My food-creation adventure began this evening with an empty, unhappy belly, armed with a newfound diet determination. Although this year has been largely devoid of regrets, one unhappy moment came when I could no longer fit myself in to mypants. An unwelcome by-product of a welcome development - my happy marriage - happy feelings seem to have swollen up and taken over my body. I checked out a couple of pumpkin pie smoothie recipes tonight, for some pumpkin puree I had, that I purchased for something like this, before Christmas, having no intention whatsoever of cooking anything with pumpkin.
Pumpkin is supposed to be, like, super good for you, so I'm thinking I have nothing but good things ahead of me tonight. Unfortunately, in all my bad-girl cooking (and eating), I've run plumb out of any of the healthy ingredients these recipes call for. For one thing, I'm supposed to have frozen my puree. Not gonna happen; this girl's hungry. For another thing, they call for some nice plain or Greek yogurt, which is all fine and good, but all I can seem to find in my fridge is heavy cream. I figure at 40 calories a tablespoon, that cream ain't gonna cut it, so I kept looking, and lo and behold I find some leftover holiday egg nog. I need to get rid of this stuff anyhow, and it probably won't do to add to my coffee before work in the mornings, seeing as it's got alcohol in it and all.
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| My daily dose |
Oh, well; the nutrition can't be all that different from the regular stuff, can it? So I check, forgetting that alcohol doesn't have nutritional information. I beg to differ, people. It provides me with all sorts of handy things like sanity and the strength to take on another day. Kidding, mostly. I ended up with a recipe like this:
1 Cup Ice
1 Cup Pumpkin Puree (Not pie filling, that's got a bunch of extra sugar. This is healthy recipe, guys.)
1/2 Cup Egg Nog
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/8 Tsp Cloves
1/4 Tsp Nutmeg
1/2 Graham Cracker
A word on the graham cracker: Someone else topped their smoothie with one, and I had some, so dangit I wanted to do it too. That, and I figured I'm already cheating on my diet with this whole alcohol-for-dinner thing (Ya think??).
I blended it all with my Ninja. This was my first time using my Ninja, and it took me a minute to figure out. This is due to my husband's always hogging it and never letting me use it. That's a lie; when he's always been here and ready and willing and able to tend to our blending needs, I never saw any sense in learning how. It's one of those things you neglect to learn as long as possible, because it gets you out of work. I tend to not be able to get out of a lot of things, so when I can, I take full advantage of it. Seeing as he was at the gym while I was working out my new cocktail recipe, I had to figure it out.
I think the non-alcoholic version would have tasted better (which is what the nutritional information is based on), but after I weighed myself yesterday, I sure as hell wasn't about to go out buy MORE. I give it an "A" for being filling - my belly is happy. I think it could have been just as good made with something lighter, but we discussed this - I don't have anything like that.
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| Vitamin A | 768.6 % |
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| Vitamin B-12 | 0.0 % |
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| Vitamin B-6 | 6.9 % |
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| Vitamin C | 17.2 % |
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| Vitamin D | 0.0 % |
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| Vitamin E | 12.9 % |
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| Calcium | 16.4 % |
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| Copper | 13.1 % |
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| Folate | 7.4 % |
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| Iron | 18.9 % |
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| Magnesium | 14.1 % |
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| Manganese | 18.3 % |
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| Niacin | 4.5 % |
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| Pantothenic Acid | 9.8 % |
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| Phosphorus | 8.6 % |
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| Riboflavin | 7.8 % |
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| Selenium | 1.4 % |
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| Thiamin | 3.9 % |
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| Zinc | 2.8 % |
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*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
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