Delicious Real Food Chocolate Chai Breakfast Smoothie Recipe

OK my usual disclaimer- I’m an artist so even when cooking, I don’t measure anything-dream it up mentally first then I taste and adjust- MUCH MORE FUN WAY TO CREATE. You are  creator!

Chocolate Chai (Ginger) Smoothie

1/2 cup ginger tea or Chai tea (decaf or caf your choice)

1/2 c. of cold water- or more (depending how thick you want smoothie)

1 rounded TBLSP raw cacao powder (Navitas brand is great)

1-2 dates (Medjool is best) de-pitted

1 ripe banana (frozen)

1/2- 1 Tblsp natural peanut butter (or almond/cashew/or tahini)

dash cinnamon*

dash dried or fresh ginger*

1 tsp. ground flax seeds*

Ok start by brewing hot tea create a 1/2 cup only from a chai teabag or simmer fresh ginger root 1/2 inch piece chopped in water till you smell ginger (in latter case;) brewing fresh ginger takes about 5 min.  You can use ginger pwd. (this is considered drying to the body, so only use that if you are phelmy, mucusy type.)  Add in 1 (de-pitted) date to soften it, let it sit in brewing tea.  Brew this strong as it will be diluted.  You now have a flavorful tea base.

Add 1/2 cold water to tea brew.  Perfect. Add banana which you’ve broken into few pieces, cacao powder, and even peanut butter (or substitute nut/seed butter.)  BLEND,  till smoothe, add flax seeds if using them. TASTE.  Add more spices now if you like!  And add more water or tea.  Chill if it’s not cold enough. Simple.  And I make this as a quick breakfast, esp if you keep a cold brew of tea ready, then it’s super fast.

I’d love to know what you think of recipe, and any innovations?

Tips/Comments:

• I find 1 date with a ripe banana makes this quite sweet but- you can add two dates total.  In Ayurveda dates are considered a very nourishing, building food that is good for you if you are tired, rundown.
• If you use tahini instead of PB, known that it’s a stronger “earthy” flavor.
• If you have Vita-mix or Blendtec this will go super fast.  But I use hand blender it takes a few minutes and shaking the dates around in mixture.
• Women’s health:  there are two schools of thought on Flax.  One says it’s estrogenic and thus avoided by women with estrogen dependent reproductive issues- fibroids, breast cancer etc.  The other camp is that plant estrogens- are in fact healthier and most importantly, replace the more troublesome estrogen from meats/dairy etc. in the body.  And thus that camp says flax seeds with the fiber it gives is key to healing those issues….whew.  Almost the way there is “good” cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol.  Esp. women with fibroids, getting more fiber is an issue that most– even conventional doc’s say helps to pull the “bad” estrogens out of the body.   I’m in the latter camp at this point but wanted to point this out.

(image credit: Kasey Shuler cc. lic Flickr) This is my recipe but my pics were too dark to use so I used her image.  See her smoothie recipe which uses oats.