Banana Milk // Vegan & Gluten Free

I think I might be the only adult I know obsessed with all things having to do with fun drinks! Well…not the fun alcoholic drinks, more like the fun drinks you might have had when you were a kid! I am talking strawberry milk, chocolate milk, Mint Matcha, milkshakes, etc. Anything sweet and sippable makes me happy, so when I realized that I hadn’t made you guys banana milk I had to get to it!

This is a recipe my sisters now husband and then-boyfriend taught me how to make. Unlike my husband, he is a fellow banana appreciating human beings and knows what’s up. In high school, we would go to his house to hang out and eat good food. One day While deciding on a snack Connor out of nowhere starts blending banana and milk together, that’s it! Nothing fancy, he even scoffed at me adding cinnamon, but can you blame me? What better in banana milk then cinnamon!

However you like it, this is a fun and simple way to enjoy something cool and refreshing and helps to keep things interesting while in quarantine…

Ingredients

• 1 frozen banana*

• 2 cups Almond or oat milk

• 1/4th tsp allspice or cinnamon (optional)

Directions

1. In a blender, combine all of your ingredients and blend on high until fully blended.

2. Pour into a glass, sip, and enjoy!

   *You can Instead use a ripe banana and a few ice cubes if you don’t have frozen bananas on hand!

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Strawberry Milk

You might think I have gone a little crazy when I say this but…I like strawberry milk more than chocolate milk! AH I know, I said it…BUT wasn’t strawberry milk the unsuspected hero during childhood? It was always a disappointment when you saw the strawberry syrup or powder coming out of the grocery bags, but once you actually make a cold glass of strawberry milk with way more syrup then you were supposed to have, life was good!

I haven’t had strawberry milk in years and really do feel after making this drink I waited far too long to try! I had the idea when my friend Natalie and I made our Neapolitan Cupcakes and used freeze-dried strawberries to get the pink color and strawberry flavor in the frosting! It came out so good I figured why not try using them to make strawberry milk!

So here I am with a cold glass of the best strawberry milk I’ve had in a long time, and I have to say it easily beats using the processed flavorings, and will be making this for the rest of my life!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 & 1/2 cup almond milk

• 1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries

• 2 Tbsp Agave

• 1/2 tsp vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS

1. in a blender combine all of your ingredients.

2. Blend on high until fully blended.

3. pour over ice and enjoy!

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Healthy Strawberry Shake // Vegan & Paleo

There’s nothing like strawberries in the summertime! Whether you're covering them in sugar, freezing them in Popsicle molds, or picking them straight from the plant, they are the perfect summer treat!

Well, I was feeling the summer heat here in FL for the last week at we hit the mid-90s, leading me into a desperate attempt to make something refreshing and simple! I looked in my freezer and there it was, a forgotten bag of frozen strawberries just WAITING to be made into something refreshing.

I grabbed the bag and then checked the content of my fridge, almond milk, coconut cream, and dairy-free yogurt all stared back at me and I knew it was time to make a healthy Strawberry milkshake!

This shake is not meant to overload your taste buds with the sugary version of a strawberry, but offer a taste that is both sweet and slightly sour at the same time, making for the perfect summer strawberry!

using unsweetened yogurt is how you get this effect, but if all you have is sweetened yogurt omit the maple syrup. Give it a taste test once blended and dd in the agave if you want to!

If you are like my husband and enjoy sour strawberries omit the maple syrup and sweetened yogurt all together!

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Ingredients

• 1 & 1/4th cup frozen strawberries

• 1/4th cup almond milk

• 1/2 cup almond milk yogurt

• 1/4th cup coconut cream

• 2 Tbsp. Maple Syrup

Instructions

It’s simple! Add in all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until you have a smooth consistency.

If need be add in a little extra almond milk, but just keep in mind this will alter the taste a bit.

Pour, sip and enjoy!

MInt Chocolate Chip Smoothie // Dairy Free & Gluten Free

Smoothies have a special place in my heart because they are piqued my interest in how healthy food can taste like a real treat! It all started when I was 14 and got a job babysitting. I would go every Thursday morning where the family was just finishing breakfast and the mom would set aside a cup of whatever smoothie they were making for me! it was awesome and helped me to learn that breakfast could be more than just cereal. Their family always had healthy treats around and near the end of work the mom and I would usually chat for a bit about life over a piece of dark chocolate.
It was one of the best jobs I have ever had and helped me learn about how to care for other people, but also how to care for my health with food!
As you guys might know, once life hit college life got tough and the idea of living a healthy and balanced life changed. I was at a job that made me miserable, my fiance lived in another country, I was convinced I would fail college, and felt a lack of control. What I knew I could control was what I put into my mouth, which made my love for living a healthy and balanced life, just an unhealthy obsession.
Thankfully after many years of recovery I have learned that intuitive eating was what I needed to get back to. It’s what I did in high school and I knew that if I wanted to regain my love for food I needed things to change.
I had all the rules beforehand that stemmed from me having to restrict my diet for medical reasons, that carried over into a “healthy diet”. it took months and months to break the cycle and to test the waters. For me it was having carbs in the morning. I loved smoothies, but the ones I was making were not what I genuinely loved or enjoyed. Even though I was eating enough food, I wasn’t satisfying my emotional connection with food. This leads me to overeat the Sonya approved food, leading me to an unbalanced diet.

