FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW

Or, that were today.

Long time no smoothie! I have a bit of chaga at home of so I made an antioxidant-rich smoothie out of chilled chaga-tea, mango, some cherries and physalis.

Admiring my super huge (1,81m) Mucha-poster that I ordered from the Mucha museum. I saw the original sized theatre posters there when performing in Prague earlier this year but couldn't get it then due to luggage restrictions. I ordered it on Wednesday in the afternoon and it arrived in less than 24 hours on Thursday morning! I will glue it to a board and then hang it in our living room.

And then on with a lurex dress and out to listen to music! Went to the Russian centre of culture for a mesmerizing concert of Altai' music with Alexey Chichakov. (He is playing in Heinävesi Sat 13. and Tampere Sun 14., go listen if you have the chance!)

And oh! Next week season 2 of Vintage-Valtakunta starts. Tuesday 16th at 20, Yle 1! Finland only I'm afraid.

FLUFFY GREEN SPRING SMOOTHIE

(because at this time of year, you can just name everything starting with "spring"-)

Apparently there's some gene that determines weather you like celery or not. Same goes for cilantro. (The source being solely "what people way" and the internet so I have no idea how much truth there is in that, but it sure makes a great excuse for people to use.) Good for me I seem to have neither of those genes, because I love celery - and cilantro as well, altough I did not put it in this smoothie, even though one surely could; it'd fit great.

Pineapple makes smoothies wonderfully fluffy. You can add one or two drops of apple cider vinegar as well if you want your smoothie a bit more edgy.

So, here we go:
Cloudy apple juice
Celery
Wheat grass
The juice of one lime
About a coffe cup of frozen small pineapple chunks

Woom! in the blender and there you have it!

LONG TIME NO SMOOTIE

I haven't made a morning smoothies in ages due to many reasone (or actually two; time and money) but today one of pinapple, banana, coconut milk and frozen wineberries and cherries from last summer came togehter. Pinkacolada!

Long time no rawbars too! But here they are again. These ones with cashews, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, dates, blueberry powder, cocoa, vanilla extract, coconut oil, coconut flakes and dried berries. All just woom-woomed mashed together in the mixer and then refrigerated.
Raw food stuff always sound rather pretentious but these are actually made of basic supermarket stuff and it's like having cake for breakfast! Woop woop.

5 x BREAKFAST

For me breakfast is the best meal of the day; my schedule is such that I usually have the most time in the morning.

Apple-banana porridge on oats from our farm with raisins and black currants plus a little bit of almond butter on top. I cook the apple with the oats and put the banana in about half way trough, but the berries and raisins after. A basic porridge becomes more fancy that way, almost like a dessert. A small spoon of peanut butter, instead of almond such, is also good.

But here we have it on bread instead; peanut butter banana sandwhich, an apple and a hot cocoa drink with almond milk, vanilla, charadmom, coconut sugar and some cinnamon.

And peanut butter with citrus! Who would have known those two tastes would blend together so well! Peanut butter banana-.sandwhich with cumqats - I have a little tiny tree in the house and Dag kept picking the fruits off. So they ended up on my breakfast sandwhich.
Also, avocado sandwich with sundried tomato paste and chive, lemon water and some strawberry-rhubarb compote.

First outdoors breakfast of this year! Black coffee and raw bars with berries and cocoa.

(And wowza, now I am totally going to renew myself and add a fifth thing instead of my normal four):
Brekkie no5 is a smoothie made of mango-orange oat milk (oat milk with mango pulp and orange juice in it. Nice in drinks but terrible on müsli. Just sayin'), banana and frozen strawberries, together with some dates with almond butter.

VELVET CASHEW SUNSHINE SMOOTIE

Well hello htere internet! I have not been much around it as you can see. Or, actualy: may think, because that's not entirely  true. Time away from the internet would do many rather good I think, but  I have not reated myself to more books or long walks lately instead, just had more work to dig into and and more emails to answer and workouts to go trough. And take care of other essential things like fixing metallic curls for a robot's wig at three in the morning and putting crystals on tiny pants.

But meanwhile here's a smooth smoothie in a pale yellow colour to suit the season, as over here is seems spring really is on it's way!

This one has half a banana, froxen mango and a few bits of fresh pineapple, a spoon of organic peanutbutter and was blended out with cashew milk. "So good!", as Dag said.

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SATURDAY MORNING

Woke up to a slow grey November morning.
Look at my plant btw. It's grown over 3 metres long during this autumn! It's called doftranka in Swedish and tuoksuköynnös in Finnish but I don't know the English name -it has white flowers that smell very sweet and I'm hoping it would bloom next spring; last year it didn't.

