April is going to be a great month everyone, just fantastic, I can feel it in my bones!
Why? Well… I have lots of exciting things planned for the blog, like today’s super awesome GIVEAWAY… who doesn’t like free stuff… and free AWESOME stuff at that?!
Also, the hubby and I are packing our bags in a couple weeks and jetting off to Hawaii to escape the (still) winter cold here in the Canadian prairies… yep, we pretty much get winter until June here.
Oh, and I am in the midst of writing another guest post for a fantastic, well-known, health blogger that I just adore!!! How cool that I get to post on her blog!? (stay tuned to hear more about this one, which I kind of have to keep under wraps right now… but the excitement is killing me!).
So yeah, APRIL you ROCK – let’s do this!
Ok, now – this recipe. What can I say about it… well, three words kind of do all the explaining..
Black.
Forest.
Cake.
In a smoothie…? With lots of healthy protein…? And antioxidants..? And other good for you food..??
Why, yes!!! It’s almost too good to be true!
Ok, so what do we really have in this magical smoothie? Well, we have all the wonderful, delicious, “O.M.G.” flavors of Black Forest Cake… chocolate, more chocolate, cherries, and more chocolate!
North Coast Naturals was kind enough to send me a whole tickle trunk of goodies, to sample, and use to make delicious recipes such as this one! I had SO much fun testing out their products!
As you may already know, I am a big fan of North Coast Naturals and truly stand behind their products. When they saw that I was using their protein powder in so many of my smoothies, they offered to send me some different products to see what I could make out of them!
So, Thank You, North Coast Naturals, like April, you ALSO ROCK!
North Coast Naturals is of course, also the provider of the products for the GIVEAWAY today!
So one of you lucky readers also gets to try out some of their awesome products for freeeee!
Ok, so back to my protein smoothie.
I used the North Coast Naturals Raw Hemp Smoothie mix as the base. There are a few fantastic things that I love about this product.
a) It tastes delicious. yum, like dark chocolate, with almost a hint of espresso (although it doesn’t contain any, I just get a little taste of that, which is also why it worked so wonderfully in this smoothie)
b) It’s all natural, and FULL of good-for-you ingredients such as hemp protein, pumpkin seed powder, fair trade organic cocoa, sprouted brown rice protein powder, spirulina, and probiotics!!
c) It has 10… ten.. TEN grams of easily-digestible-for-keepin’-you-regular fiber per 2 tablespoons! (HELLO, admit it, we all love fiber – seriously, who doesn’t like being a good pooper?!)
It is also naturally sweetened with no refined sugars or artificial sweeteners in sight!
Along with the Raw Hemp Smoothie Mix, I used frozen banana, frozen cherries (which, if they are in season where you are, I would totally use fresh!), raw cocoa powder, dark chocolate shavings, ice, and water.
The banana provides a punch of potassium, the cherries, cocoa powder, and dark chocolate all provide ample amounts of antioxidants, and the raw hemp tops it all of with protein, fiber, and love.
Yes, love.
It’s in there somewhere, I could just feel it when mowed down on this delicious smoothie.
Now, just to give you the option, you can always use any other chocolate protein powder you want in this recipe – but please, for the sake of loving your body, make sure it’s clean, with no refined or artificial ingredients! It would just break my heart to see this smoothie made with a protein powder chock full of aspartame or sucralose. 🙁
- 2 scoops North Coast Naturals Chocolate Hemp Protein Powder
- ½ cup frozen pitted cherries (or fresh if they are in season!)
- ½ frozen banana
- 1 tablespoon raw cocoa powder
- ¼ cup water or unsweetened almond milk
- 4 ice cubes
- 1 teaspoon dark chocolate shavings to garnish
- Place the protein powder, cherries, banana, cocoa powder, ice, and water into a blender and blend to a thick smooth consistency.
- Garnish with a cherry and dark chocolate shavings.
- Devour!
Ok, I know you have been patiently waiting for it…
The Giveaway!
This giveaway will be active until Tuesday at 11:59pm so enter with all the options to get as many entries as you can!
Share, tweet, pin, love! I will notify the winner once they have been randomly selected! Ok, go!!!
Follow this link to get to the GIVEAWAY ENTRY SCREEN
——–> a Rafflecopter Giveaway <———-
*Giveaway Has Ended*
DISCLAIMER
*The product(s) used for this recipe and post were provided to me by North Coast Naturals. Aside from the actual product(s) used to create the recipe and provided for the giveaway, I did not receive any monetary compensation from North Coast Naturals and the opinions/review of the product(s) are entirely my own (Christal of Nutritionist in the Kitch).
My go-to protein smoothie usually contains chocolate, banana, and peanut butter. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it! But I may try your Black Forest idea when cherries are in season this summer!
Lol! Yep, chocolate and pb are a match made in heaven, can’t go wrong there!
My new favorite smoothie uses vanilla brownrice protein powder, half of a frozen banana, PB2 & almond milk! Delicious 🙂
Yum!
I’ve never tried powder stuff in my smoothie’s before…seriously considering I’ve been doing it all wrong lol. Definitely going to be trying this
Thanks KatieMae, you’ll love this one, I promise! 🙂
I have discovered that if I want to try North Coast Naturals, I will have to win this give away 🙂 I checked their website and there are not any locations in my part of the U.S. and they don’t ship here, so I will begin trying to find a substitute. I’ve got my cherries! Have a great Sunday……..
Darn!! I wonder if Whey Gourmet is in the U.S.? They are the same company that makes North Coast Naturals I believe!
Gotta try this.
I love just plain frozen raspberries, almond milk, and protein powder. Sometimes with a banana, but more often not 🙂
I like that Mary – simple and yummy!
my fav chocolate smoothie – choc almond milk, spinach, banana, and some almond butter
Sounds delicious Stacey! 🙂
LOVE this recipe! ….I think this is the perfect site for all my natural and better-for-you sweet tooth cravings!,…..Think I’m going to try North Coast Naturals
Thanks Sasha! Yes, do! I really do love North Coast Naturals! 🙂
Raspberries, peaches and vanilla protein powder.
Your recipe looks fantastic! I’d really like to try this protein powder : )
Yum! Fruity and delicious!
Hi Cristal,
looks like another great recipe. Your 90 day challenge has inspired me to do my own, I started Wednesday. I am wondering what program or website you use to calculate the nutritional information for your meals and recipes. thanks,
Nellie
Thanks Nellie! Congrats on starting your own challenge! I use My Fitness Pal 🙂
this looks so good!
Oh it sure is Marlies!