Green Thickies Blog

Healthy Vegan Friday #43 Healthy Eating, Carrot Cake & Superfood Cups

On May 17, 2013 / Healthy Vegan Fridays / 2 Comments

Welcome to Healthy Vegan Fridays. Last week we had 51 entries! Check out the top 3 clicked on posts and my favourite 3 entries from last week. I now have just over a week until my baby is due to be born. I’m a person who likes to plan everything in great detail so I find it hard not knowing when it’s going to happen and whether my waters are going to break in the middle of the supermarket. I just want the birth over and done with now and I can’t wait to meet the newest little addition to our family.

For those of you who don’t know, Healthy Vegan Fridays is a weekly blog hop hosted by myself, Carrie @ Carrie on Vegan, and Gabby @ The Veggie Nook. It is a place to share your healthy vegan recipes that make use of whole ingredients and minimize the use of processed and refined foods. The recipes shared on this link up are intended to emphasis the beauty, creativity and benefits of a healthy, plant-based diet!

Please like the Healthy Vegan Fridays Facebook Page!

Recap of last week:

1: My Top 10 Tips For Eating Healthy

myhealthychef.wordpress.com

MY TOP 10 TIPS FOR EATING HEALTHY

2: Enlightened Carrot Cake with Quick Cream Cheese Icing (raw, vegan, GF)

chefambershea.com

Enlightened Carrot Cake with Quick Cream Cheese Icing (raw, vegan, GF)

3: Superfood Cups – raw, vegan

sweetlyraw.com

Superfood Cups - raw, vegan

My Favourites from Last Week

Kale, Mac N Sweet Potato Cheese

amysnutritariankitchen.blogspot.co.uk

Kale, Mac N Sweet Potato Cheese

Mother’s Day Breakfast Mushrooms

sandysveganblogsandblahs.blogspot.com.au

Mother's Day Breakfast Mushrooms

How to Make Vanilla Powder

carrieonvegan.com

How to Make Vanilla Powder

And just a quick request- PLEASE put a LINK BACK to this blog party on the post you are linking. We want to try and spread the word about Healthy Vegan Friday and would really appreciate your help doing so!

So, if you have a healthy vegan recipe (or 2) to share, please add it to the list below! If not, feel free to browse the submissions and get inspired! You can also check out our Pinterest board, Facebok Page and feel free to tweet about it using the hashtag #VeganFridays. Feel free to grab our button (code is on the sidebar) to help promote this even and show your vegan pride.

You don’t have to be vegan to submit, just needs to be a vegan recipe. so share that creativity of yours!

Thanks and happy Friday!

Submission Guidelines

maximum of 2 submissions per week
you do not have to be a vegan food blogger to link up, but all recipes must be 100% vegan.
all recipe submissions should focus on the most whole, unprocessed and unrefined ingredients as much as possible, although we will still accept recipes that make use of some processed/refined ingredients.
you may submit current or past recipes, just make sure they are not ones that you have shared previously on this blog hop.
besides recipes, feel free to submit informative posts that are aimed at promoting vegan, plant-based diets.
you must provide a link back to this blog party on your submitted post. You can either grab our badge to display or a clickable link back somewhere on the post you are submitting.
when linking up, please make sure to link back to the post you are submitting, not the homepage of your blog

Legal Disclaimer

By linking up to Healthy Vegan Fridays, you guarantee that the pictures and posts are your own and not that of someone else. You also agree to give permission to all hostesses (Gabby and Carrie) to make use of your pictures and posts on our own Healthy Vegan Friday posts, as well as giving us permission to re-post them on Pinterest, Twitter and/or Facebook.

Cheap Smoothies 1: Healthy Ginger Cake (Frugal Full Meal Green Smoothie)

On May 13, 2013 / Green Thickies, Recipes / 3 Comments

Cheap Smoothies Ginger Cake Full Meal Green Smoothies

I have been wanting to cut my food shopping bill down for a while now so when I saw an opportunity to take part in the Live Below The Line project I jumped at the chance. This involved living below the poverty line for 5 days and making extremely frugal meals.

I made this smoothie on Day 1. You can read all about it complete with my costings for each meal. All my costings are in British Pounds, but whatever country you live in, this smoothie is very cheap and will also give you a complete healthy balanced breakfast.

