I'm taking the return to routine after the summer holidays as an opportunity to make better use of my mornings. I am a total morning person and for as long as I can remember I have gotten up really early. I was that kid on sleep overs that was always awake first thing and kicking the other kids so that they would wake up to play.
I read a quote last week from Bertrand Russell - "A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live". I adore this quote; the stiller and quieter an environment I am in, the happier I am. It's hard to block out noise sometimes including online noise, especially when a lot of your work in online. Early mornings are a time when I indulge in quietness; it's such a pleasure to have time to yourself and to let your thoughts just wander to where ever they want to go.
Green smoothies are regularly part of my breakfast. As I make them so much, I don't really follow a recipe and instead just throw in a combination of greens like spinach, cucumber, celery, perhaps some oats or seeds, a little nut butter and then a little fruit for sweetness. However, in keeping with my return to cherishing my morning time, I've decided to spend some time indulging in new breakfast recipes and the first of these is this Passion Fruit & Cardamon Green Smoothie that I made this morning.
Cardamon is a beautiful flavour that is quite on trend at the moment. Like ginger it's a warming spice and so works great in Winter to add 'heat' to smoothies. Sometimes having a frozen smoothie is the last thing we want to drink in cold weather and this is where heating foods like ginger and cardamon can help make the smoothie more appealing.
Ingredients
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 cup spinach leaves
1 passion fruit
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cardamon pods
Method
Cut the passion fruit in half and scoop the flesh into a blender. With the flat of a knife, crush the cardamon pods to open them. Scrap the cardamon seeds into the blender and discard the pods. Add the remaining ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Serve immediately or keep in the fridge for up to 24 hours.
