Eat Your Greens! - Winter Ways

As the weather turns, we tend to lean toward warm, heavy grains for sustenance.  And snuggley blankets.

Delilah knows the deal.  She's Roomy's dog, an adorable little princess of a Dachshund.  A BIG snuggler!  I love her, even her 3am going-out side.  I just had to put the pic up really.

Hehehe

She is a HUGE fan of Green Smoothies.  You wouldn't think it, being a dog and all, but she always gets the last bit from the blender and she goes crazy for it!  Makes me love her even more.  No, we don't let her at the blender, blade and all, we scrape it into her bowl.

 

 Not so green, I know, but Purple with Green intentions Smoothie is just as good.  It has been a strange 70+ degrees here in Chicago for the last couple of days (until today - 40's!), which put me in a smoothie mood of course.  I'm also a big fan of smoothies in the winter, but of a different variety.  This guy's got a frozen banana, bloobs (that's blueberries for you non trail folk), RAW Vanilla Chai Meal Powder, Goji berries, Chia, water, and, of course, frozen SPINACH for the Green Intention part.

Winter smoothies took me a while to get really happy with, but room temp was the key and a heavy base too.  Think cashew, hemp, cinnamon, apple, banana, vanilla.  Or think, spinach, banana, orange slices, ginger, cashew, date.  As little frozen as possible, unless you have a real sweet heating system in your place of residence.  Our land lord seems reluctant to turn on the heaters, and Roomy and I lean toward the less energy use side of things anyway = no space heaters in our apartment = we just snuggle with Delilah.

Kale is also a great green for winter.  It lasts a long time, massaging it with a ginger based dressing is great for circulation and warming you up even though you're eating a salad.  If you lean toward the "I MUST HAVE COOKED FOOD IN WINTER" side of things, then go for some dehydrated kale chips, or roasted cabbage.  Sauteed collards and mustard greens for that extra warming kick?  How about a mustard marinade for some tougher greens?

Keep the greens flowing/growing in the cold months.  I'll actually be talking about this during my Vegan Fall Feast Workshop coming up here in Chicago on Saturday Nov. 10th 4:30-6:30.  It'll be at the Yoga Studio I work at and will be a very tasty good time!

Keep it Green and Lovely!