Yummy Sweet Beet and Cocoa Milk

If you're looking for a quick, fun pick-me-up, extra snack, or treat, one of my new most favorite beverages is sweet beet and cocoa milk. It's easy to make, full of vitamins, frothy, and (best of all) pink! Yay!

From Organic Facts

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons of beet powder 
• 1 scoop of cocoa powder
• 1 cup of hemp milk (or substitute)
• Honey (as much as needed)

Blend all the ingredients together and you've got your drink :). It's fun and refreshing, and beets are excellent for anyone looking to give their liver or gallbladder a boost. Cocoa and honey are great for energy and for your skin, and hemp is a great source of plant protein.

<3 Frances

Millet Squash Bread

It's a snow day! As in an actual, legitimate, OMG snow day. But it's also sort of a blizzard, day, too, so I hope everyone is staying safe and warm.  As for me, I'm doing a lot of homework and cleaning...and baking. Or rather helping my mum do baking. It's not something we typically have time for, so it's a special event, but I wanted to share our fun millet squash bread recipe. It's bitter on its own, but pumpkin seed or almond butters go great with it, and it's delicious right out of the oven. Plus, millet and squash have a lot of wonderful health benefits. And you can find pureed butternut squash from the Farmer's Market brand, so no cutting and baking of a squash is required :).

Ingredients
3 cups millet flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp ginger
1 3/4 to 2 cups pureed butternut squash
1 cup soy milk
Walnut oil

Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 350.
2) Oil a 9x9 glass baking dish.
3) In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
4) Add squash and milk.
5) Pour into baking dish.
6) Bake for 35 minutes.
7) Cool completely.
8) Transfer to wire rack.

<3 Frances

Superfood Protein Breakfast Smoothie

I LOVE this pumpkin seed butter.

I know breakfast smoothies are more of a summer thing than a winter one, but I was tempted to try one this morning anyway, and it was really quite an exciting venture!  Usually, I love having rice cereal, but it's good to have variety sometimes, and it's easier to have vegetables (I'm trying to have more for my skin) as a part of a shake than it is to put them into porridge.  

Ingredients (for one tall serving)

• 1 cup frozen blueberries
• 1 other fruit (banana, raspberries, etc.)
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seed butter (or another nut butter)
• 2 scoops protein powder (brown rice, pea protein...all work!)
• 1+ handful(s) spinach and/or other green vegetable 
• You can also add flax seeds, carob powder, soy lecithin, or soy milk :)

Insructions

• Put ingredients in a blender.
• Blend everything together, add toppings, sip, and feel happy!  

The great thing about this (and other breakfast beverages like it) is that every single ingredient has health benefits, so there are no "empty" ingredients.  It's nutritionally dense!  The blueberries are powerful antioxidants that help your skin and your immune system, the nut butter has healthy fats, the protein powder is a protein boost, the spinach is full of nutrients like calcium and Vitamin A, and flax seeds help with digestion and add Omega-3's. Plus, you can edit the ratios of ingredients to change flavor, etc.  Just make sure that, if you're having this as your breakfast meal, you add fats and protein.  You won't really feel satisifed without them because fruit and vegetables on their own are awesome but not meal-worthy.  #superherobreakfast

<3 Frances 

More Wisdom Tooth-Friendly Foods

It's the fifth day of my wisdom tooth-removal recovery, and, even though I'm feeling a bit better, I'm still pretty chipmunk-faced and exhausted, and for now I'm staying under the radar of the outside world.  I think my teeth (or at least the spots were they used to be) are all healing nicely despite the fact that they were impacted, and I've graduated from ice packs to heat packs and from liquid foods to mushy foods.  YAY for mushy foods!  They're so satisfying.  I don't think I'll be able to have walnuts again until Thanksgiving, though....
Anyway, in the process of doing make-up work and gently stretching my jaw and rinsing my mouth with saltwater after every meal, I've found some recipes that make wisdom tooth surgery post-op more pleasant.  I can't guarantee you'll be able to eat all these things right away, but most should be okay after at least day two.  I've tried to find things that are healthy, palatable, and not all entirely sweet.  Too many meals of low-protein sweet fruitiness can get a bit nauseating after a while.  Without further adieu, though, here are some of my wisdom tooth-friendly food ideas:

• Scrambled Eggs
• I haven't gotten to try these yet, but I've heard good things about them from people who are at least in the fourth day of their recovery process. If you make them super soft and try to keep away from tiny pieces that can get stuck in the holes in your mouth, you should be able to enjoy them as a warming, satisfying meal. 
• Butternut Squash
• Butternut squash is wonderful!  It's very soft, and you can blend it or smash it with your fork/spoon to make it even more edible.  It's also sweet, but in a savory way (if that makes sense). It'll fill you up and provide you with important nutrients.  Plus, it's great for November. After having only had pureed fruit for three days, I basically cried eating butternut squash for dinner because it felt like "real" food.

• Other Squashes
• Okay, pretty much all squashes will work. The only one I can think of that may be too stringy is spaghetti squash, but if you blended it, it would be safe.
• Baby Rice Cereal
• Earth's Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal is something I had as a baby, and it's so wonderful.  The thing about it that makes it so god for people post-wisdom tooth surgery is that it isn't grainy like regular rice cereal and therefore poses less of a threat of food getting stuck.  The servings are very small, but if you add apple sauce/mashed banana/pumpkin/mashed squash, you can get a yummy dish with a soft consistency that's like porridge if you microwave it and ice cream if you refrigerate it.

Good luck with all your future dental endeavors!
<3 Frances

Heatlhy Chocolatey Pumpkin Seed Snack

We're a week away from Halloween and deep into candy season, but some of us can't participate in the all-out chocolate fest.  If you can, that's great (just be sure to buy fair trade!), but if you're like me and can't, then here's a yummy, super fast alternative that's actually legitimately good for you!

motherearthnews.com

Ingredients
Carob or cocoa powder
Pumpkin seeds (or walnuts)
Water

Prep time
Under two minutes

Directions
1) Add about 1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds to a very small bowl.
2) Add about 2 tsp. of carob or cocoa powder on top of the pumpkin seeds.
3) Add the smallest amount of water.
4) Stir together.
5) Eat!!

I know this isn't necessarily the most sugary, crazy-delicious treat out there, but it's still pretty darn good given how amazingly healthy it is.  Carob lowers cholesterol, acts as an antioxidant, and is full of calcium and selenium.   Pumpkin seeds are packed with fiber and protein.  Cocoa has antioxidants and magnesium.  Plus, it's a mood-booster!

<3 Frances