Cinnamon coffee milkshake is a nice option along with many coffee drinks out there… coffee lattes, macchiatos, cappuccinos… and the list keeps growing as coffee interest grows. ☕️
I was a late coffee bloomer if there’s such a thing… starting a morning routine decades into life.
It was a bitter acquired taste to my younger self.
But I realized after some years into the happy habit, around the 7-year switch (like allergy changes), that my gut couldn’t keep up with my cup o’ java demand… so I switched to homemade cold brew coffee.
Because I didn’t wanna give up my new healthy routine.
Afterall, black coffee is a healthy plant-based antioxidant beverage choice. Tea has its own special place in my drink world, but after noon. 🕛
…And with a cold brew coffee milkshake, you don’t have to choose, you can enjoy anytime of day!
It’s a great treat option (…yes/maybe?) especially when it’s still warm temperatures outside. And that can be closer to year round in these climate change days.
And just seconds if you’ve been on the cold brew coffee bandwagon for a while, and have your setup and coffee grounds available.
…I could make you a nice cup in a minute and it’d be ready to drink in that same minute. 😊
I started making cold brew daily in 2019.
That’s when I discovered that I could not have a regular morning coffee routine because of the acidity. Whether it was the fasting day next morning or it was breakfast time, my stomach needs water and food first!
…Maybe yours is like that too.
But I can enjoy cold brew coffee at ease with some small food (like a banana, yogurt, or some fiber) in the gut.
So if you have a sensitive gut or lining, that’s something to consider… and maybe you don’t have to give up a coffee habit or coffee morning routine if you don’t wanna.
…And this light creamy coffee milkshake is a nice complement.
You can keep adding cold brew to your milkshake that can be a breakfast shake (or more like a light cappuccino). 🧋
And it’s a healthy breakfast dessert drink because it’s light but also has egg protein. 🥚
With a plant-based milk like almond milk added, this does your body good. 🌱
Since cold brew coffee is less acidic in the process, you can start your morning with any ground coffee that you can sift through the coffee filter, that is “the brew” process in cold brew.
You can use light, medium, or dark black coffee grounds. Whatever suits your fancies.
And to top it all off, the optional sweet zhugh is chocolate shavings. If you use dark chocolate then you gain some additional healthy polyphenol anti-inflammatory points. 🎉
That’s all the sugar needed in this coffee milkshake drink, if any.
It’s not loaded with sugar like so many cool coffee beverages you buy that give even my inner child a sugar skin crawl attack just looking at how many grams of sugar. 😮
This milkshake can have no added sugar and be wickedly good!
…And not only is this a low-sugar beverage, you gotta love that this is 3-ingredient easy shake steps… where you focus mostly on the drinking enjoyment!
Worry is a state of mind that is not productive. You can lose sleep when worry is left unattended… meaning, that after you’ve thought of what the worry theme is about and what you can do about it, then putting the worry to bed (and away from your good sleep 💤) is productive.
…If only it were that easy! 😉
But it’s a smart choice we get to make to let go of worry that drains.
We can’t always choose what happens to us or the thoughts that enter, but we can choose what we do in reaction and what thoughts we allow to stay.
Because worry can linger around like heavy gray clouds until it passes.
And walking away is one proactive way to get away from worry. At least temporarily…
You can quickly distract yourself from worried thoughts by changing your scenery.
Your new sensory environment changes your thoughts even if it’s just clearing your head walking down the hallway.
And this is because we get a new perspective in sight, sounds, and smells.
For me, colors, music, and pleasing scents break the pattern in my world.
And that can be for you too. You may not have yoga as a practice, so that could also be a pattern break.
In yoga poses, when you look up to the ceiling or sky, you get a different perspective than when you look down to the floor or to the side of the room that can change how you feel… calm, grounded, inspired…
Away from a mat, that’s the effect exciting travel has. When you explore a new city or place, your new senses are heightened.
If you spot a new painting or a new view from a picture window, this can be a joyful experience and mindful change of pace.
But as time passes, wherever you are and no matter how far you’ve traveled, the original worry thoughts creep back in.
The euphoric feeling from distractions wear off and the worry thoughts pop back in as easily as they popped out.
You can only distract yourself for so long and then your mind catches back up to reality.
…Your life reality (that can be worry-free thoughts).
But that’s why no one can run away from problems carried in the conscience for long in conscious living.
