Tropical Walnut Smoothie

Hey guys, ok so I tried this new smoothie this weekend. It is a tropical walnut smoothie. The ingredients include:

1 cup of orange juice

1 cup of frozen chunks of mango

1/3 cup of tofu

1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

I know what some of ya'll are thinking, tofu? lol. Well yes, let me tell you I was a bit nervous about putting tofu in my smoothie. I have never really eaten tofu before, and honestly would not even know what to do with it. However, I was feeling in the mood to try it out.  Call me crazy but I went ahead and bought all the ingredients at the store and whipped up that smoothie. By the way, tofu is in the produce section for those of you who did not know like me, lol. Anyway, the smoothie ended up being pretty tasty. You definitely will have to have a love for the tangy orange juice and mango flavor to enjoy it but it was very yummy, and you could not even taste the tofu and there was no wierd texture or anything like that either. Here is a picture of the smoothie from the website I got the recipe on.

 

Ok, so here are some nutrition facts about this tropical smoothie. First off, it is a great choice for anyone who is lactose intolerant. This smoothie is a completely dairy free and therefore is a great option for anyone who can't have milk and dairy products. The recipe above will make 4 servings with each smoothie being 156 calories, with 16 carbs, 4 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber and 10 grams of fat. What a great little snack!!

The walnuts in the smoothie add some health benefits too. Walnuts are a rich source of omega 3 fatty acids which help lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol. They also have the antioxidant ellagic acid which helps with inflammation. In addition to the walnuts, you are recieving plenty of vitamin c from the orange juice and the mangos. The tofu adds just a little bit of protien to balance out this extremely tasty smoothie.

So if you are wondering where I found this recipe...I went to Virginia in the summer for my sister's wedding. We stopped at this grocery store called Giant to pick up some groceries. While I was there, I saw the coolest thing. There was this little kiosk at the end of one of the aisles. I went to check it out, and when I searched around on it I found that it had all these different categories for different recipes - recipes for heart health, recipes for athletes, recipes for diabetes, etc etc. Great Idea to put in a grocery store right? Well what made it even better is that once you picked a recipe, it would print out a little sheet of paper with the recipe, the nutrition facts on that recipe, the ingredients and what aisle you can find each ingredient on. I thought, WOW!! I wish we had these in our stores in Texas, lol. If you all have some time on your hands check out shoptocook.com. That is the website that basically powers those kiosks in the stores, and there are tons of great recipes there as well. Anyway, I hope ya'll have a chance to try out that smoothie sometime.

Until next time,

Jennifer Klinkert