Right now, I'm trying to focus on the things that I can do to try to make my life a little easier. I don't think that I can ever make myself a morning person, but I can try to find breakfast solutions that will make my life go a little more smoothly (see what I did there?). I ended up taking my search to Pinterest again because who doesn't use Pinterest to solve their domestic conundrums? It's like an index of everyone's best ideas. As lazy as I think I am, there's always someone on Pinterest who's lazier and got the job done in three less steps than I was willing to max out at.
I was intrigued by the idea of overnight breakfasts, and I've been looking at freezer presets for my week to try to make my life easier after ten hour days at work. Of course, in my search, I stumbled upon an idea of presetting green smoothies in freezer baggies, then just adding them to a blender with the rest of the ingredients that couldn't be frozen. It's brilliant!
So here's what the baggies contain:
- 1 T almonds
- 1 T chia seeds (bought in bulk at Whole Foods--we priced them other ways, but this was the smartest way to go)
- 1/4 cup quick oats
- generous handful of frozen fruit (my baggies alternate. I bought frozen peaches and strawberries and bananas. I just threw them in each so that I'd have a mixture and a little bit of variety. It's whatever you like. Just having the fruit is the important part.)
- a large handful of kale from which stems have been removed
In the morning, I remove the baggie, stuff it into my single serving blender, and add a scoop of protein powder and a cup of vanilla soy milk.
It's not exactly pretty, but I was actually really surprised at how delicious it was. Mine is a little brown-looking because the only protein powder that we had was chocolate flavored. Had I known that before going shopping, I'd have purchased a different protein powder. Tony got this powder as a Christmas gift, but he hasn't really been using it. So now it's more or less a matter of just using it until it's gone so that I can buy something that isn't pre-flavored. I did taste the smoothie before adding the protein powder, and it was still really delicious.
It's the flavor of the almonds that comes through the strongest, which I found really surprising. I've been drinking this for the last two morning, and it's been good both times. The first time, the fruit was banana, which gave the smoothie great flavor and texture. This morning, it was a peach smoothie, which was good too. The kale is almost non-existent in the flavor profile, which is good because, up until this point, I haven't much cared for kale.
There are two things I've discovered along the way so far. First, chia seeds can get stuck in your teeth. And when chia seeds meet moisture, they develop this odd, slimy exterior. It's not so fun to discover this for the first time in your own mouth. Second, frozen peaches do not blend particularly well. I'm contemplating my next round not being quite so inclusive of the peaches. I'm not really impressed with their contribution to the smoothie process.
I have two major goals this year: become more frugal so all my extra money can go to paying off debt and saving for a house and get more comfortable in the kitchen to help accomplish the first goal. Obviously, I want to be more kind to my body, but that's more of a subgoal at this point than a main goal. I want to tie that subgoal to the second main goal. These smoothies fit in to all three. This is a cheaper breakfast than stopping at a gas station. It's more nutritionally significant because it's full of fiber and healthy calories. These will also help me cut down on my caffeine intake. It was something Tony and I could do together because he helped me set up two weeks worth of baggies and prep them for freezer readiness. I'm really hoping that I can find more projects that will be as rewarding as this one. I'm really excited to see how I'll feel in two weeks after having consumed these for a while.
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