I tried one summer when I was 20, moving away to the beach. It didn’t work. 😀
But so often we choose to numb in semi-conscious daily living.
Like when we’re on a mission, we tend to forget nature buzzing around us carrying out life. They’re in their environment and we’re in ours, even if it’s within earshot.
As long as we’re not in harm’s way, we can miss what’s happening around us… and sometimes the calls to us that could lead to our greater life’s purpose.
If you think about it, a bird chirping is pretty loud in decibels. But often we don’t hear those over the voice and noises in our head…
And I’m no bird expert, but I’m told this bird in a tree is a red tailed hawk. It caught my eye because of its sounding vocal chords.
While I stopped to stare at the big bird for a few moments, I also noticed most people in the parking lot didn’t do the same.
…In fact, no one around me looked up. They just went on their busy day’s mission.
That’s how it is with us if we’re running on our mind’s mission. We don’t make time for interruptions… and sometimes opportunities calling us.
When we’re in a hurry, that’s even more true listening to our daily to-do list creating stress.
Worry and stress thoughts can be loud like that.
…So loud that we can miss that they’re robbing us of our full presence and better happy day.
And worry especially can play into our insecurities without us knowing (in semi-conscious living), affecting more than just our daily choices we make.
Worry is part of our DNA. It’s a Vata sign and trait in Ayurvedic terms.
Most of us have some or dominating Vata in us.
If you find yourself worrying for no good reason about everything going on in your life and others, then you likely have a Vata imbalance.
For most, that can be restored with simple lifestyle changes.
It’s not a sentence you’re stuck with in life.
If you want to know if you have a Vata imbalance and then how to restore, take the body balance quiz.
Your body helps us out by giving us preferences and through our senses.
But sometimes those are blocked from us for reasons like the noisy complex culture we’re in.
…So even if a meditation or yoga break sounds like a good idea, we could put it off even though we could definitely use the reset to help remedy our worry.
And transforming worry ways as a daily way is very possible… I know because I did just that. I got tired of holding onto worry. It’s too darn draining.
And as some friends would say, “Girl, I ain’t got time for that!”
One good habit that changed it all was to proactively pray off the worry. That was one of the 8 ways I shared to live out a don’t worry be happy life!
And another way is to picture yourself bold and fearless. Or put yourself in that frame of mind by reminding yourself how you feel and act when you’re confident…
If you’re a caring or reserved person, this is where you stop caring so much about what others think or what will happen.
You get out of your head and into your empowered self and abundant life.
It’s not about others or what happens next… it’s about you and your peace. What makes sense to you? Do it.
Let the outcomes happen. Your life is rigged in your favor with the Universe on your side.
You will be met on the other side with your bold confident moves.
The world wants the best YOU and you get to decide what that is!
So let go of worry and let go of the control of how things pan out. I know that was one lesson that took me the longest to embrace.
When I could trust “what happens next are meant to be’s,” that released me from unnecessary worry.
You’re equipped with the intuition. So when you have to make a choice, do your best and let the rest work out… even if it’s in another direction or environment.
Italian bean salad is inspiraton from one salad dish I used to make every day in an Italian restaurant. 🥗
That was in my teen years when I worked in the pantry of Paolo’s Ristorante (at the Reston Town Center) that was a restaurant with marble floors where you could hear silverware drop like a drum band.
…Those young summer years, as pantry prep I was responsible for lunch salads and desserts 🍥served at the tables that I could see from the open-style kitchen. You see where I aligned with my sweet tooth.
They got their cannoli shells from the Italian neighborhood 🇮🇹 in Baltimore I used to visit:
💭 They may even have spumoni that I couldn’t find so I made my own.
…BUT, I digress.
Sweets get the best of me. 😋
While the job was a summer one, the salad is one that stuck with me a few years later when I was a hotel catering manager. And then working events in Mediterranean restaurants that included Italian, Lebanese, and Spanish cuisines.
It’s loaded with Italian ingredient greats… like gorgonzola, radicchio, and arugula that have distinct flavors.
Those are common in big American grocery stores where you can play a version of Guy’s Grocery Games 😊 as they’re usually hiding among the salads, produce, and cheeses.
Maybe see how long it takes you to find them camouflaged amongst the greens… and cheeses. 🧀
No green cheese, but blue healthy moldy cheese. Penicillium Roqueforti is mold that gives the blue veining easy to point out.
That makes it easier to find the cheese in the grocery store.
