Let’s be real… how many of you drink a cup of coffee and have donut for breakfast or skip breakfast all together to try to lose weight? You know it’s not the healthiest choice but it’s fast and easy. With that in mind, I may have an easy, energy, diet-friendly and healthy breakfast smoothie for you.

This morning drink provides natural sugar for an energy boost, fiber and is rich with vitamin C, E and K. What makes this drink unique are the added oats which makes this a perfect breakfast for adults and kids.

It is commonly known that oats are beneficial to our health. They are reported to lower bad cholesterol, the risk of heart disease, as well as manage and prevent diabetes. Soluble fibre is contained in oats and is the key ingredient that slows the absorption of sugars and fat, which is a great thing if you are looking to lose a few pounds!

Other food sources of soluble fibre include:
• legumes (peas and beans)
• barley
• chia seeds

Feel free to experiment with a mixture of morning fruits, but to get you started here is a recipe that may get your mornings off with a healthier and delicious treat.

Good Morning Smoothie
Ingredients
1 ⅓ cups of frozen Blueberries
3 small Kiwis
2 cups of frozen Bananas
2 / 3 cup of Oats
1 Cup of milk (Almond milk mixed with water is another option)

Preparation
Blend all the ingredients until the mixture is smooth. If it is thick, add a little milk or water to taste.

453 Calories
Fat 26 gr
Carbohydrates 8.9 gr
Protein 8.0 gr

Let me know how you like it!
Salud,
Pablo

PP3/13

Related articles

• A Guide to Making Smoothies at Home (greathealthshakesblog.wordpress.com)
• Become A Superfood Genius: New Superfood Cookbook Is More Than Just Smoothies (prweb.com)

A link to this short film was posted on my Facebook news feed, it was one of many that was posted on my page. By chance I clicked on it and watched the film. I learned a lesson. I learned celebration, creativity, and choice of expression through the story of Inocente. The little girl with the brightly colored clothes and face paint may inspire and have a lesson for you as well. Watch this film.
- Pablo

PP03/13

Related articles

• ‘Inocente’ makes history as first Kickstarter-funded film to win Oscar (theverge.com)

I saw and read an amazing story today and couldn’t resist posting a short notice about it. It’s about Lizzy Velasquez, a girl with a medical condition that has disfigured her appearance since birth. I tend to read stories about handicapped people, especially if they are about children or young adults, because I always hope they have a happy ending to their story.

As you may see from the video about Lizzy, her story is of triumph and gratitude. It is good to see her smile and grasp onto the life she was given. To say that Lizzy’s story has a happy ending would be lacking in imagination, as Lizzy seems only to have begun a very amazing life.

I’m going to reach out to Lizzy to ask for a an interview about her books, “Be Beautiful, Be You” and “Lizzie Beautiful” as it’s clear to me, if anyone knows about being beautiful, Lizzy is an expert. For certain, it seems like we all could learn something about life from this very special Latina.

With a little bit of luck, look for our interview with Lizzy soon, until then I encourage you to read Lizzy’s books.

paz, amor & gratitud… peace, love & gratitude…
Pablo

PM/09/12

We are excited to introduce our new contributor Janelle, who will be offering healthy beverage recipes, and tips for better nutrition. Read how Janelle came to appreciate good eating and good health

Let’s begin at the beginning, what’s your early memories of your diet?

I was raised Seventh Day Adventist. My mom is first generation of Mexican parents and my father immigrated from Costa Rica when he was 20ish. My father didn’t really speak good English, so we ONLY spoke Spanish at home for the first six years of my life. We also attended a Spanish church which was AWESOME because I was exposed to church members from ALL over Latin America and the different vocabulary words for things. It wasn’t until I started speaking English that I realized that they were all from different countries! In my mind, we were all the same because we all spoke Spanish.

