Green Smoothie

Only a couple of days before St. Patrick’s Day and we’re kind of sticking to our holiday theme and we’re going to look at healthy green smoothie recipes for this week’s post. As you remember, we did a heart healthy food list for Valentine’s Day.

Green smoothies are an ever popular trend. Some are very simple and some have lots of ingredients in them but they all are super healthy. Take a look and see our green smoothie guide that can help you create a drink to feel healthy and to help celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

Simple Green Smoothie:

So a green smoothie has a basic outline. You want to add milk/liquid, greens, fruit, protein, and seeds. If you’re making a big batch of green smoothie, follow this rule, 2 cups of greens, 2 cups of liquids, 3 cups of fruit plus whatever add ons you want.

First of all, a green smoothie wouldn’t be green without the greens so some possible greens that you can use are...spinach, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard, bok choy, collards, dandelion, carrot top, celery, or beet greens. Feel free to use just one kind of green or mix it up and use a couple different types.

Next you’ll need to choose a liquid to add to the smoothie. You can use water, but for an extra bit of flavour try... dairy milk (1%, 2%, skim), soy milk, almond milk, coconut water, cashew milk, rice milk, oat milk, coconut milk, or cold brewed green tea.

Now add some fruit. Frozen bananas are always good to use but also try adding in some other fruit as well. Good fruit to add to your smoothie are mangos, pineapple, berries, peaches avocados, oranges, grapefruits, pears, apples, and grapes.

Finally add in some extras if you want. Some examples of extras are... your favourite protein powder, matcha green tea powder, flax, quinoa, chia seeds, honey, and other seeds.

Here is a recipe for a small batch of green smoothie...

1 ½ cups of milk (you choose what kind)

2 cups of frozen spinach

1 frozen banana

1 cup of fruit, your choice (good ideas are...mango, pineapple, berries, peaches, citrus fruit, green apple)

A scoop of your favourite protein powder

Blend all the ingredients together and drink. You can freeze this smoothie in individual containers so if you’re in a hurry you can pull it out and let it defrost in the morning.

St. Patrick's Day

Since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day we thought we'd pick something green to blog about. Two of our favourite green things to eat are guacamole and pesto (not at the same time though), so here's some green sauces & dips!


Spinach Basil Pesto

Ingredients:
4 cups spinach
2 cups basil
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil, plus 1 Tbsp


Directions:
1 - Place the spinach, basil, garlic, lemon juice, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Turn on the machine and blend for 30 seconds. Slowly stream in the olive oil while the machine is running. Process until smooth.
2 - Serve with pasta, veggies, chicken, etc.
3 - Store the pesto in a jar or container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

We found this recipe here: https://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/spinach-basil-pesto/


Guacamole

Ingredients:
2 avocados, peeled
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped
1-2 tsp. salt
1/4 jalapeno pepper, seeded & chopped - Optional

Directions:
1 - Place all ingredients in a bowl and blend with hand blender until smooth. (Use a fork to mash ingredients if you prefer your guacamole chunkier).
2 - Serve with tortilla chips, nachos, etc. or as a side to enchiladas, tacos and more.

We found this recipe here: http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-guacamole-314831


Here's some other interesting looking dips and sauces that are green:
https://feedmephoebe.com/meatless-monday-green-goddess-avocado-dip-recipe/
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/oxs-chimichurri
https://pinchofyum.com/5-minute-magic-green-sauce
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tomatillo_salsa_verde/
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/hot-artichoke-dip-1
https://thecafesucrefarine.com/mint-basil-syrup/

DIY Four Leaf Clover Lantern

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone!

We’ve done something a little different this week and we’ve made a paper lantern with a St. Patrick’s Day theme.

We used the Silhouette/cutting machine to make this but you can easily cut and paste one yourself if you have the patience. If you’re using the Silhouette/cutting machine, pick a lantern pattern and cut out of a primary green paper. The one we chose had a heart/clover cut out pattern throughout it and the top had a scalloped edge with punched holes. We thought that was super cute. 

If you are cutting it on your own, you can scallop the top edge free hand or with a border punch or if you have scalloped scissors that would probably work best. You can make the hearts with a heart shaped punch or you can make another shape. You just want to make sure that you have some holes for the light to shine through.

Then we rolled it into a cylinder and glued the ends together. We used our glue tape with some scotch tape on the inside, but it did come loose after a while so it might be a good idea to use white glue or hot glue. An even better idea might be to use construction paper or regular paper as the cardstock can be a bit heavy for these sorts of things.

Next Nicole cut some clovers out in a variety of greens that we had and then glued them on the lantern.You can find a clover pattern and trace it and then cut it out.

Here is the finished product with a battery operated tea light inside. Cute! You can also put them in front of windows or just use them as decorative pieces. 

*Please make sure that you don’t use an actual tea light with an open flame inside. This may start a fire which would be not good.

White Chocolate Key-Lime Mug Cakes

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up we are going to do a few “green” blog posts for the next few weeks. First up...mug cakes. We thought we would try something new, so Nicole brought a few recipes and we decided on this green key lime mug cake in honour of St. Patrick’s Day. Take a look below and see how we made White Chocolate-Key Lime mug cakes. Yum!

White Chocolate-Key Lime Mug Cake

You will need:

2 large mugs

1 egg

1 ½ tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tbsp. sour cream

Zest of 1 lime

2 tbsp. of lime juice

¼ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup of self-rising flour

Pinch of salt

½ cup white chocolate chips or chunks

Whipping Cream for the top

Directions:

In a small bowl whisk together the eggs and oil with a fork. 

Stir in the sour cream, lime zest and juice, and sugar. 

Add the flour and beat the batter with a fork until it’s smooth. 

Separate the batter evenly between two mugs. 

Microwave the mug cakes separately for 30 seconds each first and then top each mug with half of the white chocolate and then continue cooking for 1-1 ½ minutes until risen and firm.

 

Once the mugs are done, top with whipping cream.

*This is just a recipe for two mug cakes but feel free to make more; we made six of them. We find that it may work out best if you make one recipe in a small bowl at a time and split it between two mugs instead of mixing in a large bowl and splitting it into however many mugs you are using.

*If you don’t have self-rising flour, we used this recipe to make our own.

1 cup flour

¾ tsp. of baking powder

Pinch of salt

Whisk all the ingredients together and measure as much as you need for your recipe and store the rest in an airtight container for the next time you make mug cakes.

GREEN!

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and we thought that this week we’d find some cool green things on some of our favourite websites and newly discovered websites and share them with you. I’m starting off by sharing once again with you Saoirse Ronan’s Oscar dress because it was very green and very sparkly and she’s Irish so it’s a perfect green thing to have in this post. 

And of course here are a couple of our green cards that we like too.

Enjoy all things green and happy St. Patrick’s Day.