After acknowledging these issues, and consistently working to break the bad habits and mindset I was stuck in I noticed things started to change.
I began eating dessert, every day, sometimes twice a day! But I also started doing my favorite exercises, having fun, and switching it up. I wasn’t focused on the calories I consumed or burned, I was simply enjoying the things that I loved! I felt like I did in high school were my favorite activities were ether doing something active or eating great food with the people I loved.
I stopped obsessing and started living again.
Thankfully living included eating a lot of yummy things, and that’s when this page truly began to change for the better!

Now I can bring to you fun recipes like this Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie that you can conveniently enjoy for breakfast or dessert! All you have to do is switch up the ingredients and voila! You have a tasty meal that brings joy!
If you want this Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie for Breakfast all you need is…

If you want this Mint Chocolate Chip Smoothie for Breakfast all you need is…

• 1 Frozen Banana

• 1 Cup nut milk (I like almond)

• 1 scoop collagen of vanilla protein powder

• 1 Tbsp. Cocoa powder

• 1 Tbsp cacao nibs

• 1 Tbsp sunflower butter

• handful of spinach

• 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 3 ice cubes

• pinch of sea salt

• 1 Tbsp. avocado (optional)

• 1 Tbsp. Flax meal (optional)

  And if you want to enjoy it as a tasty dessert…

• 1 Frozen Banana

• 1 Tbsp. cocoa powder

• 1 Tbsp. cacao nibs

• 1/4th to 1/2 cup milk (less milk = thiccc like ice cream)

• 1 Tbsp. sunflower butter

• pinch of sea salt

• 1/2 tsp peppermint extract

• 1/3 tsp vanilla extract

  Directions

  FOR BOTH**In a blender pour the almond milk in first and then add in all other ingredients and blend away!
  

Banana Bread Smoothie

Nothing beats waking up to banana bread during the star at home orders…thankfully you can now enjoy banana bread in several forms thanks to this rending food item right now. For me I a big fan of smoothies in the morning, so when everyone was baking away, I remembered a recipe that I had come up with last year and totally forgot about! Let me explain…

Last year I spent some time in South Africa to see family and there is this smoothie place that is over the moon delicious! One of my favorite smoothies I had there was one that tasted exactly like banana bread! I figured that since I am in America now, and couldn’t get my hands on a smoothie made to perfection, I would have to make one at home!

When you freeze your bananas they should be ripe, none of this green banana business. Remember you want this to taste like banana bread & when it comes to banana bread spots = deliciousness! Just make sure they aren’t at that stage of the peel looking completely brown, that flavor is a little too intense for this smoothie…

If you would like to make this a vegan smoothie feel free to omit the collagen and instead replace it with vegan protein powder. Just keep in mind that this will change the taste and texture a bit. Try to stick with unflavored or vanilla protein powder.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Almond Milk

• 1 Tbsp Tahini**

• 1 Tbsp Cacao nibs

• 1 Tsp Cinnamon

• 1 Frozen banana

• 3 to 5 ice cubes

• 1 scoop Collagen

Directions

• combine all the ingredients into your blender, making sure to pour in your almond milk first! This helps to ensure that your dry ingredients don’t get stuck at the bottom of the blender.

• Sip and enjoy it!

  **If you don’t have Tahini on hand, the next best thing is cashew butter or 2tbs soaked Cashews.

Chocolate Almond Protein Shake // Dairy Free

Does anyone else here get on a kick of some type of food creation and then continuously make it every day because it’s so darn good? Well, that would be me, and that recipe right now is this protein shake!

It’s creamy and tastes like chocolate milk because that’s basically what it is only super healthy. I came up with the idea when my sister introduced me to some awesome protein powder and I was then too cheap to buy it myself. I already had collagen and the bananas were in my kitchen, so obviously I got to work.

Thankfully the work paid off in a most rewarding way and my that I mean the chocolate almond protein shake was born!

Feel free to use any of your favorite nut butter in place of the almond butter if you like, and save the hemp seeds till the end! I like to add things like hemp or chia to a liquid smoothie because then it gives you something to chew. It sounds weird, but I have heard that it helps you feel more satisfied, and honestly I just like a LOT of texture.

So here you go!

Protein Shake

2/3rd cup Almond Milk

½ cup Water  

1 ripe banana (frozen is good too)

1 tbsp. Cocoa powder

1 tbsp Almond butter

3-4 ice cubes

1 scoop collagen

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp. Hemp hearts (Mix these in for texture at the end!)

Directions

Blend everything together except hemp hearts, until smooth.

Pour over ice, mix in hemp hearts, and enjoy!

Psssst* Here’s my favorite cocoa powder!