Brewed Tea Smoothies: Guest Post

Usually when I'm contacted about opportunities to 'work' with Smoothie Girl Eats Too, I can tell that those people approaching me don't read my blog and think that it's something more than just a simple blog written by a girl who dabbles in the kitchen, travels and worships her cats.  I usually respond with something like:

"Dear Sir or Madame, 


Thank you for your interest in working with Smoothie Girl Eats Too.  At our Board of Directors meeting tomorrow, I'll present your submission for voting approval.  Then, my executive secretary will contact you as I'll be on my Learjet and we currently lack wi-fi on board if you can even believe that. The horror.

Best regards,

Deb, President, Managing Director, CFO, CEO and all-around badass
SmoothieGirlEatsToo, Inc" 


They don't contact me again. 


However, I recently got an email from a woman named Maria Rainier, who offered to write a guest post for me.  She seemed 'real' and approached gently rather than slamming me with a hard sell.  I responded that if she could come up with a topic that would speak to my readers, I'd be happy to explore publishing a guest post.  Also, the timing was great as I've been pretty much non-stop 'on the go'. I think she came back with a great topic:  Using brewed teas as the base for smoothies. Actually, it's genius.


Despite the fact that my good friend Allie at Pimp My Protein Shake has posted about this topic for ages, I had only ever tried powdered green tea...until today.  Let me just say "yum."  This is the perfect solution for all my friends out there who want to flavor their smoothies naturally and calorie-free (read:  no scary chemicals.)

Steep tea, then refrigerate overnight:  So simple! Why didn't I think of that?

Enjoy in a bowl with grated nutmeg and cinnamon on top.

 So here is the guest post from writer Maria Rainier...Enjoy!
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Adding Tea to Your Smoothies: Healthy & Delicious Tips

Green and black teas are rich in antioxidants and have the potential to provide you with a wide variety of health benefits. These teas may help you battle cancer, ease rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, lower cholesterol, decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease, fight and prevent infections, and even repair a damaged immune system. In short, green and black teas are good for you and can help you with a significant number of health problems. 

I’ve found that smoothies are a delicious way to enjoy tea and that fruits are the perfect complement to green and black teas. If you’re enjoying a hot smoothie like Deb’s Pumpkin Protein Mousse, you can even add spiced chai tea to the mix for a burst of flavor and an extra health boost. No matter what you like to put in your smoothies, there’s an antioxidant-rich tea that can add to the flavor and health benefits. Here are some of the best combinations I’ve tried.

Strawberry Green Tea Smoothie:

Here's what you'll need to make this delicious drink:

·         2 green teabags or the equivalent in loose leaf tea

·         2 cups of strawberry yogurt

·         1 cup of frozen strawberries

·         Honey to taste

Steep the tea in two cups of water, removing the teabags or leaves before the two-minute mark (when bitter flavors can start to seep in). Pour this into a blender along with the yogurt, frozen strawberries, and a little bit of honey. Once blended, this smoothie is a perfect treat that can even be enjoyed during the winter – most supermarkets sell bags of strawberries in the frozen section. 

Oolong Teas

This is my favorite nutty smoothie, and Toasted Nut Brulee oolong tea from Teavana is one of the main ingredients. Here are the ingredients I use to make it:

·         1 heaping tablespoon of loose leaf Toasted Nut Brulee

·         1 cup of almond milk

·         1 tablespoon of peanut butter

·         1-2 spoonfuls of plain yogurt, to taste

·         1 serving of vanilla protein powder

Steep the loose leaves in a cup of almond milk and use a blender to combine this with the peanut butter, yogurt, and vanilla protein powder. It’s delicious and certainly nutritious, so give it a try the next time you’re craving a peanut butter smoothie.

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Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, where she's been performing a bit of research into the gender wage gap problem. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

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Q:  What is the tastiest base for smoothies that you have tried?  If you blog, do you publish guest posts other than from 'friends' you already know?  Also, please fill me in on any blog world gossip as I'm in the midst of being mostly MIA.

Protein Pumpkin Mousse and why I've been awol

The other day one of my Twitter Buddies, Julie tweeted that she was craving my Protein hot Chocolate Smoothie (a recipe I had all but forgotten).  It then dawned on me that much of the rest of the country and the world was still experiencing cold temperatures.  So I decided to pull an oldie-but-goodie from my not-yet-published recipe file and share it.  Perhaps you'll enjoy it if the holidays didn't put you off pumpkin for the next 11 months.

All you do is mix the following four ingredients together in a blender and heat in the microwave. Or if you happen to have a Vitamix, just add all the ingredients and 'cook it' in the blender (Set to "high" for 5 minutes). Eat it with a spoon from a bowl.  In front of a roaring fire.  Preferably with a pet on your lap:

Only Four Ingredients. Love.