Being SDA, we had a REALLY strict diet at home. There was NEVER coffee, tea, soda, sugar, cookies, chips, pork, or seafood in the house. We ate a very basic Latin American SDA diet. We ate A LOT of salad, rice beans, and occasionally carne asada. I never ate cereal (still think it’s gross), white bread, mac and cheese, or any American food. On the rare occasion I ate fast food, it was Taco Bell and even then I was only allowed to have a bean burrito, no meat.

At some point in your life, you looked deeper into the benefits of healthy eating. What was the turning point for you?

I had two turning points in my life. The first was when I was 18 and I moved to Berkeley. I became a vegetarian and then a vegan and then back to vegetarian. I was running 6-8 miles everyday and felt amazing. Unfortunately, after a family crisis in my mid 20′s, I went back to eating not just meat but ALL the foods that were never in my house growing up!!! I couldn’t get enough of shrimp, pork, soda…you name it. As a result, I gained close to 100 lbs. I was so angry at myself because I knew better. Next thing I knew, several of my first cousins were diagnosed with Type II diabetes. That was the second turning point for me. I saw one of my cousins go on medication and not really deal with the problem. I saw another cousin ask her doctor to give her three months to get the problem under control without resorting to medication. She started walking and eating right. She lost 70 lbs and several years later she is still medication free and has her diabetes under control. She inspired me to get myself together and I lost 85 lbs in a year and a half. I stopped eating processed food and started juicing again. It’s been one of the most wonderful journey’s of my life.

If this guy can make a smoothie then anyone can make one!
________________________________________________________________________

Are you still incorporating your cultural foods into your diet? How so?

Latinos have some of the healthiest, most nutritious food on the planet. Unfortunately, it has been bastardized here in the US and we have lost touch with a lot of the good food. I mean come on, beans, nopales, quinoa, squash, corn, avacado, cacao, spirulina??? These and many more are foods I constantly try to incorporate into my diet. We need to dump the chips and the cheese and remember to eat the way our grandparents ate.

I think growing up SDA gave me a good foundation on how to eat healthy. However, there is a lot of processed food in the Adventist diet like fake meat and processed frozen food. I didn’t REALLY learn how to be a healthy vegetarian until I lived in a co-op with a bunch of hippies in Berkeley. I can’t even tell you how lucky I was to have experienced that. But the final awakening was when I started my journey on losing the 100 lbs. I started reading and asking questions and realized it’s not enough to just say,” Oh I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat but hand me a grilled cheese and a chocolate shake”. I don’t see the point in not eating meat but stuffing yourself with flour, milk, and cheese. You have to strike the right balance and really listen to your body. Once I started doing this, I realized my body really doesn’t want a lot of processed food.

I had to re-learn and teach myself how to eat on the go. I no longer stop at a drive thru. I’ll stop at Trader Joe’s and get a salad instead. I eat a lot of brown rice and beans. It’s an easy quick meal when you just need fuel. I also drink A LOT of water and found that it can stop a lot of the bad cravings. and juicing. It’s the best. I’m tired of hearing people complain that they can’t afford a juicer, but have no problem spending the same amount of money on a flat screen TV, a weekend trip to Vegas, a pair of shoes, or a handbag. We have to start prioritizing our health as much as our entertainment.

Now that you have become aware of conscious eating, what alarms you the most about how kids are eating today?

Fast Food and sugar. It’s everywhere. I may be in the minority on this one, but it astonishes me the amount of junk that we collectively as a society have said it’s ok to feed our kids. We reward them at school with candy. We reward them at home with sugar. We reward them with good behavior by taking them out to McDonalds. We let them eat meat that has been soaked in ammonia. One thing all parents can do IMMEDIATELY is start to read labels and eliminate ALL food that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup. Stuff is evil and harming our kids. Look no further when wondering what the spike is in Type II diabetes among children.

Now as a BF Cafe contributor, what do you hope to bring to the readers in the cafe?