…And as for time, shopping will take the longest from sourcing (or farm) to table as salad prep can be quick and I think is relaxing, even though this Italian bean salad has 11 ingredient types to add.
If you can’t find radicchio, you can also substitute for Belgian endive, and blue cheese or a French cheese for gorgonzola.
Then you’d have an Italian-French salad.
They are worth the hunt as their flavors add interesting variety.
And eating variety is healthy for our microbiome guts. As you peruse, you’ll probably explore different sections of your grocery store than just around the perimeter for the staples.
And some may be right under your nose (like it was for me in my shopping adventure)…
I got lucky as there was a big gorgonzola cheese wheel that looks like a cake.
…So it wasn’t likely to be a miss. 🎂
Packaged up, you can’t smell the cheese… but imagine if it were open 🤔, that would have also attracted attention.
This good moldy cow’s milk cheese is a milder blue cheese. It doesn’t have such a funky aroma like a strong smelling blue cheese that purposefully smells rotten (but is healthy).
The cheese is named after the Gorgonzola northern Italian town it came from that’s famous for the blue veined cheese.
As a creamy cheese (almost like a cream cheese texture but not quite as creamy), it blends in with all the flavorful ingredients of this bean Italian Salad.
The beans are what make this Italian bean salad pennies per bite.
Added cannellini beans are the white beans…
And like most beans, they are high in protein and fiber good for losing weight and a healthy diet.
Beans are almost always great adds for soups and salads.
These cannellini ones are used in main Italian soups like Tuscan Ribollita and is one you can substitute in an everyday minestrone.
Beans can sometimes be boring, but you won’t be missing any bites in this salad as each one is flavorfully loaded.
It’s great for intuitive or mindful eating to slow down and lavish the flavors.
You’ll also get more flavors from the walnuts and apples (or pears). This is a fully nutritious bowl that’s a mouthfully fun experience to chew on…
You get bitter (arugula, radicchio), slightly sweet (onions), citrusy, herby (pesto), acidic (balsamic) and balanced (spices).
You get soft (beans), creamy (gorgonzola), salty (capers), and crunchy (apple, walnuts) textures.
Ready to make this flavorful Italian bean salad? 🥗
In an Italian restaurant I worked in as a teen pantry helper, my job was to prepare salads and desserts! This one is inspired by that restaurant with great Italian ingredients you can find in most big grocery stores.
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
arugula salad
radicchio
cannellini beans (white beans)
gorgonzola cheese (milder blue cheese) crumbles
pesto sauce (basil, pine nuts)
balsalmic vineger
oregano, lemon pepper, coriander, parsley
white onions (Vidalia or cipollino onion)
apple or pear (diced or sliced)
walnuts (optonal)
capers
Instructions
Add a bed of arugula.
Fill a radicchio leaf with a mixture of beans, cheese, capers, and onion.
Add fruit and walnut on the salad. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar (or light vinegar of choice as an alternative) and pesto. Flavor with spices.
Start over is a theme that many of us have experienced and maybe a lot since 2020. Whether we wanted to or not, it can be our ticket to our best lives… and that’s what this article is about so you can embrace your start over opportunities.
One thing we can all have a say in is… evolving in our personal growth and what matters to us.
Embracing what healthy gains we’ve made brings rewards for our daily lives.
And embracing starting over as a new way or perspective is a blessing gain…
It’s a micro mindset pattern shift you can practice in your day (maybe even today), so you can see and feel how start overs are good, and not bad or sad interruptions.
That self-training helps our future and best outcomes.
Because changes in life are meant to help you and if you see it that way, you help yourself grow and further.
For most my younger adult life I played the victim without knowing I had that internal narrative.
I also thought that choices I made would be permanent. I was naive.
And when good situations didn’t last, I was disappointed.
I saw them as failures.
And I fell for that over and over again.
If you didn’t have role models and influences growing up that drilled into you the more positive ways and helped shape your self-esteem, then that’s the pattern you’re likely to fall into.
And the saving grace is we have the Universe on our side as fall back and providing answers to us.
We may call it luck, but it’s part of the plan. 😉
You’ve probably heard the saying that the Universe keeps serving up the same lessons. The lessons are there to help us and not make usfeel less than..
…I didn’t know that in my younger years.
And as years went by, I grew up in wisdom and got revelation, leaning more into internal truth.
Truth and reality aren’t the exact same thing.
