Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Smoothie

This is my recent favorite breakfast smoothie: Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal... in a smoothie! Yum!
I substitute half of the milk for either almond milk or rice milk. But I don't want to substitute all of it because it gives the smoothie a creaminess that the milk alternatives don't.

This is what I use:
2 bananas
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp maca powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 handful of nuts (cashews)
1/4 cup (about 1 1/2 pack) of instant oatmeal

Peanut Butter, Banana, Cholate Smoothie

I like Reese's and was delighted to find recipes with the same idea (peanut butter and chocolate) for smoothies.

This one also calls for flax seed and Greek yogurt (which I substituted with a tablespoon of sour cream and nuts ;) ! mmh!) and gets my full recommendation!

Pear Parsley Smoothie with Pecans

Another smoothie! I can't say enough how much I like having smoothies in the mornings or evenings or as a snack in between! Especially the ones with greens, fruits and nuts!

Pear Parsley Smoothie:

1 pear

1 apple

1/3 - 1/2 cup of parsley

1/3 cup of pecans

1 tsp flax seed

1/2 cup of almond coconut milk

Blend well, add almond coconut milk to get the desired consistency.

Banana Chocolate Smoothie

I tried something new with the Banana Chocolate Smoothies and I really like the result: I added nuts, maple syrup and a few pieces from a chocolate bar (70%). I've also been adding almond coconut milk to those smoothies and it tastes fantastic!

Banana Chocolate Smoothie:
2 bananas
1/3 - 1/5 cup of nuts (e.g. cashews, pecans)
1tbsp cocoa powder
1tbsp maple syrup
1tsp vanilla extract
4 pieces from a 70% chocolate bar
1/2 cup of almond coconut milk (or just almond milk, or rice milk)
Blend well. Add more almond coconut milk to get the desired consistency.

Eggnog and Mini Mushroom Quiches with Potato Crust

Great thing about Christmas is that I can try out all those christmassy recipes. Something I always wanted to make from scratch is eggnog. The recipe I used won me over with its title: "Amazingly good Eggnog".
As before, I substituted sugar with coconut sugar. I also left out the cloves and nutmeg and used spiced rum instead. The result tasted very good, but I must have done something wrong (probably during the heating process) and the eggnog wasn't smooth.
Great thing about not getting yummy things right the first time: There's going to be a next time!

Accompanying the eggnog was a vegetarian dinner that I have been exited about for several days!
I am a big fan of my newly acquired muffin pan. I haven't made a single muffin yet, but I thoroughly enjoy all the non-muffin recipes I can make with it. Like Mini Quiches!!

The idea for the potato crust I got from this recipe. But I used fresh potatoes and also added an egg and a tablespoon of flour to my crust "dough". It turned out wonderful and I am a big fan of it!
The filling was made from this Mushroom Quiche recipe. I did add more cheese (Gruyere AND Compté!) and parsley. Some quiches got a little bit of salmon as well which turned out to be a great addition!

A surprisingly sweet Banana-Pear-Almond-Milk-Smoothie!

For my (almost) daily smoothie I tried out the following

Smoothie recipe:
1 banana
1 pear
1 cup almond milk
4 tbsp cranberry juice
Blend banana and pear (will make about 2 cups of banana-pear-mush), add almond milk and cranberry juice. Enjoy!

Surprisingly the smoothie tasted a lot like apple, which I'm not against, but I just expected something different. Also, I realized that the almond milk I bought was sweetened (don't know how I missed that before). Now I know that the sweetness of my last smoothies wasn't all thanks to those ripe bananas!

Smoothie (banana, chocolate, almond milk)

Today was a busy day full of Christmas activities and friends. So I only had time to prepare a quick smoothie in the morning:

Banana-Chocolate-Almond-Milk Smoothie
1 1/2 banans
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Blend all the ingredients. The banana makes it sufficiently sweet so no sugar is needed. Nomnom!

Smoothie (banana, berries, mint, almond milk)

Since I got an immersion blender (last week), I have been making smoothies as often as I could.

Yesterday a special person showed me a recipe and I was keen on trying it out today. As I didn't have all the ingredients I changed it up a little bit and it turned into a fresh minty smoothie. Perfect to start my late morning after sleeping in :)

Banana-Berry-Mind-Almond Smoothie
1/2 banana
1 cup frozen blue berry and raspberry mix
1/2 avocado
leaves of 3-4 stems of fresh mint
1 cup  almond milk
1 tbsp coconut sugar
Blend all the ingredients. Sweeten to taste.