Diet Staples: Super Green Smoothie Recipe

The ingredients that make up my favourite green smoothie! x

Happy Saturday! If you've been following my blog over the last couple of weeks, you'd know that I have been prepping for a 30 day raw food challenge! The time has finally arrived to detoxify my mind and body - I will begin on Monday. I will be tracking all of the changes that occur right here, as well as uploading meal plans and some of my staple recipes.

Two activities that I will be partaking in to assist the detox process are dry brushing and sweating! Both provide a myriad of benefits through helping your body eliminate and excrete toxins - over the coming weeks I will write a post outlining all the reasons why you should incorporate these activities into your daily routine (such as reducing the appearance of cellulite, need I say more?)

Over the past year or so, my morning green smoothie has become a coffee-like ritual (sans caffeine so I don't experience energy spikes or anxiety). I get nervous at the thought of skipping it, and have seen so many improvements in my health and happiness from starting my day with this mostly veggie boost! They are so versatile as you can literally mix and match any fruit and veg (minus melons) to pack a nutritional punch first thing in the morning! Mentally, I also find that when I start my day with a smoothie, I don't want to steer from the clean-eating path so it serves as an encouraging tool to ensure you eat right all day.

It can be a little time consuming chopping all your ingredients and mixing it all up, so I make a batch that yields about four smoothies at the beginning of the week. (I'm not very hungry in the morning so each serve for me is only approximately a 250mL cup.) To ensure the nutritional value of the smoothie doesn't decline after spending a few days in the fridge, I freeze the smoothies and let one defrost overnight the night before I intend to drink it up!

This here is my current go-to recipe, but you can get adventurous and try different greens and fruits or a base like coconut water or almond milk. Also, your may prefer a different consistency to your smoothie so if you prefer it to be smoother you would add more liquids, if you prefer it to be thicker and with chunks of the food you could add more veggies.

Super Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

6 large kale leaves

1 large cucumber (with peel)

1 large celery stem (with leaves)

1 medium carrot

1 kiwi fruit (with peel)

1/2 pear

1 tsp chia seeds

1 1/2 cup of filtered water

1 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions:

1. Wash and cube all fruit and vegetables.
2. Add all fruit and veg, water and lemon juice to blender.

3. Blend until desired consistency is achieved.

4. Serve and stir in chia seeds.

5. Freeze leftovers and defrost overnight before consumption.

Until next time , drink up xxx

Diet Staples: Vegan Cheesy Baked Potatoes Recipe

cold water steeping, vegan cheesy baked potatoes & a rose out of Nonna's garden

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a fabulous Labour Day weekend, I tried (not very hard) to keep myself out of mischief. 

In the lead up to my 30 day raw food challenge, I've been very conscious about eating as clean as possible, to try and reduce the potential shock my body might experience once I start detoxing. (Read a bit about my food philosophy right here.) Like most people, somewhere between lunch and dinner I feel the need for a snack. My taste buds definitely favour savoury over sweet, but this poses a problem when you consider most packaged salty foods have an overwhelming amount of artificial flavourings and preservatives added to them. 

Enter my new favourite go-to snack. 

These potatoes taste naughty enough to have come out of a packet, but they are essentially guilt free. Loaded with a myriad of benefits from the various spices in the mixture and plenty of B vitamins from the nutritional yeast (which is where the cheesy taste comes from!). Please note you could use a different preferred cooking oil, however I only ever cook with coconut oil due to it's high smoke point. I have a feeling these flavours would go well with kale chips, amongst other vegies - so watch this space!

Vegan Cheesy Baked Potatoes

Ingredients:

400g chat potatoes

3 tbsp coconut oil

3 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tbsp garlic powder

2 tsp cumin

cayenne pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2. Wash and cut potatoes into slices, halves or quarters (depending on your preference.)

3. Mix the coconut oil, lemon juice and spices in a bowl. (Coconut oil is quite solid at room temperature so it's a good idea to whisk over the stove to ensure a creamy consistency.) Add potatoes to the mixture and coat well.

4. Spread potatoes out on baking paper and pour any remaining mixture over the top.

                                                                                                5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until golden and crispy.