Green Banana and Peanut Butter Smoothie and Lower Fat Guacamole Wrap

This morning was far more rushed that I prefer. I had a number of errands to run and with the temperatures predicted to reach 100 I wanted to get out and back as early as possible. Right after Dan left for work I straighten up the kitchen made a smoothie and ran out the door. Here is my on the go smoothie from this morning:

Green Banana and Peanut Butter Smoothie
Serves 1

Ingredients:

1/3 cup oats, ground into flour
1 frozen banana
2 tablespoons reduced fat peanut butter
2 collard leaves, shredded
¼ teaspoon powdered ginger (for the anti inflammatory properties)
¼ teaspoon cinnamon (to help the body digest the fruit sugar and provide antioxidants)
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
water and ice (to make the smoothie liquid and cold)
stevia, to taste (if necessary)

Directions:

Process the oats into flour in your blender first. Now add the other ingredients and process until smooth. Add as much water and ice as you like. I used about 1 cup water and 6 ice cubes.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 415.59
Calories From Fat (31%) - 130.11

Total Fat - 15.37g
Saturated Fat - 2.4g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 177.37mg
Potassium - 772.18mg
Total Carbohydrates - 62.97g
Fiber - 11.86g
Sugar - 17.46g
Protein - 14.49g

Comments:

This is one of my favorite smoothies. I don’t have them often but when I do this seems to be the one I make. The collards do add a little “grassy undertone” but the smoothie is sweet from the banana and rich from the peanut butter so it works, IMO. ;-)

I add collards for their nutrition. They are a good source of vitamin A, and K and a decent source of calcium. Since they are in the same botanical family as broccoli they are more nutritious when lightly cooked or raw. I like that the blender does the work of breaking down the cell walls to make the nutrients more absorbable.

Health food store:

I poured my smoothie into a quart jar and ran out the door with coolers to do a little quick shopping. We needed some medicinal mushrooms, astragalus and turmeric (with piperine) from the health food store. While I was there I bought a big bag of tulsi tea.  I also bought brown lentils, garbanzo beans and some organic bay leaves.

Library:

Next I ran to the library and hit the jackpot on healthy books. It was a productive stop. I grabbed the following:

“The All-Pro Diet” by Tony Gonzalez. I bought this to read what his nutritionist has to say about protein but I also wanted to see his workout routine. ;-) Tony is a fan of T. Colin Campbell and was mentioned during the lectures for my Cornell certificate program. I am curious to see how he eats.

“Sports Nutrition: From Lab to Kitchen” by Asker Jeukendrup. I grabbed this one for the title alone; they had me at from lab to kitchen. ;-)

“The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged” by Tosca Reno. I am a huge fan of Tosca Reno and own her other books. I am hoping this one has more vegan options, but only time will tell.

“Easy Green Living” by Renee Loux. I enjoyed Renee’s earlier book, “The Balanced Plate” so I wanted to see what this book was about. The titled sounded promising.

“The Complete Book of Raw Food” by Julie Rodwell. I was looking for vegan books at the library that I didn’t own and there weren’t any that I wanted to read. I supposed that means I own to many cookbooks. I picked up this raw book because I am always looked for more raw recipes. While I am not and probably will never been a raw foodist I do like raw food especially in the summer.

Wegman’s:

After the library I stopped at Wegman’s. The nearby DSW was calling my name. But I resisted, somehow. ;-) I convinced myself that summer was almost over and that I didn’t really need more sandals. Who said that? LOL

I only needed a few items for Wegman’s so I was in an out in well under 15 minutes. We needed some ascorbate C powder for our green and white tea to keep the EGCG bioavailable longer.  Remember vitamin C is heat senstive so add at the end of brewing or to cold tea. I also was out of barley, bulgur and macadamia nuts.

Home for Lunch:

Running around from place to place in the heat was not my idea of fun so I was very happy to get home to the A/C. The problem was that I left so early this morning that I didn’t have time to exercise before I left. While I needed to exercise I was also hungry. Hunger won out and I made a quick collard wrap with lower fat guacamole. Here is what I did:

Lower Fat Guacamole filled Collard Wrap
Serves 1

Ingredients:

½ Haas avocado, peeled and pitted
½ cup green peas, if frozen defrost
2 tablespoons salsa
1 teaspoon lime zest
¼ teaspoon cumin seed, ground
1 pinch cayenne
1 collard leaf, stem end removed and stem vein shaved flat with your knife
½ cup romaine, for extra crunch
5 slices cucumber, for more crunch

Directions:

Mash the avocado, peas and salsa together with a fork. Add the salsa, lime zest, cumin and cayenne.

Lay the collard leaf on your cutting board light green side up. Fill with the guacamole. Top with cucumber and romaine and roll up like a burrito.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories 219.96
Calories From Fat (53%) - 115.72

Total Fat - 13.8g
Saturated Fat - 1.92g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 284.15mg
Potassium - 764.45mg
Total Carbohydrates - 21.74g
Fiber - 10.47g
Sugar - 5.93g
Protein - 6.68g

Comments:

This is good but definitely messy. It would not be good to take to work but if you are eating at home go for it. I happen to be a huge avocado fan so this is great to me. If you don’t have any green peas you can make this dish with cold cooked yellow spit peas or white beans. It also works with edamame.

Dried tomatoes:

Last night I turned the dehydrator down to 115 and the tomatoes remained in the dehydrator an additional 12 hours. When I got home from my errands the tomatoes were dry.

Here they are before

and after drying.

I store them in a jar until I need them.

This weekend I will buy twice the amount of tomatoes to dry. I am hoping to use them in place of some of the canned tomatoes I would typically use. I am not overly concerned about BPA since I am not of child bearing age, nor do I have young children at home. However anytime I can reduce a processed food (in this case canned tomatoes) from our diet I think it is a good thing.

Exercise:

I have been putting it off long enough. I need to knock out my cardio and abdominal routine before I change my mind. I will be back later with whatever we end up having for dinner.