Seeing the flowers blooming, birds singing and baby animals prancing, I believe that spring has made it's mark! I also believe that I have been MIA these past few months, don't you agree? Well, long time no see to my fellow readers and followers! I want to take the opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you for disappearing off the face of the Internet, but I assure you that I had a good (enough) reason for this!
In all honesty, The Baking Spoon has been facing a small identity crisis... and it was absolutely fantastic. You'll be noticing some changes in my theme and photography since I recently upgraded my camera to the Canon Mark III 5D and invested in some nice food photography boards and props throughout the months. Most importantly, you'll be seeing some major changes in my recipe development, as it will now be inspired by natural ingredients, whole foods, and plant-based dishes. In other words, you'll be seeing a lot more nature lovin'! Why, you ask? Well, can I ask you a question first?
Do you eat to live or live to eat?
Since my teenage years, I have always been interested in healthy living, but never truly had the guts to pursue this kind of lifestyle. This stemmed from the fact that I felt horrible about myself and where I was in my life: struggling to become fit, mentally stressed with too many priorities, and just unfulfilled in general. This led me to make food my escape. I began to view food as something more in life than just fuel to the body. It was about what food meant to me. It meant satisfaction, comfort, friends, family, happiness, and my stress release. Essentially, I lived to eat.
Food became a lifestyle, and I saw myself falling into the trap of being what people call a "foodie." But when food began to take on greater meaning than its nutrients, I started running into conflicting desires, commitments and priorities. My emotions and desires made healthy eating changes very challenging. Sadly, this led to a gradual weight gain, daily overindulgence, deteriorating health and mood, and a broke wallet. What about my body, you ask? Ha. My body is the definition of skinny-fat. I've always had that "skinny" look with my clothes on and to the public eye, I looked incredibly healthy. But on the inside? I felt like a wreck. Underneath the clothes hides a body with a high fat percentage and low muscular mass and blame it all on my unhealthy "binge-y eating, stingy eating" habits. I wasn't happy and my body wasn't either.
When I saw these unwanted changes, I began to constantly bully myself in order to be the new person I wanted to be and not the person I currently was. When it came to health and food, I kept telling myself, “I can’t believe you ate that. There’s something wrong with you,” and gave myself strict rules to follow, only to break them with the same self-sabotaging "foodie" behavior sometimes minutes later. I thought that the only way to get myself to where I wanted to be was to threaten myself, but that only made me rebel against myself more. I continued to waffle between overeating and being stingy with myself not only physically, but emotionally as well.
Then one day, I came across a picture of myself at five years old. I looked at that sweet little girl and realized no parent would allow someone to treat her the way I was treating myself—or allow her to do the things I was letting myself get away with.
I reflected on how I was living and saw how broken my relationship was with food, my health, and my body. I decided to finally learn how to heal this relationship and view food in a healthy way. Throughout the few months I was MIA from you all, I took the time to gain a lot of knowledge on the nourishment of whole foods. One of the most important things I learned was that positive changes to eating don't have to mean giving up eating well or tastefully. It means understanding how healthier foods can fit into your lifestyle rather than making your lifestyle fit into the demand for healthier foods. Try cooking with some new spices rather than butter or oil. Discover new flavor profiles by adding a new fruit or vegetable to a dish. Whatever you do, always make sure that you are incorporating healthy and wholesome ingredients into your everyday meals. That's what counts! Now that I'm also incorporating resistance training on top of it all, I'm really excited to see where my healthy and fit journey will lead me. Hope you guys will support me in my new change!
You guys will notice that my recipes are basically all vegan (although I'm not a vegan heh I discovered that meat works best for my body and digestion). I am going to try my best to thrive off fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains while also enjoying all things in life in moderation of course. So I welcome you all to my rawsome life! My goal is to provide inspiration for healthy, honest, balanced living. 2016 is the year I will be decoding and reversing my body and health, and I'm so happy to have found my passion! Now time to run with the goal of eating to live. :)
Now, onto today's recipe! I call this my triple berry and banana "nice cream" with chia pudding and pomegranates. Tastes like ice cream, but it's a thick smoothie completely made out of berries and bananas. Hence, a "nicer" version of our infamous ice creams. This concoction first starts out with a chia pudding layer base, then a blueberry nice cream, granola with blueberries, and finally topped with a strawberry nice cream layer! When making the nice cream layers, make sure that the consistency is similar to ice cream. Making sure your bananas are frozen is essential! So prepare any frozen ingredients beforehand.
PrintTriple Berry and Banana Nice Cream w/ Chia Pudding
- Yield: 1 -2 jars 1x
Ingredients
For the Chia Pudding
- 1 cup almond milk
- 4 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 tsp vanilla bean
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp sea salt
For the Nice Creams
- 4 frozen bananas
- 1 cup blueberries
- ½ cup frozen raspberries
- ½ cup frozen strawberries
- ¼ cup water
- granola
Instructions
Chia Pudding
- Combine all the ingredients in a mason jar.
- Stir vigorously for 20 seconds until well mixed. Let sit for 2 minutes. Stir again for another minute, then set in fridge for 30 minutes or overnight.
Nice Creams
- Add chia pudding to the base of the jar.
- Add two frozen bananas and your raspberries and ¼ cup blueberries to your processer or blender. Mix until thick ice cream consistency is achieved. Add a small amount of water to help mixing if necessary. Spoon into mason jar.
- Add more fresh berries and granola to jar.
- Clean blender and then add two frozen bananas and strawberries to get that same ice cream like texture. Add water if necessary. Leave chunks of strawberries for flavor!
- Spoon into mason jar.
- Top with more granola or fruit!
Notes
Recipe adapted from Lee from America.
Erin
That post was so beautiful and so honest. <3 It takes bravery to write about such things! I use to struggle with a horrible relationship with food, and it is definitely not easy to admit or talk about. The more blogs I read, the more I realize I am not and never was alone! I am so happy you found your niche! I can't wait to see your new journey progress! SO, this Banana ice cream!! Not only is is beautiful, it looks so so delicious!
The Baking Spoon
Thank you so much for your kind words, this made my day! I definitely agree that it's not easy to admit things like these, but it feels so liberating once you do! :) And you took the words right out of my mouth! There are so many beautiful people out there who are searching for their inner and outer happiness, and sometimes that all starts with food. ;) Good luck on your amazing journey too, Erin! <3
Rain
I'd veuntre that this article has saved me more time than any other.
sit back and relax quotes
Buen reportaje. Conozco a mucha gente que ha ido a varios festivales y sus experiencias han sido muy buenas. Considero que es una buena manera de despejarse de la epoca de examenes y de conocer a gente con aficiones y gustos similares a los tuyos.
Doc
The answer of an extrep. Good to hear from you.