• Pumpkin- 3/4 cup
• Stevia or other sweetener- to taste
• 1 Scoop Protein Powder- vanilla is nice.
• Milk of your choice- just enough to make the consistency creamy-perhaps 1/4-1/2 cup

Total calories are about 200 if you use unsweetened almond milk.  A bit higher for regular milk.

Top with any thing you like:

• Cereal or cacao nibs for crunch
• Cooked wheat, rye or spelt berries for chew
• greek yogurt for creamy goodness
• nut butters for good fats and yum
• You can include spices as well:  cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom (yum), nutmeg

Kitty cameo

Protein Pumpkin Mousse with Greek yogurt and a dollop of almond butter.

Sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg

So, if you are wondering why I have been a bit out of touch, you can take a quiz.  Is it because:

A) I'm self-absorbed

B) I'm helping to clean out the entire garage, the entire house, finishing the year-long garden project, restocking old emergency kits that might have contained very old Clif bars that I might have eaten during the cleanout; planning the last of the house renovations and hoping that we finish by Christmas.  Of this year.

C) I'm trying on clothes I saved from the 90's in which most of the jeans are powder blue and come up to my boobs.

D) I've been busy catching up with friends and family all over the place.

E) I've been dabbling in Wordpress (Shocker!) with my other blog.

F)  All of the above.

The Answer:  F, of course.

A)  I'm self absorbed:  yep

Apparently it was necessary to document the moment I began the cleanup.

B) I'm doing a huge cleanup:  YES:

This is a teeny fraction of it.

Finally planting the foliage a year after we started the garden project...Do you spot the Spinal Tap Cactus in the back?  It should be 6 feet but it's 6 inches.  It's OK, we're obviously in no hurry.

Ellie decided to sit on the Six Year Old Clif bar from our aging emergency kit.

Then Ellie got up and bit the Clif Bar

Yes, I ate half of it, and it was darned good, if a tad chewy.

C) Going through old clothes:  true.

Atop the laundry pile from hell are these are Levi's from the late 90s that I got in the UK.  I actually kept this pair (and a few in other colors) as they were the least offensive of the bunch.  Plus they say high-waisted jeans are coming back?

D) Yes, I've been visiting with many peeps:

Jenn

Expert Jump-roper, Eden:

Carrie:

This is not Carrie.  This is Palm Springs.  We had a couple of fun meetups in Palm Springs.  I forgot to take photos.

Ameena:

This is not Ameena.  It's her chocolate chip banana bread that I was in charge of delivering to Derek.  I decided to do a "poison test" on the way home, just for safety's sake.  I'm a good wife.

Tamzin: 

We were bundled up because this photo was taken in December in England.

My wonderful family drove many miles to visit me for my birthday last month.

 E) I have another blog:  Yes.  And the posts take all of about 30 seconds to write and to read. How much do I love that?

Ellie is the best navigator for car trips.  No offense, Derek.

Ellie loves hanging out in the car.

So, now I'm off to make my hubby some more of that banana bread that I was supposed to bring home for him.  And this time I won't present it to him with a large bite taken out of it  After all, it is Valentine's day.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Q:  Do you have Valentine's plans?  Are you staying warm wherever you are?  Have you done a remodel?  Did you have pants that went up to your boobs? Is it true that they are coming back into style?

Flashback Friday: What I learned from last year's near disaster

For some reason, I've been reminiscing about our holiday a year ago in Hawaii.  It might be due to the fact that there are so many disasters hitting the world right now.  So with Snowmageddon and Cyclones, I thought that perhaps we should all make sure that we are prepared for the unexpected.

So today is a flashback to a post about one of our favorite trips ever:  Hawaii Winter 2010.  It did not turn out to be a disaster, but it very well could have been one, thanks to a devastating earthquake in Chile and the possibility of a Tsunami in the Hawaiian island chain.  To read about our evacuation and the fact that I ended up at 24 Hour Fitness to work out while awaiting disaster, click here.

After the event, Derek and I talked about whether we learned anything from this experience.  Yes, I’d say we learned some interesting things…

If it's yellow, it probably belongs in your emergency kit:

This was our purchased-last-minute Emergency Supply. Is it me, or is there a large amount of yellow in this part of the kit?

Let’s look at a small portion of our little last minute / we-might-be-stuck-in-a-field-or-parking-lot-for-a-week shopping spree...

Protein Sources:  Tuna, Spam Light (I know, I should have splurged and got the full-fat version), Derek’s little wieners (hee), Tofu, and Three flavors of Beef Jerky- heaven forbid I should get bored with one flavor during a natural disaster.

The “essentials”:  First aid items, Flashlight and batteries, (more) plastic sacks, (more) hand sanitizer, (more) Wet wipes.  I say ‘more’ because I already had these items thanks to my over-packing habits.  Notice the Advil for when you consume too many Mai Tais.

