Pumpkin...custard?

So, I got a little cocky tonight. I had found myself down somewhat of a rabbit hole of "healthy snacks". I'm a bit of a smoothie nut, and found this interesting idea for a pumpkin smoothie. I had remembered that my husband and I found a can of pumpkin filling in our local black market store (we live in South Korea, btw. Things like pumpkin filling are a rarity for us), and decided to pounce. This was, of course, back in November when we had Thanksgiving fever. Cut to present day, and it's still sitting in our cabinet...of course.
Anyway, after I read the ingredients I thought: I CAN IMPROVE ON THIS RECIPE! (meaning I thought I could make it lighter and still delish)

this is what I did:
170g Sweet Potato yogurt- 160kcal (I grabbed this without paying much attention...I thought it was peach. Who would have EVER imagined it would actually be Sweet Potato, right? The flavor is subtle, but I just can't bring myself to eat it plain. I thought this was a nice occasion for it.)
2c Pumpkin Filling- 160kcal
100ml skim milk- 30 kcal
15g Honey Graham Crackers- 70 kcal (and it's amazing we even had that)
and what ended up being about:
3 tsp ground cinnamon- 18 kcal
5 packets generic sweetener- 0 kcal
lots of ice- 0kcal

Blennnnnnnnnnd, and- VOILA! We had some mildly decent tasting custard.
It certainly wasn't the best, but for 11okcal/pop (around 200g/serving [4])...I don't know that you could do much better? I think the original recipe probably beats the pants off of what I came up with, though.

What I would do different:
Use vanilla yogurt
Use a *little* more yogurt and a *little* less filling
Use more milk? The above change might do the trick for that, though.
Freeze the filling like the recipe called for (but who has time for that, right?!)
Read the recipe a little closer and sprinkle the graham crackers on top of the finished product instead of blending with the rest of the ingredients...oy, Jamie.


Here's a smoothie I make that doesn't suck:
170g plain yogurt- 120kcal
200ml skim milk- 60kcal
*160g (1c-ish) frozen strawberries- 57kcal
*100g (a little less than 1c?) frozen mango- 64kcal
*70g (1/2c?) frozen pineapple chunks- 50kcal

blennnnnnnnnd, and- VOILA! Probably my favorite smoothie. At 176kcal/serving (about 2 320g servings), it's a great breakfast item or snack!

*The gram figures there might not be exact...I kind of guessed. This is pretty darn close, though.


I know this entry is not a great one for introducing my new blog, but I will do that next (cause this was more fun)...I'm breaking the mold.