend to focus on main dishes on here, but last night as I was making one of my faaaaave side dishes, it hit me: why the heck haven't I posted this on my blog??? Perhaps I find it "too easy" to be blog-worthy. Maybe I make it so much that I've completely overlooked it as being something people would be interested in reading about. But, I decided, let me give this thing the "15 minutes" it deserves, because it's definitely my favorite way to eat broccoli. Since my sister-in-law showed me how to do this a while ago, I actually don't think I've made broccoli any other way! It's crazy easy, delicious, and healthy. There really is no going wrong here.


Garlic Roasted Broccoli


Ingredients:

2         crowns of broccoli, chopped into florets
3 - 5    cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 - 2    tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

If you don't have a garlic press, get one! 

Broccoli cut into florets. Nomnomnom... I love broccoli!

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix salt, pepper, olive oil and minced garlic in a small bowl.

2. Put broccoli in a foil-lined baking sheet (I only use the foil for easy clean-up).

3. Pour oil, salt & pepper, and garlic mixture over broccoli. Massage mixture into broccoli florets, making sure you get those yummy garlic pieces in between the "branches" and the "canopies" (lol).

See the garlic on the branches? Don't let any of the garlicky goodness just sit in the baking dish.

4. Spread broccoli out on baking sheet. Pop in oven for approximately 30 minutes.

I love the edges a little crispy.

Are you wondering why the broccoli looks more scant than in the first photo??? Well, when I asked my husband to take the broccoli out of the oven, he decided to eat a quarter of the broccoli straight off the baking sheet. I guess that's a good thing??? Lol

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!

Meatless Monday: A Series

In the continual quest to eat healthier and take better care of myself, and my family, I try to find new ways to keep things interesting. Contrary to what many people think, healthy-eating isn't the monotonous consumption of iceberg lettuce, tomato, and cucumber drowned in blue cheese dressing. Healthy eating is freakin' delicious...especially if you're constantly finding ways to switch it up! One way I've been doing this is participating in "Meatless Monday" for the past month or so. Carnivorous Kimora would have never imagined a day when she had a meal without meat--on purpose! But, Meatless Monday has become sorta like a celebration to me now, and I look forward to the challenge of figuring out my yummy meatless meals.

Why go Meatless?? Meat is AWESOME!

Meat is, indeed, pretty awesome. However, according to Meatless Monday's website (yeah there's an actual website. I know! Thats what I said!) there's lots of benefits to going meatless for one day a week:

-Limit cancer risk
-Reduce heart disease
-Fight diabetes
-Curb obesity
-Live longer

Besides the obvious health benefits, you'll also be helping the planet, which is way in line with my conscientiousness!

-Reduce your carbon footprint
-Minimize water usage
-Help reduce fossil fuel dependence.

You can read more about it here.

What does this mean for Uncreatively Conscientious?

Meatless Monday meal ideas!! I'll post a few of the meals I've had in the past few weeks of participating in MM, and for the upcoming ones, I'll post recipes that I use. The point here is to inspire you to make better choices and discover the yumminess of healthy meatless cooking!

But eating meals without meat has to be hard! What am I gonna do about protein??

It's one day, buddy. You'll live without eating a chicken boob for 24 hours.

Past Meatless Monday Dinners

Remember that basil quinoa cake? Well here's another use for it! Quinoa cake topped with baby spinach, a bit of marinara, a slice of mozzarella, and a slice of tomato, baked like regular chicken parm. For the "pasta" I simply julienned zucchini and carrot.

 From my vegetarian cookbook: Homemade sweet potato ravioli with a garlic cream sauce. Here's the recipe.

I stole this idea from Instagram! lol! I saw someone posted something similar and I just had to recreate it. Baked acorn squash with brown sugar and walnuts, stewed lentils, and a yummy salad. 

  

 Another stolen idea from Instagram, with a few tweaks. Baked plantains, brown rice with cilantro and lime, cuban black beans, and a salad with avocado slices on the side. This was absolutely delicious.

Past Meatless Monday Lunches

 A vegetable tart with salsa verde recipe from my vegetarian cookbook. This was so yummy! I put the store-bought pie crust into the oven to bake by itself to bake and get nice and golden. The vegetables (zucchini, red pepper, onion, potato, capers, artichoke hearts, and probably some other things I can't remember) were sauteed in a pan with herbs. They were put into the baked pie crust, topped with chopped spinach and salsa verde. It didn't stay together well but it was another yummy recipe I'll be revisiting.

A veggie sandwich on whole wheat. Always a delicious staple meatless lunch. 

Homemade black bean burgers on whole wheat with various veggies, and a sriracha mayo. 

The naan bread "pizza" with black bean "hummus" from my previous blog post!



Experiment with your meatless meal options. Browse Pinterest, and Instagram, and steal those ideas! You'd be surprised the amount of delicious vegetarian or meatless meals you can find on there. Oh, and check in with Uncreatively Conscientious to get regular Meatless Monday meal ideas! You tell your friends, to get with MY friends, and we can BE friends! We could do this every weekend. Is that aight? Is that aight with you?? *Obvious Hip-Hop reference from the 90's*

Breakfast Smoothies!

We've all heard that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Even with this knowledge, many choose foods that aren't exactly healthy breakfast items, or they may just skip the meal altogether! I know that a lot of people don't feel like they have time to make breakfast in the morning, let alone one that's actually healthy for you. It's actually way easier than you think.

For the past 2 months or so I've been taking my breakfast "to-go". No I'm not at the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru every morning, I'm making smoothies!!

The thing I love about smoothies is that I'm able to get a large serving of fruits and vegetables in first thing in the morning. You can do any mixture of fruits and veggies to suit your tastes, but I've found this combination to be a winner.

Kimora's Breakfast Smoothie

1 banana (I freeze mine, because it adds volume to the smoothie, and also the bananas don't rot in the freezer! Winnnn!)

1/3 Cup blackberries

1/2 Cup strawberries

1/2 Cup blueberries

1 Cup spinach

3/4 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk

2 Tablespoons ground flax seed

Blend until smooth. Seriously. 5 minute breakfast thats delicious and nutritious. This tends to make around 2.5 cups.

Nutrition Info:

354 Calories

Vitamin C: 138% DV

Vitamin A: 71% DV

Calcium: 40% DV

Another benefit I've experienced since regularly making breakfast smoothies, my skin has been looking FAN-TASTIC, and my nails are a lot stronger. It may not be just the smoothies contributing to this, but the general increase in the amount of fruits and veggies I eat per day. Who's winning?? This chick!