I’m not perfect in my diet. I think what separates me from a lot of people is that I am constantly AWARE of everything that goes into my mouth, both good and bad. I read EVERY label. I don’t have any white sugar or flour in my home. If I could help people just be more aware of what they are eating and where it comes from, I’d be happy with that. It’s an evolution that doesn’t happen overnight, but it has to start somewhere.

Can you give us a sample recipe that our readers that is simple and nutritional?

Craving sugar or something sweet??? Don’t run to Cold Stone! Instead try this at home:

Blend:
-1 cup of frozen or fresh strawberries
-1 frozen banana
-2 cups of vanilla flavored Almond Milk or Coconut Milk
-1 cup of ice
Serve in a cold glass and enjoy!!! Notice how light you’ll feel afterward. You’re craving will be satisfied and your body will thank you!!

Find Janelle on Facebook

PM07/12

OFf & RUNNING is a new comedy web series, created by Cheyann Reagan from Whittier, Ca., (Los Angeles), and is about a young woman in search of her forever job. After seeing the passion that Cheyann has put into this web series we believe she has found her forever job as a filmmaker.

Were your parents involved or influential for you in the arts?

They were never self claimed artists, although my mom paints/draws. They were just always supportive of me trying different avenues of the arts through school programs.

When was the first moment you knew you wanted to make films and why?

I was 18 years old and I always had loved Saturday Night Live and it inspired me to take an acting class as my elective in college and I fell in love with acting. But as I was getting ready to venture out to audition, I started looking for plays/monologues that could fit my character and there wasn’t any. I knew that I had to write roles for women like me, educated, fun, quirky and independent, without my race stereotyping what the culture defines me as.

Who are your biggest influences or inspirations in film?

My biggest influence as a writer in film is John Hughes. I loved how he captured a generation and portrayed the coming of age as a struggle with rewards for the kids that made the better choices. My biggest influence in my style as a director are the french new wave directors, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola.

In 2008 you were involved in the film “Salud”, how did you get involved in the project?

I wrote SALUD while I was attending CSULB. A friend had seen I directed a commercial for a Dove contest (I was in the top 10) and she believed I should direct a short film. So I took her advice and produced SALUD post college. It was my first short film that I directed/wrote/produced.

What was your experience like working on the film?

Well I had worked on many sets before and I’ve worn many hats but being a director with a crew of 25, was a huge jump from my previous experiences. I was the captain of the ship and if my energy went down the whole crew would shift. So that was an amazing learning experience to work together and utilize everyone’s strengths to get us through the shoot efficiently.

How did your culture play a part in working on the film?

Well I am 2nd generation American with Latin descent, and my American culture is what brought my crew together. I believe in democracy and love. I respect people and I believe that’s why people love to work with me because race, gender or sexuality differences doesn’t matter to me if you can get the job done. I am committed to making people understand that we are beyond race barriers. I write stories that are universal and impactful to our society.

You also have two other projects, “No Shelter Here” and “Coming Together”, coming out in 2012, can you tell anything about them?

NO SHELTER HERE is a drama about a man that lost his daughter to the system and is fighting back to get her. It deals with homelessness and the foster care system. It is a heart warming story that is a testament that the law isn’t always right. That we should walk in a person’s shoes before we judge their character. It is 17 min. long shot on the Canon 7D. Here is the trailer: http://youtu.be/Pz8wi1ig45g?hd=1

COMING TOGETHER is my first experimental film about love. It is 4 minutes long and it’s message is “Nobody promises tomorrow.” it premiered at BHLIFE in March 2012.

Your latest project is a web series called “OFf & RUNNING”, which has received a great response in just a few short weeks the teaser has been posted in YouTube. What led to the idea of creating a web series?

As an independent writer, I recognized how popular web series were becoming and even TV pilot pickups were coming from the web. So the TV pilot I originally wrote for OFf & RUNNING, I took one act of it and created a new short webisode. Like the message of my webisode, you can’t settle, you must discover your purpose in life and go for it, you have nothing to lose. So I took a risk and shot the pilot in 3 days for $500 and the fan base is responding.

