Jaffa Cake Green Smoothie

Q. How do you make spinach taste like chocolate?

A. Make it into a chocolate green smoothie of course!

A few months ago I admired those who made and drank green smoothies, I even enjoyed looking at pictures and reading recipes, but I never drank one or even tried one or imagined that it would ever be for me.

Now here I am, lying in bed at night looking forward to the next morning to make my smoothie and dreaming up new combinations of fruit and flavours.

I’ve been following the Green Smoothie Challenge put together by Somer over at Vedged Out. I’m reaching the end of my second week now and am on track to have lost 6 pounds in total. My official week end weigh in is tomorrow and as of today, I have lost just under 2.5 pounds this week.

The real beauty is that I am not hungry and I am in fact not managing to eat all the allowance of food. Four meals a day plus unlimited veggie snacks and a cup of hummus is a lot of food to consume and even a greedy guzzler like me can only manage half of that and many days even less. The fibre from the veggies and the protein from the beans and lentils are not just filling but maintain satiety. Furthermore, we all know that liquid foods like soups are very filling and with a whopping 2 litres of fruit and veg packed smoothie too, it’s hard to want for any food. In fact, only twice in my two weeks have I managed both litres of smoothie.

The challenge has been a minor lesson in organisation for me. I have always been an impulsive cook, maybe I’ll plan what I want to make with what I have the day before, maybe even two days before, but I won’t actually start preparing it, only make a note on my phone. So planning ahead with soups and dressing and hummus was a little new to me but fun at the same time. Not so fun at first was not planning the groceries to ensure lots of carrot and celery snackage with my hummus and needing to crunch on something at my desk between meals. After a couple of days of getting in to the routine, I am consuming carrots by the bunch and I think my local farm shop loves me for it.

Oh, and did I mention, for the first time in 18 months I don’t have to count and calculate calories and weigh every morsel passing my lips and I am still losing weight?

This smoothie is an adapted amalgamation of two of Somer’s smoothies from the challenge, the Green Julius and the Chocolate Covered Blues. It is chocolate orange heaven and a liquid jaffa cake. No taste, texture, or even colour of greens so this is a great one to get some nutrients into any greens fussy children, or adults.

Be sure to check out the incredible nutrition info below, we’re talking chocolate milkshake with no cholesterol, 76% of the daily recommended Calcium, 432% of the daily recommended Vitamin A and 460% Vitamin C.

Ingredients: Serves 1

• 2 cups fresh kale (or spinach)
• 1 banana
• 2 peeled oranges, plus the zest of 1/2-1 before peeling
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1 1/2 cups ice cubes
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed (optional)
• Stevia to taste (optional)

Method:

Simply add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. If you don’t have a blender you can use an immersion blender or food processor but you may need to pass it through a sieve to get it smooth.

I’m entering this into the #EXTRAVEG FOOD BLOG CHALLENGE – MAY 2015 hosted by Veggie Desserts, Fuss Free Flavours and Utterly Scrummy.

Nutritional Benefits

Low in saturated fat
No cholesterol
Very high in calcium
High in dietary fiber
Very high in manganese
High in magnesium
High in potassium
Very high in vitamin A
High in vitamin B6
Very high in vitamin C
High in vitamin E

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