Essential Hawaiian-themed Eats, because it’s highly unfair to have “Themes” for fun events (like parties and weddings) and not for disasters:  Spam Singles, Macademia nuts with Spam flavor (?!), White Chocolate Macademia Nut Cllf Bar, MacaMania energy bars ( gasp on the 330 calories for one small bar, but I suppose that keeping calories up is a good idea if you are trying to stay alive). 

Please note that I have been far too scared to eat any of the spam products.  I bought them just in case I might be dying and I really felt that I should not leave this earth without trying Spam even the once.  

Edited to add:  I still haven't tried Spam a year later.  Also, I found many of these items at home in my nearby grocery store in Los Angeles.  I didn’t need to go to Hawaii and be faced with death to find the need to buy Spam products.  And one more thing:, yesterday I threw away the now year-old Spam Macademias that I just couldn't bring myself to eat.  Hoard much?

This was Derek’s purchase on the right.  Apparently, he didn’t want dragon-breath during a catastrophe. PS.   Splenda stolen from McDonalds during our evacuation. 

Lemon Lunas, obvi.

While yellow was the dominant Emergency-kit color, it also seemed to be everywhere even before the Pseudo-nami:

Beautiful Stained Glass Window made by our land-lady’s Mom. Spot the cute  yellow tea kettle and the blender (lucky me)

We slept upstairs but the bathroom was downstairs.  I'm pretty sure that's not 'to code.' 

Sooo yummy, yet sadly contains many grams of sugar per  “The Daily Plate”. 

Edited to add:  Ironically, after a long hiatus from calorie counting, I just went back to the DP almost a year to the day after I first tried (and loved) it while in Hawaii.  And I'm loving it again.  It seems to keep me on the straight & narrow.

Butterfly

What else did we learn?

Prepare and pack up all the food you can carry: 

This home-made filet-o-fish sandwich was made by cooking the raw fish the moment I heard we were evacuating at 5am.  I also hard-boiled some eggs.  And made a protein shake, To-Go.  Yes, some people might have grabbed medications and important documents.  I made a dash for the kitchen to make sure we wasted no food.

Speaking of food...Evacuating sure works up an appetite!  Just ask fellow Evacuee Allie, at Pimp my Protein Shake:  She admits to consuming enough high-glycemic tropical fruit to fuel a few Iron Man Triatholons while awaiting the Tsunami on neighboring Maui.  I must share some of our texts during this time:

• Allie:  Are u really at 24 hour fitness?
• Deb: Yes, it’s how I cope with disaster.
• Allie:  I eat chips during natural disasters.

And::

• Allie:  So many blog titles: In case of emergency.  Appetite of tsunami proportions.  Appetite for destruction.  When sirens blare, it’s time for ice cream.
• Deb:  Stop stop you have so many good ones and mine is boring
• Allie: Tsunamis are “swell”
• Deb: hahahahahha

Life is short:  One really should drink Mai Tais a little more often:

Deb Before:

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a Habitual Modifier.  I even modified this Mai Tai because I didn’t want the “prepackaged mix”  full of sugar and calories.  Instead, this creation was light and dark rum, soda water and a splash of pineapple juice.  And it was soo good.

Deb After:

Actually, the Mai Tai had nothing to do with my actions above.  This behavior has persisted for decades.

Old habits die hard. 

What else did we learn?

Life is short:  Eat only spectacular dessert:
 
One night we didn't care for any of the restaurant desserts on offer, so Derek announced that he was going to go home and create an amazing dessert from the remnants of food we still had back at the cottage:

You have to hand it to Derek- he's resourceful and creative.


Derek’s Temple of the Sissy Tsunami:

• Half of an Ice cream Sandwich
• Half of a slice of lemon cake plucked from the emergency food stash
• Expertly decorated with Japanese Pocky Men’s biscuits (why dark chocolate makes them “men’s” I’m not entirely sure).

 When faced with a disaster, proper footwear is imperative.


To take my functional flip-flops, or my dressy flip flops?

Reefs are so practical:  they have a beer-bottle opener on the bottom. 

“Reef”…Where fashion meets function.

Which brings me to the next lesson we learned:


When faced with disaster, keep hydrated...
(water is best but these island boys are after the beer)

This Bud’s for you, Bruh.

Appreciate walks on the beach and biking to picnics just a little more:

The Ocean is mysterious and beautiful.  Even Wimpy Waves deserve our respect…

Now, here’s my PSA:  Get your kit together:  Here are some sites that I just stumbled upon. There are hundreds more:

• Homeland Security preparedness list
• Hurricane list
• Earthquake survival

Q:  Do you live in an area that could be hit with a disaster of some sort?  How's Snowmageddon treating you? Are you a chronic modifier? Over packer?  Hoarder?