What is the series about?

The series is about a girl named Leia who is trying to find her perfect dream job with the help of her friends, Christian and Mars. Together, they all embark on the adventure of job searching and the crazy, yet amazing events that led them to what can be – Leia’s forever job.

Are you looking to get picked up by Television production company or is the series going to continue to be a web series?

I only made the teaser pilot with the intention that we will be sponsored to create a whole season of webisodes or get picked up by a bigger production company to create a pilot with a TV network deal. I am open to both options.

What would you like people to take from the series?

That they will never settle for a life career that makes them unhappy. Everyone has to work, nothing is free in life. But if you can work everyday of your life with a passion in that industry, the world would really be a better place. The reason I made this a quirky comedy, is because I want people to recognize that mistakes happen, failure will come and you have to laugh at yourself and don’t take life so seriously. Doors close, so better ones will open.

Check out our pilot “Do or Do Not” and other videos we have done at www.youtube.com/offandrunningweb and become a fan on Facebook! www.facebook.com/offandrunningwebisode

Thank you Cheyann Montiel Reagan.

PP 06/12

Summer weather is fast approaching and with it fresh fruits and berries! This is my favorite time of the year, not only because of the warm weather but also for all the delicious fruits that come into season. My favorites are chilled nectarines and watermelon. In the coming months I’ll find a few recipes with these fruits, but today I wanted to be experimental and try something new with berries.

Blackberries (berries in general) are amazingly beneficial for your health.

Ten Benefits of Blackberries:
1. Blackberries are one of the top ten foods containing antioxidants
2. Blackberries are packed with polyphenols helping to prevent cancer and heart disease.
3. Blackberries are filled with anthocyanins (antioxidants which give blackberries their deep purple color) which help in memory retention and the risk of hypertension.
4. Blackberries are said to strengthen blood vessels, help fight heart disease and help improve eyesight.
5. The high tannin content of blackberries help tighten tissue, relieve intestinal inflammation, and help reduce hemorrhoids and stomach disorders.
6. Ohio State University found that blackberries may protect against esophageal cancer, a cancer caused by gastric reflux disease.
7. Blackberries have shown to protect against other types of cancers. They contain phytoestrogens (plant estrogens), a compound believed to play a vital role in preventing breast and cervical cancer.
8. Blackberries are high in Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Manganese and fiber.
9. The high fiber content of blackberries help reduce risk of intestinal disease and the risk of developing diabetes.
10. Blackberries are a healthy food choice that kids and adults love. They are a great way to refuel after a hard workout and help aid in fighting obesity.
(list courtesy of http://www.ingredientsinc.net/2011/07/10-health-benefits-of-blackberries/)

(This video demonstrates a blackberry fertility smoothie)

There are endless recipes for blackberries but because we seem to need a little extra energy for summer I wanted to try a breakfast drink to give myself a boost for the day. Again don’t be afraid to experiment. If you don’t like skim milk, you may try coconut or almond milk. Add a banana or go for a full berry blast and add blueberries!

If you are not familiar with Yerba Mate, it is one… “Of the six commonly used stimulants in the world: yerba mate, coffee, tea, kola nut, cocoa and guarana, yerba mate triumphs as the most balanced, delivering both energy and nutrition.”

I have become an ardent drinker of Yorba Mate tea for its unique and invigorating taste. Angel posted about it here or go to the brand’s web site guayaki.com for more information.

Please enjoy this summer drink and let me know what you think!

