Wake up your Sweetheart with this delicious protein packed non-dairy strawberry smoothie. This recipe is a great options if you are looking to substitute your breakfast for something easy, simple, delicious and yet filled with the nutrition your body needs to stay strong and healthy.

Happy Valentine’s Day Dear Friend !

I love celebrating Valentine’s Day because it gives me an excuse to be extra “bubbly” and to express all my love and gratitude towards my family and friends, and also towards people I encounter throughout my day. One of my favorite ways to do so is by cooking yummy dishes, spoiling everyone with their favorite meals and putting lots of options on the table. I like to do this all year round by the way. It sort of feels natural to me to express my love this way… On the other hand, if I am not feeling very lovable we are most likely to order take out or simply eat out. To me, there is a strong connection between love and food therefore cooking and serving is one of the easiest and most natural way for me to express love.

“I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give”. Julia Child

My late Grandmother always said: “the heart of the house is the kitchen” and I think she was so right. The kitchen is the place where we “connect” by bringing food and people together to create a magic formula for love and memories that last a lifetime.

About the recipe…

I am always careful whenever I want to create a color based food or drink because I definitely want to avoid the artificial coloring that is so detrimental to our health. Instead I look for natural food colorings, such as beets and blueberries.

For this powerful smoothie I added a small beet for a deeper pink and I confess this quickly became a favorite combination. Beets are naturally very sweet and a great addition to any drink. I also wanted this smoothie to completely replace my breakfast, because sometimes I just want to get up, work out do my routine meditation and have something simple to eat that yet gives me the energy and nourishment I need to keep going all day. So I added some almond butter (yummy right?) and BINGO! What a filling and delicious smoothie!

I also added dried apricots which is a great natural sweetener and coconut milk. These ingredients combined make for an incredibly delicious smoothie, a filling substitute for your morning breakfast or post-workout. It’s worth a reminder that there are a lot of protein packed natural foods, such as almonds that you can add to your diet to balance out your animal protein intake.