whoa, where is the time going? (plus... a green smoothie)

so, i have many unfinished posts on this thing. what is my excuse? i just had a mostly slower pace for a couple months! now as fall gets ready to start, i am de-cluttering and getting things back in gear. but back to excuses.... i'm going to blame my lack of blogging on baby brain! paul and i are expecting "the little" in december! i'm happy to say that so far pregnancy has been glorious and i have escaped first trimester with minor nausea (that was eliminated with eating) and extreme exhaustion that had me basically comatose after work or napping on the couch so that i would have the energy to go brush my teeth before bed!
second trimester has felt a lot more energetic and i'm hoping this keeps up as i'm heading into my final trimester.
i'm getting myself ready for the unwanted advice and touching that seems inevitable but i feel lucky to have only had one comment of concern about my vegan lifestyle (ie "did you hear about the vegan couple whose baby died?") and i feel really great about my diet and exercise right now! i haven't had any strange cravings. i guess the most surprising to me is that i don't want to eat coconut milk ice cream and raw chocolate as much as i usually do! and i haven't had the same urgency to go to starbucks for my unsweetened soy green tea latte as i have in busy work months. veggie brown rice sushi has been my meal of choice when i'm hungry but can't think of anything i want and in general, i'm really enjoying hunting down new vegetables and fruits to try at the farmers market and eating different grains and beans and legumes. ethiopian food has come up as a dinner craving a couple times though i don't feel like that's specific to pregnancy!
i'm taking vegan prenatal vitamins and while i was taking separate folic acid tablets, i (coincidentally?) did not feel like making my morning green smoothie! too much green leafies?
anyways, i'm finished the bottle and i feel like the folic acid in my prenatal and my food is more than sufficient and i've regained my green smoothie tendencies! hurrah! i'm taking daily iron (spatone liquid iron is my fave) and generally that is just with orange juice or a ginger/orange/frozen banana smoothie but sometimes it ends up in a green smoothie.
i made a green smoothie tonight to get some drinks in the freezer for some mid-morning energy boosts in the next couple work days and it was a nice one so i figured i should post it!

ingredients:
-about 1.5 cups filtered water
-one nub of ginger
-the tops of about 4 purple carrots
-a few sprigs of parsley
-about half or more of the tops of a bunch of radishes
-one peach
-one pear
-about 1 cup of orange juice

i got everything from the farmers market except the ginger and orange juice. maybe that's why it was so especially delicious!
anyways! i'm so excited to meet the little! but also really enjoying this time that she's been hanging out inside me. i can feel her moving around now and it's fun to feel her movements especially when me or paul are talking. i haven't had any food aversions so far and figure this means she is going to be super happy and excited to eat fruits and veggies like us! (and green smoothies, of course!)
hope your september is off to a great start and you are still enjoying farmers market goodies! i'm relieved to know ours goes into october as i was worried this was the last month!

a trio of smoothies.

3 cups of water, 2 apples and 2 pears and the greens (and stems) from one bunch of beets made 3 portions of this not-so-green green smoothie!

the tops of a bunch of carrots,  3 cups of water, 1 plum and a couple handfuls of frozen plums, 1 sprig of mint and 1 apple made up this smoothie for 3! 

a few leaves of kale shy of a bunch, the juice of 4-5 oranges (about 2.5 cups) and 2 frozen bananas created 3 cups of  my favourite green smoothie this week! fresh orange juice? swoon!

day 24 of 30 green smoothie days in a row

kinda wishing i didn't make a green smoothie today.
i started by squeezing fresh orange juice and goodness, would it have been AWESOME just to drink that. and why didn't i? well, because i was going to use it for this green smoothie!

 

this smoothie was going to just be the fresh orange juice with collard greens. neither of which i tried on their own. then, i remembered i had a bulb of fennel i hadn't used yet so i added a few stalks of that. not knowing how it tastes in a smoothie as i've only ever used it in salad (which is delicious, btw!). then i was kinda freaked that it tasted too strong like having an onion-aftertaste kind of strong. so i added an asian pear and a frozen banana and an avocado. now i'm just drinking it slowly. whew. it's intense. if it didn't have the aftertaste, i would be into it. but yikes. i should really start slow when adding new ingredients. 

 

paul hasn't commented on the taste. but he didn't like the texture so he had to blend it with apple juice again.

i gotta do something safe for tomorrow's smoothie!

getting rid of your cold...

morning vitamin C smoothie: parsley (couldn't resist as its iron should be more easily absorbed with all of this vitamin C!) and filtered water, camu camu, freshly squeezed orange juice (eek! so amazing! from the juiciest sweetest oranges ever!), mango, papaya...

 and then frozen bananas and some frozen raspberries...

 and later we did several shots of what organic lives puts in their cold/flu shot: e3 live, celery, ginger and camu camu!

coughing and sneezing = gone!

LA tomorrow morning!!! eek!

i want to write something about agave (so that i can remember why it's bad for you) but for now, i'm just gonna post some photos...

the last of my gorilla food curry bread... so fun to make sandwiches again! i forgot to put avocado on that one so i was kinda bummed but made for a good one later...

me and a friend grabbed salad bar at whole foods yesterday (after many deliberations on the best choice and me running back twice to the cashier later with cookies) and i LOVED the colours that appeared. something had some spice in it (possibly the almond milk avocado ranch dressing?) but it was great with blueberries!

then today i had a "clean out my fridge for the weekend getaway" salad which thankfully was inspired by many a good thing in the fridge. and again, such glorious colours!

i went to guu garden tonight but i was so full after opening the snacks i bought for my plane ride tomorrow (WF now has crackers from live in toronto! i LOVED that place! so i couldn't help it!!) but i can't really eat at guu anyways so i thought a fresh orange juice sounded nice!

last night at guilt & co i went for orange juice as well while the beers were being poured around me. they usually have freshly squeezed there but didn't then. them's the breaks!

so anyways, the waitress asked if it was okay that it was freshly squeezed. um, yes please! so, she brought out 2 orange halves and a juicer. i didn't realize it was to be freshly squeezed by me! brilliant! and the juice fit the glass perfectly. ha, i guess they've done this before.