Mama's NINJA and Pumpkin Pie Smoothies

Woot.com is a very visited website in our house. My dear husband checks it every morning and we've scored some really awesome stuff! Well, luckily for this mama the other day they featured a Ninja blender and I knew we just HAD to get it. Our blender recently died and we had to send it to it's grave a little earlier than we intended, so we'd been searching for our next little gadget to take it's place. As soon as the order button was pushed I had visions of smoothies, soups, dips, and shakes dancing in my head and the timer was ticking until these visions became a reality. Everyday I bugged Micah "Babe, where's my Ninja?" or "So, has the Ninja shipped?" and "Goodmorningbabewhere'sNinja?". So after a week I'd say he was also ready for the damn Ninja to be here as well. And looky what came on Saturday!!!!!

Ninja...I love you...

After I ripped the box open like a kid on Christmas morning I plugged it in and was ready to press that beautiful pulse button. When I did, nothing happened. Nothing. The red power button blinked at me, taunting me with it's devious little red glow as if to say "Haha little Ninja no likey you!" I ran to my phone to text Micah that the stupid thing didn't work and now I would be doomed to live off of water and applesauce for the next week(Mama was being a bit dramatic about her wisdom teeth surgery coming up Thursday..yikes!). Micah came home from school that evening and sure enough he made it work. Silly me didn't have the arrows on the lid lined up..face in palm moment right there. My knight in shining armor saved me from my nightmares of no delicious frozen treats and Mama was happy again!

I posted a recipe on my Facebook a couple of weeks ago from peasandthankyou.com, and I announced that as soon as my beloved blender arrived that would be the first thing I made. Well, I lied. Calm down, it's not like  I meant to people I just didn't have the necessary pumpkin puree, so instead we whipped up a random smoothie with what we had sitting around the house. Let me just say, that little Ninja kicks ass!!!! But don't worry I didn't forget the pumpkin pie smoothies! We went out that night to get all we needed to blend up a delicious fall treat! Here it is!!

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie (makes 1 smoothie)

• 1 c. canned pumpkin, frozen into cubes
• 1 c. non-dairy or organic milk
• 2-4 ice cubes
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 3/4 t. cinnamon
• 1/4 t. nutmeg
• 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 t. garam masala (optional)
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/2 t. xanthan gum (optional, for thickening)
• stevia or sweetener of choice to taste
• 1 graham cracker, crumbled
• 2-3 T. non-dairy or organic whipped topping (i.e. TruWhip, Soyatoo or Rice Whip)

I'm not one to strictly follow a recipe so I just add a little more of this and that, so please feel free to do what you feel!! 

First you want to freeze your pumpkin in ice cube trays for a couple hours prior to creating this delicious delicacy.

In your blender, combine the pumpkin cubes, milk, ice, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, garam masala, salt and xanthan gum. Now I omitted the pumpkin pie spice, garam masala, and xanthan gum simply because I didn't have them on hand. I also didn't add the salt because I simply forgot, and we didn't notice so no sweat if you don't add those ingredients either! In our vegan house we like our super foods, so I added about 3 tablespoons of chia seeds and 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast!!! The picture shows both soy and almond milk, because I only had a tad of soy so I used almond milk to make up for that! 

DUN DUN DA DUH...SUPER FOODS!!!

Blend until you get a nice creamy and thick smoothie, and then pour your refreshment into a nice glass! Or a crappy glass I don't care. I also skipped the step of adding the whipped topping and grahams crackers, to be honest, because I was too lazy and impatient to go to the Raisin Rack that night to find vegan whipped cream. But, when I do get my lazy behind over there trust me I will be getting some vegan whipped cream because these smoothies NEED to be made more than just once! If you decide to add the whipped cream, crumble some crackers on top, add a dash of pumpkin pie spice and ENJOY!!!

Admit it, you love the Tabasco cups:) 

You're a vegan?!

So now that we've finally got it out of the way that I'm the crazy "V" word, let's go over how this came to be. I've always been an animal lover, ALWAYS. I grew up with cats, lots of dogs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and spent a lot of time rescuing little creatures around my parents property. Yet all the while I was loving these little animals I was chomping down on the flesh and meat of other little animals that I simply adored when visiting petting zoos and farms. Now does anyone else see something kind of weird about that? I had pet chickens, we didn't eat them or their eggs because we loved them, but I would gladly take a big ol' helping of fried chicken from Colonel Sanders. See, things just aren't adding up. I thought that I was doing something so great by taking care of my animals and donating to rescues all the while consuming thousands of pounds of dead, rotting, animal flesh each year.

Flash forward to December 2009...Micah and I just finished watching Food Inc. and we are pretty sure that the McDonalds we scarfed down before the film is going to come projecting out of our guts and splatter our whole living room in Double Cheeseburger Brown. YUCK. That was wake up call numero uno. From that evening on we just knew that there would be no more meat in our diet. We watched that movie in horror, following workers at the chicken factory farms shuffle around dead carcasses, kicking live chickens around, seeing poor cows being consumed by their own feces, pigs forced in to such close quarters that they can't even turn around, and that is just the least of it. Right then and there Micah and I pledged that we would take on this decision as a family and support each other along the way, and we never looked back.

The film that started it all.

Sure it was a little different when making a grocery list to not include meat, but actually we loved grocery shopping after that! No more expensive slabs of flesh for us and absolutely no more worrying about the chicken blood draining onto the produce(gag). I searched the net for recipes, went to the library and just collected what info I could and along we went on our little happy vegetarian way!