Blackberry milkshake and Mate (Yerba Mate)

Ingredients
1 / 2 cup strawberries (use organic fruits if possible)
1 / 2 cup blackberries
1 / 4 teaspoon yerba mate
1 cup skim milk (I used 2% milk mixed with half water)

Blend all ingredients until fully mixed
Nutrition per serving
348 calories
Fat 0g
84g carbohydrates
23g protein

Salud!
Pablo
PM05/20

Related articles

• Yerba Mate Tea leaf – Ready For Your 1st Cup? (penguingeneration.com)

How many times have you heard? “You shouldn’t eat that, it’s bad for you”, but you eat it anyway! It’s ok we all indulge, and probably more than we should. We often tell ourselves that as long as we don’t eat too many bad foods we’re eating well.

Of course, we all know we should eat more vegetables and stay away from sugar, salt, fried foods, fast food, and delicious mouth-watering desserts, which seems to be the only things we really want to eat!

For the most of my life I have somewhat held on to this notion that if I ate sensibly then I was eating good. Luckily for me, my mom is a good cook so I’ve always enjoyed home cooked meals and did my best to stay away from fried and fast foods.

However, I admit it… “Hi I’m Pablo and I’m a chocolate addict.” My biggest weakness are chocolate chip cookies and if I had to choke out my grandmother for bag of cookies, well, have a nice nap grandma. Of course, I’m kidding, my grandmother would have taken me out with her chancla if I dared make a move towards the cookie jar! My grandmother was tough, but even tougher is my doctor who has now told me that I need to eat better for my health. With little choice in the matter, I started to look for a healthier way to eat.

I didn’t have to go far, it’s funny how the universe gives us what we seek, a while back I wanted to incorporate beverage recipes into the BF Café, not realizing that this decision would lead me to juicing.

Above is an interesting green recipe with cilantro

As I started looking for beverages with a Latin twist to them, my mom found a Mexican magazine that introduced me to natural recipes. The recipes listed the benefits of fruit drinks, but it wasn’t until I went to Whole Foods grocery store that I saw a sign advertising a class on juicing. I went to the class twice, and learned just how beneficial and essential fruit and vegetable juicing can be to improve our health and life. Needles to say I’m hooked and going green.

You may have noticed that I have already posted a few recipes in the Cafe Beverage section, which I took from the Mexican publication, but I didn’t realize that there is so much more to juicing than just putting fruit into a blender. For instance, there is a difference between smoothies and juicing, which I’ll share in future posts, and we absorb up to 40% more nutrients through juicing.

I learned that depending on the type of fruits and vegetables different parts of your health may be improved. For instance, if you have intestinal parasites garlic juice is very effective in helping to eliminate them …yuck! Hey, I didn’t say this was always going to be sexy, but hopefully it will be healthy, tasty and fun.

My goal has now become to share my experiences and lessons about juicing and how it can positively affect our lives. I hope that you share your experiences, tips and recipes with me as well, so we can keep juicing a regular part of our diet. From here on out, I hope to be that little voice in your head that says, “you shouldn’t eat this, drink a green smoothie instead.”

To help you get started here is a basic green smoothie that I make once a week. Feel free to experiment according to your tastes and share your results.

Basic Green Smoothie Recipe
2-3 strawberries
1/2 cup Spinach
2 bananas
4 leaves of kale (without stems)
12-16 oz of water

In the photo above I added 1/4 slice of Papaya, 1/2 green apple, 1/2 cucumber and a scoop of protein powder and it was delicious! Try it today!

Salud!
Pablo

PM04/12

Yes, it’s yet another Coke or Pepsi, or Hispanic or Latino taste test challenge. After a couple of weeks of being laid up with a cold I had nothing better to do than read a couple of articles on a subject that seems to be as unfulfilling as a diet soda.

I read an article in the CNN web site titled, “State of Hispanic America”, and a LA Times’ article titled, “Latino or Hispanic? For many Americans, neither feels quite right”.

After reading both articles, a thought lingered in my mind on how personally irrelevant the debate has become for me to define who or what I am by either the Hispanic or Latino labels. After all, the labels are not descriptive of me as a person and far too restrictive to entail my life experience.