Beautiful dew-drops on the porch plants.

Made a porridge on our homegrown organic oats with pomegranate and banana plus an anti-flu smoothie with red oranges, pineapple, wineberries, lots of organic ginger and cilantro.

Then Dag (and all his animals) got a quick bath.

And now it's on with our clothes and heading to the harbour and hopping on the ferry to Sweden tonight for a family trip!

A MORNING SMOOTHIE IN SIX SCENES

I make smoothies almost daily. Today's consisted of: half an avocado, half a pear, mango mash, frozen berries, apple juice, soy milk.

I have most of my smoothies under the tag #smoothieoftheday on instagram, in case you are in the need of some liquid breakfast inspiration.

SMOOTHIE OF THE DAY

Something fresh and "sunny" for a day when it's (once again) not just pouring down, but more like standing in a shower: Some dried eco apricots soaked in apple juice over the night, frozen mango bits, linen seeds and lots of fresh coriander. Plus apple juice. I intended to add some maca root powder too but forgot. (Ooops.)

SMOOTHIE OF THE DAY

One pear, some apple juice, natural yoghurt and a whole lot of fresh basil plus a couple of ice cubes or frozen kiwi bits. Sweeten with honey if you feel you need it.

SMOOTHIE OF THE DAY

Blueberry-soy smoothie. Or; milkshake:
one pear, about 100g of frozen blueberries, soy milk.

Now I'm off to the post office sending some items away, then to the charity shop giving the rest away and then granny-sitting; my grandmother has had an operation and my mom is away so my sisters are taking turns helping her out.

SMOOTHIE OF THE DAY

Blueberry-sourmilk smoothie made of frozen berries, honey and sour milk (buttermilk). It's good!

SMOOTHIE OF THE DAY

I wait for those days when I can enjoy having a calm, proper breakfast with the time to read the daily paper or a magazine, with the radio on or a playlist of classical music. This mostly happens on my weeks off, perhaps during the evening shift weeks too if I can make it up on time. (When I do early mornings it's mostly a banana in the car on my way to work and a fibre cookie or drinking yoghurt in the work car form the office out to the harbour.)

Todays smoothie was one with avocado, raspberries and apricots!
I used three ecological dried apricots (you know, those dark ones that have not been treated with sulfur dioxide), a few hazelnuts and almonds and let them soak in applejuice over the night. Then I mixed them with one small avocado, some wheat grass freshly cut form the pot, frozen raspberries and apple juice.
Very delicious. You could get by on one such alone for breakfast, depending on your habits. As I had managed to crawl up from bed early enough to dragmyself to the gym for a short gym set and the morning zumba I also had some rye bread with banana, pear and eco-peanut butter and cottage cheese and cucumber and an egg. Oh, the joy of food.

Someone once commented that I seem to eat very healthy, or was it just those certain food that made it in the blog? WEll, it's not just for the blog; I like it healthy! But I also like cake. Ying and yang.
In gereal the basic breakfast in Scandinavia tends to be rather healthy and fiber rich, dark bread and porridge and so on.  Croissants, pancakes, jams nutella etc. are more for the "Sunday breakfasts".  My morning meal most often involves a smoothie - as you  may have noticed here before. I usually try and buy smoothie ingredients for the week to come when I go shopping; veggies, fruits, frozen berries, juice for base. Super smoothies/fruities with a lot in the is not the most affordable thing to make over here, as all fruits are imported in winter time. Of course smoothies can be made more affordable too, with  just one kid of frozen berries, juice and perhaps almonds, but I like to mix and match a lot.

Another nice smoothie I made the other day with the same base (apple juice) involved a kiwi fruit, fresh ginger, a bug chunk of cucumber, fresh wheat grass and some frozen black currants. Worth a try. Smoothie mania!

SPICY AWAKENING ON A RAINY MORNING

Here's how you make a chili smoothie!

Take some fruit juice; I used mango-orange juice, strawberries (preferably frozen as I like my smoothies icy), a piece of fresh fruit, berries or vegetable and some plain yoghurt. I did this yesterday without the yoghurt and it works fine that way too. And why not add some seeds or such while you're at it.


And last but not least you'll need some fresh chili too. I have a plant out on the balcony to cut from. (I suppose you could use chili powder too but that's not really the same thing though.)


Cut about an inch of the chili, chop it in smaller pieces and save the rest for later. I gently rinse the chili to get the seeds out.


Add everything in your blender and let it do it's thing! Vroom vroom vroom!



Sprinkle some cinnamon on top and there's your morning booster!