So now it's October and the little happy vegetarian train has took a turn into blissful vegan land!!! I had a dear friend in cosmetology school decide to become vegan toward the end of our year of hell training, so when we took the vegetarian route she suggested I read up on the vegan lifestyle. I procrastinated on that for about a year, until one day I just knew that it was time to learn why vegans are vegans. I downloaded Vegan by Erik Marcus onto my glorious little e-reader and read the whole book in one sitting. As I read, I cried. And cried. Oh and cried. I finally had the realization that vegans aren't just trying to be complicated pains in the ass, but that they truly care and love for animals. Some of the information in that book made me feel as though The Rock just busted through the door and gave me the People's Elbow straight to the heart. I could (and probably eventually will) devote a whole blog post on the cruel and unjust things that these poor creatures go through just to end up on somebody's plate. I'll give you just a few to think about.

A great book. A great slap in the face, but a loving slap!

So you know that chickens sometimes lay eggs and that sometimes baby chickens, called chicks come from those eggs right? Ok good, glad we got that cleared up. Well obviously females are the laying chickens, the ones that they pile up eight high and eight wide in a cage no bigger than that filing cabinet in your office. So what happens when all those cute little fragile eggs hatch and a bunch of little baby boy chicks are there? Well those guys have several options, none of which they would willingly choose. 1. They get thrown (ALIVE) into a highspeed grinder where they are pulsed into oblivion in order to be used for animal bi-products. 2. They are tossed (once again ALIVE) into a dumpster along with all the other little boy chicks into a dumpster or trash bags where they are left to starve and die. That's just one little tidbit of the chicken industry cruelty that happens each and every single day.

Did you know that by becoming a vegan you save 90 animals lives each year?! So by my little family of three not taking part in the animal industry, we are saving 270 animals per year. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel DAMN GOOD!

Not only did I choose to become a vegan for animal rights, but also for the health of our planet. The gases emitted by millions of farmed animals, plus the waste they produce, plus the gas from our cars transporting those animals to slaughter equals ONE BIG SHIT ON MOTHER EARTH. *Fact alert* WE COULD END WORLD HUNGER IF WE STOPPED GROWING FOOD TO FEED TO ANIMALS, KILLING THE ANIMALS AND FEEDING PEOPLE WITH THEM. If we just simply grew produce to feed the people and stop factory farming animals and feeding them this produce many more people would be adequately nourished.

And the health of myself and my family is another no brainer for this gal! By cutting out animal produce, I'm eliminating the nasty cholestorol that plagues us when we consume massive amounts of animal products. Just within the past few weeks of being completely vegan I can tell my body has already improved. No more of those food babies I used to get, and don't act like you don't know what a food baby is. You know when you leave the dinner table looking like you're in your second trimester! Goodbye cramps, goodbye stomach aches, stuffy noses, and lots of other things that I'll eventually devote posts to as well!

So that's it in a nutshell. I could continue writing for hours on why we ultimately choose this lifestyle, but like I said I'll save some for later. And just to note, if you're not a vegan it doesn't mean I hate you or that we can't be friends. I'm just little ol' me trying to make a difference in the world. I accept and understand everyone elses choices, but I do want to pass along the information and knowledge that I've collected through my many hours of reading and research! I STILL LOVE ALL OF YOU, VEGAN OR NOT:)

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

      Who, what, when where and why. Those are the components of a story right? Do you remember sitting in class at your little desk in elementary school, listening to the teacher talk about english, story writing, verbs, nouns, adjectives and getting excited for the upcoming book writing assignment?!?! Or wait, was that just me? Anyway back to the subject at hand. I'm Amanda, this is my blog, my journey, my first post, so let me give you the components of MY story.
       I married my best friend three years ago and committed myself to a life of love and happiness. Micah is my soulmate, my lover, my friend, my massage therapist, my shoulder to lean on, and my man. We are so outlandish and silly, but we're in love and we get each other. We currently reside in Ohio after moving to Virginia Beach for awhile. On July 8, 2010 another little life joined our journey and opened up a new chapter to our story. Annabella Mae is the light of our lives. Our two souls joined into one. A little person all her own, with places to go and things to see. There's no doubt in my mind that our daughter was sent here to teach us. 

Our new little family, just a few weeks old.

     So I guess that pretty much covers the who,what, when and where. As for the why, I'm not too sure about that one yet. Why did I decide to start a blog?! Well recently Micah and I decided to become vegans after practicing vegetarianism for about a  year. You may ask why, but really the answer is short. Ethical and health reasons. I guess I decided to start blogging some of our new habits in order to show that really anyone can enjoy the vegan lifestyle, not just your stereotypical dread-lock stinky hippy(by the way we love those hippies in any shape or form thank you very much)! Micah and I went from meat lovin', fast food groupies  customers to full fledged home cooking, health conscious, sensible vegans. Annabella had a very big role in our decision to make such a change. We really had to take a step back after she was born and put in to perspective what exactly we were putting into our bodies and what example we would set for such a precious little being, and needless to say things changed! I'm sure I'll post about non-vegan things as well, who knows what kind of stuff I'll put up on here but I invite you to join me on this wonderful journey of love, compassion, adventure, and FUN:) 

Fresh little vegan nuggets:)