Cheap Smoothies Ginger Cake Full Meal Green Smoothies 1 If you are going to drink green smoothies regularly you may notice that the ingredients can end up costing a fair bit. You have to pay for all types of different exotic fruits, different types of dairy free milks, expensive nuts, flavourings and fresh greens which all add up. Once you’ve bought all these ingredients and made yourself a great healthy green smoothie, you may be dismayed to find that you are hungry again within an hour and have to think of another healthy filling breakfast to make to see you through until lunch time.

With this smoothie, not only is it extremely frugal, but it’s a very balanced healthy meal and it will actually fill you up and keep you going until your next meal as it contains oats.

I have just used a few simple ingredients chosen for their nutrition and cost, bananas (usually the cheapest fruit, filling and naturally sweet), frozen spinach (usually cheaper than fresh), flaxseeds (one of the cheapest seeds), and basic rolled oats. I blended this smoothie with water. The oats make it creamy enough so you won’t miss the milk.

You can read all my Live Below The Line posts here: How I’m going to live below the poverty line for 5 days, What food I bought to Live Below The Poverty Line and Day 1 Living Below the Line: Finding out what true hunger really means, Day 2 Living Below the Line: Why eating unrefined food is essential on a budget, Day 3 Living Below the Line: Why eating vegan food is cheaper, Day 4 Living Below The Line: Why Variety is the Key to Health, Day 5 Living Below the Line: How to plan cheap healthy meals.

Cheap Smoothies 1: Healthy Ginger Cake (Frugal Full Meal Green Smoothie)

Print recipe

Ingredients

1 & 1/3 cup Rolled Oats
4 tablespoons Flaxseeds (Use Ground Flaxseeds if you don't have a powerful blender)
5oz Frozen Spinach (140 grams (About 3 cubes) or about 1 cup of fresh spinach)
3 small Bananas (Frozen bananas will keep the smoothie cool. )
1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 & 1/2 cups Water

Directions

Step 1
Blend the ingredients in the order listed.

Note

Blend the ingredients in the order listed. If you are making a green smoothie blend the greens and liquid first and then blend the rest of the ingredients. This creates more space in your blender. Add more water if required to thin it out. Substitute any of the ingredients for whatever you already have. If your smoothie is too warm, you can cool it down in the fridge or freeze some of your ingredients before blending. You can also replace half of the liquids with ice. Add the ice at the end. It is better to add frozen ingredients at the end to cool the smoothie down.

NOTE: This smoothie serves 2 but if you have an active job, do work outs or have higher calorie requirements you may need to drink both servings.

If you are new to Green Thickies and have more questions about making the perfect green thickie, please read this guide on How to make a Green Thickie. Or read this guide on How to make a smoothie perfect every time.

Find out more about adding OATS or QUINOA to your smoothies.

The RECIPE for DATE PASTE can be found here.

Suitable for Special Diets: Gluten free (Use GF Oats or Quinoa), raw (Use raw oats/quinoa), vegetarian, vegan, dairy free, egg free, refined sugar free, wheat free, soya free (don’t use soya milk), salt free (don't add salt), nut free (replace nuts with sunflower or pumpkin seeds. This doesn't include coconuts)

* If you want to check if you can drink green thickies on your special diet,) please read this first. This will suggest some substitutions so you can still enjoy Green Thickies with ingredients you can tolerate.

Healthy Vegan Friday #42 What not to put in smoothies, Cheesecake & Raw Vegan Ice Cream

On May 10, 2013 / Healthy Vegan Fridays / 2 Comments

Welcome back to Healthy Vegan Fridays. I’ve been having more of a rest week this week after posting every day last week during the Live Below The Line project that I took part in. This involved living below the poverty line for 5 days spending no more than £1/ $1.50 a day on food. You can read all my posts here: How I’m going to live below the poverty line for 5 days, What food I bought to Live Below The Poverty Line and Day 1 Living Below the Line: Finding out what true hunger really means, Day 2 Living Below the Line: Why eating unrefined food is essential on a budget, Day 3 Living Below the Line: Why eating vegan food is cheaper, Day 4 Living Below The Line: Why Variety is the Key to Health, Day 5 Living Below the Line: How to plan cheap healthy meals.

My baby is now full term which means it can be born healthily any time now, so hopefully I’ll be introducing you to our new baby very soon!

Please like the Healthy Vegan Fridays Facebook Page!

Recap of last week: