pomegranate raspberry green smoothie.

(green smoothie in disguise.)

also known as the prettiest color of smoothie.

however, when you're making a literal green smoothie and you can get it to look actually green and not brown, that's also the prettiest color of smoothie. :)

i want all my smoothies to be JUICY JUICY. not icy and bland.

but, i recently had a revelation. just because you're adding as much fruit as you can possibly fit to the tippy top of your blender, it doesn't really mean it's that much healthier for you. that's actually a ton of sugar. natural sugar, still, but an overdose! 

so, your ratio of greens has to be huge to balance out the fruit sugars. or you might as well just go have a milkshake!

kidding, but think about it.... you'd never sit down and drink a tall glass of orange juice, eat 2 bananas, 1/2 a pineapple, 8 strawberries, whateverwhatever..... but somehow if we're able to blend all those items into smoothie form, it makes it all "okay" and actually, "supa healthy!" which is probably not the case at all.

anyway, i've just been more aware of the greens to fruit ratios lately.

i find that a mixture of orange juice and pomegranate juice makes for the j u i c i e s t smoothies.

i also always add a bit of ginger to my fruit smoothies because i love it and feel like it heightens the juiciness factor - but if ya hate it, skip it. 

the gourmet gardens ginger paste is super delicious and much easier to deal with than real ginger, so i love using it in smoothies. it speeds up the process a lot. people say you don't necessarily have to peel fresh ginger to use it, but i don't like the hard skin chunks so i always take the time to peel it. pete & i also use the gourmet gardens garlic paste when laziness strikes in the kitchen - so, all of the time. ha! 

you want the greens to make up at least 50% of the smoothie, or else it's kind of a fruit sugar overload. spinach has essentially zero sugar. you can't even tell theres at least 2 heaping cups of greens smashed in there, and you can't taste it either. dat stealth 4 your health. 

i plopped some fresh raspberries in the finished product as well. they're a fun little smoothie surpriZe when you get 'em. 

Pomegranate Raspberry Green Smoothie

Serves 2

Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup frozen raspberries + a handful of fresh raspberries
  • 1 large banana
  • 2 heaping cups spinach or juicing greens
  • 1/2 cup 100% orange juice
  • 1/2 cup 100% pomegranate juice (+ a splash extra if necessary)
  • 1 inch knob of fresh ginger, or 1 TB of Gourmet Gardens ginger paste

Instructions-

In a high speed blender, add the juices on the bottom and the remainder of ingredients on top. Blend on high for 2-5 minutes to pulverize the spinach or greens. Taste occasionally and add extra raspberries or pomegranate juice if necessary.

 

 

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amsterdam.

iloveitiloveitiloveit.

we flew from dublin to amsterdam to spend my 30th birthday and new year's eve. 

this was my first time in amsterdam since i was just a wee tot. holy wow, i couldn't love this place more.

even though these photos look dreary and rainy, we had the best time. i cannot wait to go back sometime in the spring or summer and ride our little bikes all over the land.

love a nicely centered, brightly colored bicycle moment.

this city is just so damn charming & quaint. it was rainy and snowing a little bit while we were there, but weather doesn't stop the good people of amsterdam at all. that's what i loved about this place. these folks know how to live. 

we saw so many stylin' women in fancy coats and heels cruising around on their bicycles with bouquets of flowers and wine in their baskets. for real! can you even belieb? it was like something out of an old tymey movie.

^ we spent the morning of my 30th birthday at the laundromat, lol. good tiiimes.

did i mention that we each only brought a small carry-on suitcase on this trip? with multiple big coats and everything! 16 days worth of stuff. it was shocking to me, but i was so glad to only have a tiny suitcase to haul all over the place. all i can say is - compression bags are the greatest thing ever. they're seriously incredible. it kind of sucked having to repack the compression bags every time we moved to a new location, but the amount we fit in our tiny suitcases was a true miracle. 

what do you do on your 30th birthday in amsterdam when it's raining all day, and also snowing?

you hit up the heineken experience, of course.  they made me wear a birthday hat and at the end of the tour they gave me this stein that i could refill indefinitely. how convenient.

^ lolz i got a kick out of this drawing of a hot dog as the menu. 

^ that heine was flowin! afterwards we went on a light boat dinner cruise at G's. it was a fun and memorable birthday with my boo. 

^ even though all the dutch words are wildly long, we still had an easy time getting around on public transit. people are so nice and everyone speaks english so it was an easy transition.

also the fresh mint tea they have at cafes is so delightful. so much mint in there!

this was probably my favorite little part of our time in amsterdam. exploring the canals is endlessly fun and enjoyable. we stumbled upon this little seating area on the canal across the street from the pub. they brought us beers and there were swans casually cruising by. i mean, TRY TO BE CUTER, AMSTERDAM.

and there were still tons of lights leftover from christmas :) 

picked out some fun vintage knobs for my friendzies and we had delicious hot stroopwafel at this market. 

pub life.

^ look at that dude's geetar thang! yuuuuge!

we stayed at the ultra hip and fun volkshotel. they had really cute details, lots of events going on and cool stuff to do. for new year's eve, they had a big party at the top floor bar where we watched the most insane fireworks show we'd ever seen. there were fireworks going off 360 degrees around the city, from around 6pm until 2am or so...it was amazing!

twas a happy new year indeed! 

 

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