Green Smoothie Challenge - Storing Greens

I started doing the Green Smoothie Challenge  at the beginning of April and then I got sick and stopped for about a week (I really just didn't want to eat anything) but I am back at it and I am loving how energized I feel. They are tastey and full of delicious goodness. 

The one thing I found was that I wasn't able to go through a bunch of greens fast enough before it started going bad and that washing greens everyday was time consuming and annoying. I found a simple solution to both those problems that I thought I would share with you. 

Take your green (in my case Kale) and break it into small pieces.

 Wash and drain your greens 

 Dry throughly. (It would probably be faster to use a lettuce spinner...which I don't own...the joys of student living. haha a clean kitchen towel did just fine) 

Store greens in a ziplock bag with a paper towel placed inside to capture moister and keep greens fresh longer. Also if you find you have way too many greens you can simply throw the ziplock bag into the freezer. 

Hope this helps! 

For my favourite green smoothie recipe click here. 

Jaclyn 

Chocolate Baileys Cupcakes!

I knew I wanted to make an alcoholic cupcake for St. Patty's Day. I have been meaning to make Chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's butter cream for awhile now. I love the combo of chocolate and Bailey's. I knew this was the perfect opportunity and got festive with some green icing and sprinkles. 

For the Cupcake: 

Use your favourite chocolate cupcake recipe. I used one from Annie's Eats.  It is super simple and really yummy. I use it as the base of many of my cupcakes 

I wasn't going to fill these but then I decided they needed a little something extra so I made some Bailey's cream.  

For the Cream: 

1/2 cup whipping cream 

1/4 cup Baileys 

1 tbs butter 

2 tbs sugar 

1 tsp corn starch 

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Combine whipping cream, butter, sugar and corn starch in a small pan. Bring to a boil. Then stir in Baileys. If you would like to make it more of a gauche add about 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. 

Once cupcakes have cooled, cut a cone in the middle of each of them and fill with 1-2 tsp of filling.

 For the frosting: 

1 cup butter (room temp) 

3 cups icing sugar 

1/4 cup Baileys 

Optional: 3-4 drops of green food colouring 

Whip butter until it is light and fluffy. Add icing sugar one cup at a time until desired sweetness and texture is obtained. Add 1/4 Baileys and whip to combine. 

Frost cupcakes as you wish. 

Enjoy! 

-Jaclyn 

Happy St. Patricks Day! 

Cravings: Green

TOMS. Nail Polish. Scarf. Shirt. Bag. 

I will be wearing green and eating some green coloured pancakes for sure this Sunday!

Enjoy your St Patricks Day!  

-Jaclyn

Green Smoothie

 The thought of drinking spinach was just not appetizing to me. At all. However I kept seeing Green Smoothies (or Green Monsters) popping up everywhere. So I thought I should just get over the fear and give it a try.  It was surprisingly pretty amazing. I had seen a few different recipes online which were basically spinach, banana, honey and milk. The spinach does blend smoothly and you can hardly taste it however I am not a huge fan of just banana flavour in smoothies so I added some frozen mango and raspberries to mine as well as some greek yogurt. You couldn't even taste the spinach and the raspberries make the green colour go away.

 First blend a handful of spinach. I use my Magic Bullet to make smoothies and find adding a touch of milk helps the blending process. I then add about a 1/4 cup of greek yogurt, a banana and a touch of honey and blend until smooth.

 Add about a handful of frozen mango pieces and blend. Then add a handful of frozen raspberries (you can see the raspberries turning the smoothie back to its normal pink colour).  Finally I sometimes add some milk to bring the smoothie to a better consistency, sometimes the frozen fruit makes it really thick.

Enjoy! 

Have you ever tried a green smoothie before? What is your favourite combo? 

Jaclyn