While I understand the importance of establishing a standard label to define myself and other people from a Spanish speaking culture, it’s been a guessing game from the very beginning, so how important is it really?

When I was born, I was listed as being “other” on my birth certificate. However, from my earliest childhood recollections my parents told me I was Mexican, but in 1980 the United States census recorded me as a Hispanic.

All these labels may have confused me if I had been aware that my ethnicity was exclusive. However, as far as I knew, my friends all liked and wanted to come to my house to eat home-made burritos, so by my standard everyone was an honorary Mexican. I was comfortable being a Mexican and my friends seemed to enjoy my culture, so why did we need more labels?

Well for a little history, in 1977 “Hispanic” was a term created and defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as “A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture of origin, regardless of race.” This is also the time the identity taste test challenge debate began.

According to “Hispanic Marketing” by Felipe and Betty Ann Korzenny, briefly the debate boiled down to the following:

The more politically active segment of the Hispanic community argued and still continues to argue that this label [Hispanic] was imposed from the outside and that it represents the roots of oppression from Spain. That is because Hispania was the name of the Roman province that now constitutes Spain.

The same politically oriented individuals, after much debate, came up with the label “Latino” as better representing the community. Still, the label is controversial because it encompasses almost anyone from a culture with Latin roots. That could be Italians, Romanians, Portuguese, French and so on.

The intention was right. The goal was to simply classify an emerging population by the government and corporations for means of social, political and economic tracking. The goal was achieved, as it is well known that Hispanics/Latinos will be the leading minority in the very near future. However, the side effect is that it also created an uncertain identity.

As indicated by the articles I read, this is where things get personal and people become passionate about what is and isn’t right about each of the labels.

Personally, I say that the beauty of being Hispanic/Latino is that the experience of this culture may be so diverse that perhaps it can’t be defined by one word. Yet, a label might be a good place to begin the understanding of such a varied experience. After all, here in the Café, we feature creative people who are very unique individuals, that bring their own specific ideas of what is Hispanic and Latino, but are still open to participate as a group defined by such labels.

To be honest we do use both “Hispanic” and “Latino” and we do so without hesitation as our intention is to be inclusive of all who understand and enjoy the spirit of what the labels can only begin to recognize.

If this helps clarify, my personal view is as follows:
Yes, I am Latino, because my culture is Spanish speaking based.
Yes, I am Hispanic because I am American and this is how my government counts me.
Yes, I am Mexican-American because my school systems taught me I was.
Yes, I am Chicano because generations before me fought for this identity.
Yes, I am an American because I was born here and I choose to live by its means.
Yes, I am many shades of brown because that’s been my experience regardless of what might be considered right or wrong.
Yes, I am an artist because it’s my passion.
Yes, I am a LA Laker fan because it’s another culture I participate in among many others that I belong to in a single day.

I am all these because a label is just a shared awareness and I am an accumulation of all these experiences. To deny any one label is to deny a segment of my awareness as a human. It’s understandable that some people want only to be defined by a single word, but I find that possibilities and experiences are endless if I remain open to various labels.

After all, how do you know if you like Coke or Pepsi unless you taste both? And if you do pick a favorite, is that the only beverage you’ll drink for the rest of your life? Perhaps variety is the spice of life.

Or as corny as this may sound, a diamond is the sum of many cuts to accept and refract the light at its best. I feel that the acceptance of all the labels above gives me another angle of light on what it is to experience life at its fullest.

As a spiritual being, I consider myself lucky to experience the world through an ethnicity, race and tradition from both my Spanish speaking and American cultures, and that’s what these Latino/Hispanic labels define. However, if you really want to define me, then let me give you a relevant and personal label to consider.

