Maple Walnut Shake

In my quest to make different flavored protein shakes I stumbled upon maple flavored agave and figured I would try it out.  I had also been experimenting since my Soak Your Nuts post on how I can dehydrate my nuts and things without a dehydrator.  I was correct about my oven it roasted the almonds I put in there even on the warm setting.  But then it came to me.  I have a gas stove and the oven is always a little warm because the pilot light is always on.  So I soaked some raw walnuts laid them out on a baking sheet and went to work, when I came home they were almost dry and a few more hours later they were perfect!

So now I had a bunch of walnuts to use, so I decided to make a maple walnut shake which turned out really good.  I suppose you could use regular maple syrup if you wish but I never really have any on hand and I like using agave syrup anyway.  So here is what you need

• 1 cup almond milk (or any milk you like)
• 1 scoop Vega One Nutritional Shake
• 1/2 tsp Sunfood Vanilla Powder
• 1 tbsp Maple Agave Nectar
• about 10 raw walnuts (or to taste)
• 3-4 ice cubes

I of course made this in my single serve cup with my Ninja Pulse Blender.I have found when using this blender I usually start with half the liquid then put the powder and all the other ingredients in, then top it off with the other half of the liquid works best.  When I would just start with the protein powder a bunch of it would get stuck to the top and then I would be left with little lumps.  You can of course adjust these amounts of these ingredients to your taste or to what you have in your house but this is just how I liked it.

So let me know what you think of this one!  And don’t forget to soak the walnuts if you are using them raw!

ps, I had a hard time getting these photos right as you can tell, so many bland colors lol, but it gets the point across so forgive me, there is a definite learning curve going from being a film photographer to a hairstylist and then switching to a fancy digital slr lol.