Mind mumbles

Project: Chia

So, I was out and about t'other day and saw Clarity standing by the street . . .

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. . . and in that moment I realized I had a problem with my diet.

For years I've ingested way too much high fructose corn syrup on a daily basis (not to mention other harmful chemicsls) and decided to nip it in the bud.

I looked into ways to substitute my favorite foodstuff with something healthy and discovered chia seeds.

To cut to the chase, chia seeds are super healthy for you, appetite suppressants and absorb 12x their weight in liquid.

Sooo, my devious mind started grinding, thinking of ways the properties of chia could be leveraged to help me in my quest . .

SMOOTHIES!

I decided to replace my bad food with two new items in my daily diet.

First, I replaced my morning yogurt + fruit with chia "pudding" + fruit. I use quote marks because chia will firm up liquids it's mixed into, but it will never set like jello or milk-based pudding (but all the "wholesome moms" (actually focus groups of 25 office bozos) online use the term when discussing chia stuff)

The recipe:

1 cup milk (you can use any kind of milk - I use coconut milk)
2 TBsp + ¼ Tsp of chia seeds
Mix chia seeds into the liquid & place in the fridge overnight (at least eight hours)
Come next morning, stir your fave fruit into the "pudding" and enjoy!

You will need to mix this two or three times before putting it in the fridge as the chia seeds are grossly hydroscopic and will clump together like two horny dogs. If you don't stir it after the first mix, you can still eat it, but it'll very likely have mixed zones of liquid & crunchy lumps of chia.

For my evening chia, I make smoothies. Every other day I mix up both a milk-based or vegetable-based concoction, and drink one every evening.

My local taqueria has fresh salsa to die for. It's made of fresh tomatoes, cilantro, jalapeño, salt & lime juice. The veggie smoothie is my years-long desire for a drinkable version of this.

The recipe:

Target: 24 ounces
One large sandwich tomato or three Romas, sliced & quartered
One fifth of a fresh cucumber (or to taste)
Slice of fresh onion (or to taste)
Two or three cilantro stalks (or use a handful - it's your smoothie!)
1 TBsp chia seeds
One eigth Tsp Salt (or to taste)
3 Tsp lemon or lime juice (bottled stuff from the grocery is fine)

With an immersion blender (aka "stick blender"), grind all of the above into a liquid. If you use canning jars, you will likely have to add the tomato chunks one or two at a time.
Add water so canning jar is full to the fill line; give it another zoom with the blender.
Seal this up and stick it in the fridge overnight (at least 8 hours)

Milk-based smoothie recipe:

Target: 24 ounces
One quarter pint of fruit (i use a whole banana)
Milk as needed
1 TBsp chia seeds
Peel bananas or otherwise prepare fruit. Place in wide mouth straight walled canning jar.
Add chia seeds
Add milk to cover & use your handy stick blender to buzz this all into a liquid.
Add more milk (to the fill line of the canning jar) and give another whirl with the blender.
Seal this up and fridge it overnight (at least 8 hours)

Note: I wouldn't make more than two of these at a time, as I don't think fresh fruits & veggies will last longer than a few days after being ground up.

Note: If you don't have an immersion blender, you can just chop up the fruits really small for your milk smoothie, but you'll have to chew it a little bit . .

If you don't have an immersion blender for the veggie smoothie, you can get similar health benefits (but will suffer for taste) by using V8 juice (instead of all those fresh ingredients) + chia.

Materials that I use for some of this:
Chia seeds
24 ounce wide mouth canning jars
Leak proof wide mouth jar lids
Immersion blender

Tags: chia, cooking, food, general-interest

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