My Dream Smoothie

Hello!

I want to say a BIG happy Easter to all of the people that read this silly little thing!! I am in the middle of exam prep/term paper season but I can honestly not wipe the smile off my face. With the end of the school year approaching faster than a moose in heat I'm spending as much time as I can with my friends. It's so nice to live in a little town where you're a ten minute walk from just about every person you know! Since a lot of my friends are graduating this year, I am giving them extra hugs and convincing them all to just camp out in our spare bedroom for one more year. If I think about it too much I get all sad, so instead of moping around I decided to throw an Easter extravaganza!! If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I absolutely love throwing dinner parties, so that's exactly what I did—a dinner party on steroids. There was a house-wide egg hunt (yes, the basement too...), egg dying, easter trivia, and a photo booth. It was amazing. We didn't have too many people over and it was great because we just sat around our big dinner booth and laughed and ate and laughed and ate. It was exactly where I wanted to be for the holidays. 

Here are a few pictures if you'd like to see:

From waking up in the morning and making myself a dippy egg and soldiers, to going all out preparing for the party and moving the gigantic TV to make room for the photo booth, and then having Al's cake that had about seventeen fire hazards on it, it was a hoot!!!

Now that I have eaten my weight in carbs, cheese, and chocolate I'm more than ready to take a step away from the pile of leftovers in my fridge and eat something a little more low key. In come smoothies!!! 

I love smoothies because they're so pretty and there are hundreds of variations. I never measure out my smoothie ingredients so I get a different flavour and texture every time. Lately, I've been experimenting with toppings and when I was Skyping with my Scottish friend Kate across the pond (hooray for technology!!), she was dying to know what I had done to make the masterpiece in the biggest picture below:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a tropical smoothie topped with homemade rawnola, greek yogurt, and fresh juicy medjool dates. A.k.a. My dream smoothie.

My Dream Smoothie

Smoothie
- Frozen mangoes
- Frozen raspberries
- 1 fresh or frozen banana (don't forget to take the peel off before freezing)
- Couple spoonfuls of greek yogurt or some type of milk if you like it less thick.
- 1 teaspoon of maca powder*
- 1/2 tablespoon of ground flax seed
- 1/2 tablespoon of hemp hearts

✿ Blend all ingredients and consume immediately!

*Okay, confession time. Last Christmas, my sister Brigitte gave me a jar of maca powder to increase my energy levels (I can sleep on any surface) and balance out my hormones. So, like the good sister I am, I used it all the time in my smoothies. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I was eating banana-only ice cream and trolling the internet for recipes that I came across this quotation "[maca]is known to be 'Nature's Viagra'", the author of Wake the Wolves then proceeded to warn us with immense caution that it is "powerful stuff". So once I realized I had been practically shovelling nature's #1 libido booster into my daily smoothies, I decided to do a little more googling (not a good idea. like ever.) and found out that they sell it in pill form at sex stores *insert shocked emoji face*.  So if you're like me and want a little more balance and want to turn to superfoods to help with your insides, proceed with caution and take it one teaspoon at a time!!!

Rawnola- This stuff is great on soooo many things. Yogurt, smoothie bowls, plain old snacking... you name it! Maggie made it a lot on exchange for day trips and it was so so good AND easy!
- 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 cups oats
- 7 juicy dates**

✿ Pulse in a food processor and enjoy!

**Dates are my splurge item. I make a special trip into our local health food store—yes, we have a health food store in Lennoxville, but no movie theater or dollar store—and pick up a box of refrigerated dates FOTB. They are so juicy and fresh and they make ALL the difference when compared to the block of dried sugary stuff they call dates at the grocery store.


Other Toppings
- Fresh chopped dates
- Yogurt
- Raw cashews and almonds
- Fresh fruit
- Oats
- Coconut
- Pepita seeds
- Chia seeds
- Goji berries
- Bee pollen
- Raw Cacao nibs
... and many more!

xox G