In the beginning I may have began as an “other” but I strive to be known as a good son, brother and friend but what I hope to be finally defined as, is simply, as a loving human being.

with gratitude,
pablo

4/12PM

Related articles

• Study Finds Hispanics Don’t Want To Be Called Hispanic (washington.cbslocal.com)
• When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity – Pew Research Center (policyabcs.wordpress.com)
• Some Hispanics Want To Share Their Background (dfw.cbslocal.com)

We’ve done a little remodeling in the Café to freshen things up and we are happy to present our new home page. We are excited about this small and yet, very ambitious update to the Cafe for the possibilities that it opens up for us.

While blogging will always be an essential part of the Cafe, we have been working towards fulfilling our vision of  becoming a production boutique studio and now feel ready to start making the transition. By adding a new home page we hope it helps us realize our dreams in the following ways:

• Provide our fans with easy access to our highlighted features for the month, such as the latest blog interview, artwork, natural recipes, merchandise, etc.

• Highlight our new productions and features such as podcasts, webisodes, shortfilms, and animations.

As we add more features to the site we want to make sure everything we provide is easy to view or find. It is our goal to provide the best online Latino cafe experience for you and everything we create is with our fans in mind. Of course we look to have our fun too!

We are extremely excited about our new ventures into webisodes, shortfilms, and healthy life recipes. We are already in production and can’t wait to start posting. In the meantime, if you haven’t seen our first trial animation of the Barrio Family, be sure to click on the icon for a preview of what promises to become a fun series of animations. As we complete our new videos you’ll find them here or on one of our many video sharing accounts.

As a Cafe, it made sense to continue to offer beverage recipes with the key ingredients being natural and fresh to promote healthy living.

We also have two new features that you can find by clicking on the yellow squares towards the bottom of the page, where you’ll find our new podcast titled “Cafe Chat”, and Pablo Raw.

Our Podcast has been a long time in coming and promises to be a reflection of our blog, but sometimes things can’t be written or read and have to be heard to be believed, so we look forward to amusing and interesting conversations.

Pablo Raw is going to be an experimental journal, where Pablo dares to open up with personal thoughts, experiences and drawings that may prove to be too risky to be viewed.

Overall, we are excited with our new direction and want to thank all our fans and supporters for giving us the encouragement to continue with BF Cafe. Be sure to tell your friends about us and please join our Facebook Fan page Facebook and google+ to make new friends.

Again, thank you for your continued support, your interest is very much appreciated.

with gratitude…
Pablo

03/12

A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae. The family of who or what? Lets just agree that we know the pumpkin as the orange round thing we carve into a scary face on Halloween and of course, we know pumpkin pie!

What we didn’t know is that pumpkin may be considered both a fruit and vegetable and is loaded with important antioxidants such as leutin, both alpha and beta carotene, which generates vitamin A, C and E.

There have also been studies that suggest that pumpkin contains compounds that may help with prevention and reduction of type-1 diabetes, but we dropped out of medical school so be sure to ask your doctor.

The best thing is that almost all parts of the pumpkin plant, including the fruit, leaves, flowers and seeds are edible. Lucky for us it also makes for a delicious hot beverage. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Prep Time: 15 Min

Cook Time: 3 Min

Ready In: 18 Min

Servings:

Original Recipe Yield 3 servings

Ingredients

3 cups hot whole milk
4 teaspoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
6 ounces double-strength brewed coffee
3 tablespoons sweetened whipped cream
3 pinches pumpkin pie spice

Directions

Combine the hot milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and pumpkin pie spice in a blender; blend until frothy. Pour the mixture into 3 coffee mugs to about 2/3 full. Pour 2 ounces coffee into each mug. Garnish each mug with whipped topping and pumpkin pie spice.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 158 | Total Fat: 5.6g | Cholesterol: 22mg

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Spiced-Latte/Detail.aspx

Related articles

• Pumpkin & Walnut Oatmeal (thedailymeal.com)
• Pumpkin Pie Smoothie with Cinnamon Honey Whipped Cream (angelfoodskitchen.wordpress.com)