Reality is what physically is happening or not happening. Truth are the thoughts that are real and factual. And lies are the opposite in false beliefs. Ego perception makes you believe they are real, when they are not.
And in that case, then anyone can be a victim to their own ego.
Recognizing this, my life realities started to better align with truth, where I also realized nothing stays the same.
I told my ego the truth, that it wasn’t just what I experienced.
Because everyone has their versions of uncertainty.
In my belief lies I had bought into, I was the only common denominator for the situations I faced.
So that made me the victim. But I turned that narrative around one situation at a time.
Rewriting my beliefs with love over ego, starting with experience outcomes (reality) showed me the deficit in my faulty thinking that my mind led me to believe.
And took me from victim to abundant mentality.
It was micro-start overs from little lie beliefs that got me over the hump.
Being abundant minded, changes the identity to someone who takes responsibility for changing her thoughts to positive, loving ones for better outcomes and perspectives.
Perspectives transform your life when no influences can.
And if a perspective change is what you think you need, this helped me:
This one exercise helped to changing the tide…
Let’s take something most of us have privilege to do every day: we take a shower.
And imagine if one day you do your regular shower routine but you don’t get most the soap off your body or shampoo out of your hair. Maybe you were distracted and busy with shower thoughts.
After you’ve dried off and gotten dressed for the day, you realize that small miss.
What are your options?
Live with the fact and try to forget about the remaining residue.
Or…
Take a few extra effort minutes to go back in the shower again and rinse off knowing that you’d have to dry with a towel again and essentially re-trace all the steps you would do when you got in the shower the first time. It’s a small hassle in a busy day.
And while most would probably just live with it and get on with their day…
If you have the extra few minutes, you’re better off to get back in the shower.
Why?
…So you can get your best day.
If you don’t do a redo, then you keep the residue theme running in your day as part of your thoughts and maybe a physical reminder.
If you do rinse off again, you start clean and fresh.
So those extra 5-10 minutes back tracking was worth the time.
Initially our lazy bone tendencies can kick in and resist.
But fight the urge and jump to the though part of what you’ll gain in those critical decision moments.
Change the thoughts in your mind to productive ones, such as: you’ll be happier later on.
Picture yourself happier.
Try this taking extra minutes with another daily self-care or micro routine you do that didn’t work out the first time… maybe cleaning, shower, or grooming routine.
Take an extra 5 minutes.
For the narcissist, you don’t have to tell them twice, but for the rest of us — those are good minutes.
The micro change in our new habit and patterns creates new perspectives.
Eventually you don’t mind a redo or start over whether it’s a shower or a season. You teach yourself not to succumb to immediate feelings and wants for better outcomes.
Embrace the lesson here is: don’t skip what will bring more joy and a clear mind as the biggest gain rewards.
And on a grander scale in your life, start over with what you first started with that has never left you. That you still think about today.
Those can be part of your dreams come true realities.
Another wisdom lesson is: forget time. Time never heals. As you grow wiser, you realize changes and experiences heal.
We can’t gain time. And the feeling of lost time can keep you stuck if you let it.
Like take me for example, I started a blog in 2009 that took off.
And a few months in I had to quit.
The blog was about my local area businesses I was living near and I ended up moving that year.
So the blog no longer made sense to me as I couldn’t be in that area, and it was hard to juggle writing with the busy work life I had in the hustle and bustle of DC.
Then in 2019, I started over where I picked up writing again.
And then started this blog in 2020.
Starting over in blogging again was so different the second time around.
I had some blogging skill experience under my belt but the landscape had changed.
In 2009, very few out there knew what a blog was.
And when I came back a decade later, the internet scape was full of blogs.
But that didn’t stop me as blogging is something I have felt passionate about since I got my first taste.
Despite the challenges, I still feel as passionate if not more, so I know it’s meant to be.
In your start over or start overs, if you come back, that’s a good sign too! Because most things in life we don’t go back to unless it’s meant for us.
…Maybe the first time we weren’t ready, the timing wasn’t right, or we needed to make a little tweak (or perspective adjustment in ourselves).
It was all of the above for my blog.
My blog topic this second go round is so much more personal and about helping my reader’s personal growth, happy life, and healthy living.
In my first blog experience where I got the chance to interview business owners, I wouldn’t have been ready yet to write on personal topics.
But with another decade, personal growth, and more life experiences, then I was able to launch and sustainably contribute writing in this blog.
