Aside from drinking green juice daily, another drink I have almost daily is a chia seed drink. I came upon these at the health food store a few years back and thought they were so cool. Granted they were expensive, at $4-5 a bottle, but it seemed worth it for the flavor and nutrition. But it didn't take me long to say, "Wait a minute, I can make this myself!" And not long after I was making my own chia seed drinks as you can find in this post: "My Daily Chia Seed Drink" but as time went on I got a little bored with the same chia drink each day and so I started trying some new recipes. Here's my four favorite chia recipes right now that are quick, easy, delicious, and good for you too!
The four drinks are: a lemonade chia drink, an orange juice drink, a coconut drink, and even a chocolate milk one. Yum!
Why drink chia seeds? Chia seeds are little nutrition rock stars! The drinks below contain 3 Tablespoons of chia seeds. This brings the nutrition facts to: 15g of fiber (5g per Tbs.) and 9g of protein (3g per Tbs.). They also contain more potassium than bananas, more omega 3s than salmon, and more antioxidants than blueberries! Convinced? Here's some recipes to get you started:
1. Healthy Chocolate Chia Milk
2 cups organic rice milk or non dairy milk of choice
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2-3/4 tsp. organic stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps: 1. In a small sauce pan, combine the rice milk, cocoa powder and stevia.
2. Warm until all the ingredients have combined and it looks like hot chocolate.
3. Remove and from the heat and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.
4. Add in 3 Tbs. of chia seeds and stir it up.
5. Pour into a glass or mason jar with a lid.
6. Refrigerate for an hour or until it's cold.
7. When you are ready to drink it, just shake it up to get it mixed up once again and drink up!
2. Coconut Chia Drink
1 cup filtered water
1 cup Coconut Water (I like this C20 brand)
1/2 teaspoon stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps:
1. Add 1 cup of filtered water to your jar 2. Followed by 1 cup of coconut water 3. Then add the stevia and chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up
3. Orange Juice Chia Drink
1 cup filtered water
1 cup Orange Juice (I like this organic, no-sugar added, Trader Joe's brand)
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps:
1. Add 1 cup of water to a jar 2. Followed by 1 cup of orange juice 3. And last the chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up.
*For this recipe you can use any type of juice you would like, it doesn't have to just be orange juice. Just use the 1 cup of juice + 1 cup of water ratio.*
4. Lemonade Chia Drink
2 cups filtered water
1 lemon (juiced)
1/2 teaspoon stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps: 1. Juice your lemon and pour it into the jar 2. Add your 2 cups of filtered water 3. Followed by the stevia and chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up.
So there you have it, my four favorite chia seed drinks!
Hope this helps add some variety to your chia seed drink routine! Post below if you've tried one of these recipes before or if you have a favorite chia recipe of your own.
Okay now eventually I will get these posts in line, but it just didn't quite happen for July...so here it is in August? Sure why not! So this is my last "Vegan What I Ate...with Kids" since I'm going back to my teaching job in a few days. It sure has been a fun and relaxing summer with my girls, and I'm going to miss them, but I'm also excited to get back to a job I love. So let's get started with my vegan food for the day for the month of July.
Here's the breakdown in this week's video....
No time for the video, here's a look in pictures:
5:00 AM: warm lemon water: 8 oz. warm water + juice of 1 lemon
Workout: 60 minutes of Suzanne Bowen's BarreAmped Workout DVD. Read more of why I love this workout DVD in this post, "My Workout Routine". Basically it's an awesome full body workout that will get you "shaking" for a good reason.
Here's a preview of the DVD I did today: Suzanne Bowen's BarreAmped
After my workout, I shower, get ready and then my girls get up.
10:00: Morning snack #2 for my girls: fruit pouches. I made these with a combo of frozen fruit and applesauce (I'll post the recipe another time) using these reusable Little Green Pouches in the Large size..
They ate these pretty quickly in the car...before we even got out of the driveway!
So I'll say they were a hit. I've been trying to make my own snacks for them lately, but although it's greener and cheaper...sometimes it's a bit more time consuming, thank goodness for summer though!
On this day we headed over to my parent's house to hang out. They are both teachers like me, and also off on summer vacation so it's fun to have the chance to spend more time with them.
Time for the veggie straw snacks we packed. "Want one?" ( :
Then we were off to Michael's Craft Store to get some craft supplies for this artsy girl...can you tell she was in awe of them all!
Then when we got home it was craft time!
11:15 3rd Morning Snack: 1 organic corn cob with Earth Balance Vegan Butter, and garlic salt. Some what of a strange snack for this time in the day, but I've been trying to have more whole foods lately, instead of chips and crackers. So instead of corn chips I had actual corn...yum!
Wait who's eating my corn on the cob...that's supposed to be for me!
To warm up lunch I use my stove top as you can see. So the night before when we had this for dinner, I kept the food in the sauce pans and stock pot that way when I'm ready for it the next day, I just place it right on the stove top and start warming it up...since I don't use a microwave.
For the girl's lunch, I added some of Avery's little berry fruit salad from the morning (that she didn't finish) and for their dessert they had some Annie's Gluten-Free Bunny Cookies.
After lunch I put them down for a nap, which they take at the same time most days (thank you!). I then lay down and take a 15-20 minute nap to recharge a bit since I've been up since 4:45 AM. After I get up, I head downstairs to "work" and snack.
During this time I work on my writing blog posts, editing YouTube videos, and catching up on emails.
Yummy chocolate + chia seeds.
About an hour later, Avery gets up from her nap and to keep her in a happy mood you go get her some Almond Dream yogurt, then she comes around a bit...
No time for a smile, I just want my yogurt.
A little later Brandon comes home. Lately he's been trying to eat healthier and he's doing so by having a smoothie a day. He usually has one similar to the one I had for breakfast with rice milk, Sunwarrior Protein Powder, bananas and he'll alternate other fruits or even peanut butter. Avery loves it because she gets some leftovers...
...and so does Mila when she gets up!
4:45 PM Green Juice: Usually I make my own, but my juicer broke (my fault). Luckily it was still under warranty, so a new one is on it's way. In the meantime I got some store-bought juices like this Evolution one.
About an hour later, the girls were hungry again and Avery was heading to gymnastics so she made this snack on her own with some organic peanut butter, organic apple slices, and veggie straws. Mila had the same snack too!
5:30 Pre-dinner snack: Roasted Sweet Potato Fries and organic ketchup. Like I said before, I'm trying to swap chips for whole foods, so out are the chips and in are the sweet potatoes. These fries are seriously one of my favorite snacks. I like to make a big batch and then save the leftovers. So batch was actually from the night before, and all I had to do was pop them in the oven for 10 minutes and then were ready.
Before Brandon left to take Avery to gymnastics, he got his pizza all ready. As you know he can have gluten, so he just gets a pre-made, whole-wheat crust from the store.
Roasted cauliflower with garlic is one of our favorite sides to have on "pizza night"!
6:30 PM: Dinner: Homemade Pizza and Roasted Cauliflower
The girls had a side of organic applesauce with their dinner.
For my dessert: 1/8 cup of Lily's Sweets Baking Chips (stevia-sweetened), my favorite quick, easy dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth in a healthy way.
So there you have my food for the day, and all the things I did with my girls on one of my last days of summer vacation. Did you see any food you would like to try or do you have a special food you or your kids have been loving lately? Share it below! See you next month for the next "What I Ate" post.
By the way, if you're in the mood for some more "What I Ate" posts, be sure to check my others out here by clicking March, April, or June! ( :
