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Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Mini VeganMoFo January 2019: Beat the Blues!

Welcome to 2019, we have a prompt! Let's "beat the blues!"

Oh what a beauty!
Ocean Blue Smoothie Bowl!
Ironically, this is the year I decided I won't get "blue" in January, nope I'm still super mad about all the delays and incompetency we've been forced to deal with through Irma restoration, so I'm super fired up and if you have to deal with me in business you might even classify me as somewhat manic lately.

I was actually pretty jazzed by the prompt anyway... do you remember in Vegan Month of Food when we had to pick a color and well, I ended up with Mahogany cake because my special ingredient didn't show up on time. Well, it's BLUE, my special color is and was BLUE and my special ingredient is and was blue spirulina. OMG, this stuff is amazing, you cannot taste it, but the color it gives is so lush, bright and tropical. It is like a mini ocean in a bowl, I'm going to have so much fun with this powder as time goes on! A little goes a long way, so even though the price seems exorbitant (at least to me), the packet I purchased will last me a really long time. In fact, I look forward to someday having enough spare coin to get the rest of those lush colors including pink pitaya powder, and butterfly pea tea! If life gives me a little hand here and there, I am going to take a crack at making my own pink pitaya powder, that's I'm sure something we'll talk about in coming months once red dragonfruit comes into season and flow my way. You can expect this magic blue beautiful powder is going to continue to show up in my posts periodically.

For now, there's my ocean blue smoothie bowl using the blue spirulina. If you make one of these, don't even bother adding blueberries to your base, in fact keep the base as neutral as possible. I made one with blueberries, and the powder barely made a dent, the bowl was purple. Pretty, yes.... but the prompt isn't "beat the purples." This bowl is so simple, decadent and delicious in both appearance and taste.... it's simply bananas, coconut milk and some shredded coconut as the base with the blue spirulina. I have a Vitamix, it absolutely destroys the shredded coconut.... if you don't have a good blender, don't add the coconut if you don't want texture. The granola I made is riffing on Brandi's oil free granola from the Vegan 8. Use nutbutter (or sunbutter or whatever) instead of oil. It's not fat free.... it's OIL free. I do think this is a far better choice using a nut or seed butter when it comes to nutrition. I still like to keep as oil free as I possibly can manage.  So easy, use whatever you like (here oats, pecans, sunflower butter, very scant cinnamon, allspice then add in some cacao nibs after baking... yes that's it) and have at it.

If you need one final laugh.... I went to the store last night to buy blueberries. They're not in season here, but I wanted them for my blue ocean bowl. Look closely at the picture... notice anything? Sigh. Stupid is as stupid does.

Til next time friends, here looking at you with ocean blue vegany love!

xo