In your blender

Question: What do you get when you mix up, blend, baby, blend, three giant and beautifully ripe strawberries, young coconut water and some of it's meat, chocolate hemp protein powder, half a handful of plump raisins, lots of fresh spinach, carob and lucuma powder, and a few drops of Sweet Leaf Chocolate Stevia? Oh and do not forget the large spoonful of raw almond butter. Mustn't forget that.

Answer: The most amazing green smoothie ever to come in contact with my taste buds. And boy, were my buds happy!

Just pretend that it looks pretty...

Because it tastes pretty damn good.

The magic of green smoothie making is to play around with flavors, fruits, greens, superfood add-ins. And the trick to starting out, go simple. Sometimes adding too many items/flavors to your green smoothie creation, does not make for good drinks. Trust me. Lesson learned for me. But over time you will find combinations of fruits, greens, powders that do work for your liking. It's all about experimenting, trial and error, and the secret ingredient: the love put into the smoothie. Sounds weird, but really, think love and the smoothie will taste better.

And what could go better with a green smoothie than healthy, vegan, gluten-free Spiced Millet "Sugary" Cookies?! Nothing. Well, yes, I'm sure there are other things that may go great with a smoothie, but for now, just go with it.

Spiced Millet "Sugary" Cookies a Lori adapted recipe from Elana's Pantry
(Not sugary, just tastes that way!)
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups millet flour
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup oil (I used olive oil b/c that is what I had. Coconut oil, olive oil, grapeseed oil, etc. would work too)
• 1/3 cup yacon syrup
• 2 tbsp rolled oats
  
• 2 heaping spoonfuls tahini
• handful raisins
• *optional few tsp water when mixing, if batter is too thick
  

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Mix wet ingredients into dry and add raisins. Again, if batter is too dry, add some water.

Place "blobs" onto the parchment paper covering a baking sheet, any desired size.

Half with raisins, half without, pre-baked

Bake at 350° for 10 minutes, or until done to your texture liking (crunchy, soft and fluffy, etc.)

Enjoy.

The cookies came out tasting great, although they were a little dry and crumply. This was probably due to using only millet flour without another type of flour. Millet flour is light and gives the cookies a airy, fluffy texture, which I liked. You could also try using 1 cup millet flour with 1/2 brown rice flour or another sub. But overall, the flavoring is great!

And now, to mix it up...

I'm throwing in a recap of my a m a z i n g Thursday morning workout... taken from my training log at DailyMile.com:

MMA Style Kickboxing class filled with cardio moves. Today's class kicked my ass. Period. Best workout I've had in a LONG time. One hour of pure circuit cardio with push-ups, kicks, abs, core, abs, core, more abs, more core, jump ropes, punches, etc. I stayed around after class for the instructor (my friend) to complete my workout... Private session with 20 minutes of punches, kicks, knees (each side 10 reps, all repeated 3 times), *push-up punches (repeated 2 times), and bicycles. I WILL be sore tonight. (*push-up punches: wearing boxing gloves (added weight), do one push-up, as you come up, punch the pad (held by instructor) with left hand. Do another push-up, as you come up, punch pad with right hand. Repeat 40 times, twice.)

Glourious, glorious workout. Honestly, this was one of the best workouts I've ever had. I loooooove when those come along.

So, that's a wrap with the post. One more question before I leave you...

What's in your green smoothie? What combinations sound good to you? What is a smoothie you think is original? Creativity counts! Throw out some ideas. I'd love to try them and report back!