Making Love in the Kitchen: The Blog

The Green Smoothie Cleanse is coming August 6th. Get your tutorial now! My first ever Green Smoothie Cleanse Vitamix Incentive! Get your blend on. And enter to win nourishtea and amp up your smoothie below!

Josh and I have a super nerdy nutritionist game that we play. It goes like this:

Josh: “Hey Megs, Would you like a cup of tea”.

Meghan: “ I sure would!”

J: “What kind?”

M: “You’ll do the right thing”.

And then I watch as Josh’s mind works. He looks at the time, he considers how long ago we ate or how soon we’ll be eating, he considers my mood and how I might be feeling and thinks about what the actions of various herbs are in order to brew just the right one. Nerd alert! (That goes to both of us, ‘cause I play the game too”.

We all have our have herbal brews. I rarely sit down to a cup of hot tea in the summer, but as I chat about in the Green Smoothie Cleanse tutorial, herbal teas are an awesome way to amp up the healing and nutritional value in a smoothie. You can of course have a warm smoothie if the mood strikes you, but I love brewing up some great teas, and either chilling the tea in the fridge or freezing it as cubes and using that as my smoothie base.

In the tutorial I go into great detail about this awesome way to amp up a super smoothie and list off loads of awesome herbs and the organs they support.

My liver sometimes plays tricks on me and so I always go with my fave liver herbs:

• Milk Thistle Seed: helps repair damaged liver cells and protects them from the penetration of toxins.
• Dandelion Root: Used to treat kidney disease, indigestion and heartburn, but is most widely known for its ability to treat liver disease. This herb helps to purify the bloodstream and liver, as well as stimulate bile production.

My all time fave herbal teas these days are Ginger and Licorice, not only because they do just what I need them to, but they taste delicious and I’ll often put a bit of each into my tea ball (no bags here!)

• Licorice Root: This herb is most well known for its ability to heal ulcers. It lowers stomach acid levels, relieves heartburn and indigestion and even acts as a mild laxative. It is also used to combat irritation, inflammation and spasms in the digestive tract.
• Ginger Root: This is a versatile herb that prevents indigestion and abdominal cramping. Furthermore it lowers blood pressure by improving circulation of blood flow throughout the body.

Green tea, of course is a staple for me too but lately I have been going more with the herbal smoothie power. One of my fave Toronto-based tea companies nourishtea offers a fantastic variety of herbal blends.

I love their bright containers and I also love that their teas come loose. I like my teas like I like my men… (kidding!). But really, so many teas come with a ridiculous amount of packaging so this is an added bonus! Another added bonus is that 5% of sales goes to support the charity Action Against Hunger. We’re now talking a triple win!

Herbal Berry Smoothie
(makes 2 servings)

1 cup brewed and chilled berry tea (I used nourishtea’s sweet berry breeze )
1 cup ginger tea, as ice cubes
2 cups berries of choice
1/2 cucumber
1 Tbs hemp seeds
1 Tbs coconut
1 Tbs bee pollen (optional)
honey/dates/stevia to sweeten

Question Of The Day: What is your fave herbal tea or tea blend?

nourishtea wants to play along in helping us amp up our smoothies for our Green Smoothie Cleanse and so are giving away some of their goods.

Win nourishtea delights!

nourishtea is generously offering you smoothie/tea lovers a delicious assortment of teas that includes:

• cresting cranes of legend: white tea
• emerald path – chinese green tea
• yummy chai
• minty igloo – peppermint
• crimson rooibos – red rooibos
• sweet berry breeze – berry & fruit

Drink up lovers! Plus every entry here automatically enters you to also win the box collection of e-guides from me (valued at over $130). You can enter to win many time by taking on the following tasks.

• Enter a comment below sharing your favourite herbal tea or tea blend.
• Mention the contest on your blog and post a link here for 5 entries!
• Follow me on Twitter for one entry
• Join my Facebook Fan Page for one entry (if you joined the group in the past, we’ve moved!)
• Visit nourishtea and declare what herbal tea you can’t wait to try!
• Follow nourishtea on twitter

Don’t miss the Vitamix Offer Here!

Tags: greensmoothie, Health, health-diet-nutrition, health-recipes, health-veganism, herbal tea, nourishtea, Recipe