What are you looking for?

Have you noticed healthy foods sound more appealing if they have a dessert in the title?   Case in point: would you rather drink something entitled Rabbit Food Healthy Drink or Carrot Cake Smoothie?  Exactly.  You will totally understand, then if for the next few weeks, I throw some healthy smoothies at you with desserts in their names like today’s Peach Cobbler Smoothie.

Lest you think I am trying to pull a fast one, this smoothie does have most of the components of a peach cobbler: peaches, cinnamon, oats.  It does not have the sugar or butter.  And you can drink it!  So I am feeling fine about my title choice.

I have taken to making my smoothies when the teenagers are out of the house.  They all love sugar laden smoothies made with regular yogurt.  Ahem, pardon me, but you might just want to call those milkshakes.  When all four of my boys were still in the house and my daughter was too young for school, I’d get up early in the morning and make them smoothies made from 1 quart jar of home canned peaches (including some of the syrup), frozen strawberries and a 32 oz container of vanilla yogurt.  They L-O-V-E-D them.  I haven’t had home canned fruit in the house since then, though, so the smoothies have gone by the wayside.

This latest smoothie kick I have been on has involved a lot more health conscious ingredients like chia seeds.  Have you gotten on the chia bandwagon yet?  Those babies pack a lot of nutrition in a tiny package.  Protein, fiber, potassium, calcium, iron and magnesium ; they contain much more than a lot of other fruits and vegetables, too.  I started out making the chia seed puddings, but then I started thinking that they might need to be ground a little for my body to absorb the nutrition.  I read somewhere that whole flax seeds did little good because our bodies simply moved them through in one piece.  Going on that same theory, I have taken to grinding them up in my spice grinder (read coffee grinder).  They add no taste and in their ground form, they don’t even add much texture.   That’s your Frugal Tip for the day: whole chia seeds go for about $9/pound while chia meal sells for about $12/pound.  Grinding your own saves you 25%!