Thursday, July 5, 2012

Colourful Smoothie Challenge so far


Hi everyone. If you follow me on Twitter, then you may have seen me tweet some smoothie pics with the hashtag #colourfulsmoothie over the past five days. In case you missed them, here's what I've made and tweeted as part of Charissa of Colourful Palate's July Colourful Smoothie Challenge so far.

First I made, tweeted and blogged about this chocolate-covered strawberry Tracy Anderson concoction. It's simply Tracy Anderson Perfect Performance Wellness Shake blended with almond milk and frozen strawberries. I garnished it with some cacao nibs and a fresh strawberry.

Next up, I just had to test out my Tone It Up Perfect Fit Protein in Chriselle's Coconut Creation from their site. It's strawberries, bananas, almond milk, protein powder, coconut and kale. I also garnished it with the ingredients blended in it.

I actually joined Tone It Up recently (I'm happy with my weight; it's just nice to "tone it up" for bikini season), as Hayden and I have a blast doing the workouts together. She likes to pretend she's surfing and stuff, while I do the real moves. I love that Karena and Katrina put together routines that are easy and fun to do with the kids around. Working out should be fun.

Anyway, I made and tweeted a second smoothie the same day as the Tone It Up one. Later, I enjoyed a Choconana Smoothie from Charissa's site (extra points when you make her smoothies; so worth it, too. Yum!). It's banana, almond milk, hemp protein, cocoa powder and chia seeds, garnished with some banana and almond slices.

My dad's birthday was on the 2nd and my nephew's is today, so on the 3rd, I made Charissa's Birthday Cake Milkshake with some of my own modifications. Her recipe called for cake mix, but since it didn't quite fit the purpose of this smoothie challenge, I replaced it with extra vanilla protein powder (I think Vanilla Warrior Blend and the Tone It Up Perfect Fit Protein kinda taste like cake mix sometimes) and some coconut butter. Oh, and I thickened it a bit more with 1/2 a frozen banana in place of the ice, and decorated it with spirulina and crushed freeze-dried fruit sprinkles.

For the Fourth of July, I took of the patriotic theme with a red, white and blue layered smoothie like the one on Charissa's site (and most of the Twitter world; I really did see a lot of those yesterday). The white layer is banana and coconut milk, the red/pink layer is strawberry, banana, almond milk and protein powder, and the bluish purple layer is blueberry, banana, almond milk and protein powder. It was "beary" good :-)

Today, I made and tweeted a tropical version of Charissa's Carrot Cake Protein Shake. It seemed more like a fall treat, so I brightened it up for summer with the addition of some pineapple and coconut. Very refreshing. Mr. Bunny thought so, too.

I'm so glad Charissa decided to do this challenge. It's breaking me out of my same old smoothies all the time and introducing me to some new people online. Fingers crossed that I reach my goal of at least one smoothie a day for the month of July (in addition to all the food I eat in a day; I'm not doing just smoothies). I wonder which one I'll make tomorrow.

Anyone else participating in this smoothie challenge? It really helps to cool you off in this insanely hot weather (it's still 100 degrees around here). Hope everyone is enjoying their summer :-)