So my encouragement to you, my blog article reader, is to use your start overs as your opportunity to take steps in the areas you couldn’t do the first time around when you weren’t quite ready.
The first time wasn’t a failure.
That was your introduction.
Going back is a high call.
We can miss our higher calling if we choose to look at time and deadlines as rules.
If we allow for our entire life to be the time span we accomplish our goals, then we open up opportunities.
How you finish is what matters most, not how you started.
So it’s never too late no matter if you’re in your 30s, 40s, or 60s and beyond.
And in the shower metaphor… by the end of your day, you won’t have remembered the time getting back in the shower, but you will remember feeling like a million bucks coming out and what you achieved that day because of your feelings… and that maybe you wouldn’t have if you let soapy thoughts last.
Just something to consider about your start over that every day and morning opportunity is. 🌅
I like to reset every day with new food creations. I was inspired to start over with this sweet potato squid turmeric salad bowl of anti-inflammatory food goodness. 🍠
Vanilla milkshake is a plain shake, but made doubly delicious with cinnamon. And to shake it up even more, it can be enjoyably healthy.
In fact, there’s no room for high-fat or sugar as this one is filled with egg yolk and protein nutrition full of vitamins. I remember the first time I made ice cream similarly with egg yolks, I was a bit scared.
But it worked! So I gave it a try with the healthy vanilla milkshake recipe below and I think you’ll love it too if you like eggs.
Recipe for this low-fat and low-sugar vanilla milkshake below. 🧡
And it’s only about 150 calories for an 8 ounce glass.
That’s not your usual fast food milkshake, that can often be 500 calories or more.
Plus fast food milkshakes are usually loaded with 60 plus grams of sugar (that’s over 15 teaspoons).
Also on healthy notes and Ayurvedic terms, vanilla calms and cinnamon is Vata balancing and Kapha calming, so this is a healthy drink in more ways than one!
…But it tastes anything BUT healthy.
In case you’re wondering what Ayurveda is and why it matters here is that your body knows sometimes before you do, if you’re feeling balanced… and where happy, calm, and peaceful are healthy.
You get clues through your 5 senses.
How this milkshake helps to give you clues… when you smell cinnamon or vanilla, you’re attracted to the aroma and that means adding more is balancing! That’s an example of Ayurveda in a nutshell.
Another sure-fire sign: you don’t make a sour face and maybe you turn a frown upside down into a smiley face. 😊
And an interesting fact about cinnamon is it has been around since B.C. times long before vanilla that dates to modern A.D.
Cinnamon is referred in the Bible as a precious spice and anointing oil. Cassia is mentioned as cinnamon (that’s our common modern cinnamon spice in the markets).
Cinnamon is a symbol of love, prosperity, and abundance.
So in those ways, adding cinnamon is good luck in life blessings.
Cinnamon as variety to vanilla milkshake pleases Vata. And cinnamon is also great in an ice cream cousin like this cinnamon ice cream baked into Baked Alaska
…But, that’s getting dessert steps ahead, as Baked Alaska may be a step or two more work… and maybe one to try on another day or as a baking project where you clear out your freezer.
But making a milkshake doesn’t involve all that work.
It’s simple steps and you most likely already have the milkshake ingredients in your kitchen stash.
So let’s get started…
You don’t need to have an ice cream maker but that will make your milkshake making life easier.
Without an ice cream maker, you can freeze, and after 30 minutes stir up the icicles. And then freeze for another 30 minutes or so (or until slushie ice cold before you bring out and enjoy.
Part of the fun experience is watching your dessert melt in front of you.
This is a low-sugar vanilla shake that has egg yolk protein.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Equipment
ice cream maker
Ingredients
3egg yolks
2cupsunsweetened almond milk (vanilla)
1tbspcinnamon (common or Cassia cinnamon)
1/4tsppinch of sugar (optional)
Instructions
Beat egg yolks with a whisk. Add a pinch of sugar to help emulsify.
Heat milk and cinnamon on medium heat until small bubbles form, stirring constantly.
Add heated milk to egg yolks while stirring constantly for at least 30 seconds. Don't let the egg yolks scramble but do temper heat them for a smooth milkshake.
Refrigerate until cold.
Add to ice cream maker for about 15-20 minutes.
Freeze in a freezer safe glass. Enjoy!
Notes
You can use a blender like a Magic Bullet blender to make it easy for steps 1 and 2.
