vanilla chia pudding

have you tried chia pudding yet?  if you have, then you likely either love it or you hate it.  {and if you haven't, newsflash: you're either going to love it or hate it.}  chia seeds have quite the texture... quite the, je ne sais quoi to them that some people find hard to handle.  just ask m - he's not a fan.  sometimes i can sneak them into our morning smoothie {especially easy to do when i throw a kiwi in because he thinks he's just crunching on kiwi seeds} - i'm not intentionally deceptive otherwise, promise.  anyways i stray.

i made this up yesterday as a midmorning snack/part two of my breakfast once my smoothie digested.  there must have been chia in the air, because then i saw that JL has mentioned on facebook that she was possibly one of the chia-fearing folk & linked up to gena's blog choosing raw for a whole series of pudding recipes including one for strawberry ginger chia pudding.  yum!

this pudding has a texture that others have compared to tapioca, but seeing as i don't think i've ever had tapioca, i can't confirm.  but i can confirm this to be a healthy sweet treat perfect for just about any time of day.

vanilla chia pudding with seeds & goji berries
makes 1 serving
2 tbsp chia seeds
3/4 cup almond milk
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
6-8 drops nunaturals vanilla stevia
{or replace with any other sweetener to taste: agave, maple syrup, etc}
1 tbsp raw pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp raw sunflower seeds
1 tbsp goji berries

whisk together the chia, milk, vanilla & sweetener and set aside for 30 minutes or more*.  top with seeds & goji berries.  eat pudding.  i've been enjoying this as a mid morning snack but it's also a nice after dinner dessert.  or breakfast.  or afternoon snack.

*chia are incredible little seeds that can absorb up to 12 times their weight in liquid!  the longer you wait the thicker {and more gelatinous} the pudding will get.  the biggest reason i like to wait about 30 minutes for my chia pudding to "set" is because if the seeds don't swell up before i eat them, i've found they continue to bulk up after i eat them.  in my stomach.  and for me, this can lead to a belly ache.  just ask any of my running mates.  last year i told them all about chia seed pudding and how wonderful it was, and then one day i ate some without letting it bulk up first on my way to one of our runs and my belly was so full and bloated i had to walk most of the run!  lesson learned.

phew - that's 2 lessons learned in 2 days.  not bad 2012, not bad at all.... 
{you can see my first lesson here}

special mention & thank you to my lovely friend emily who falls into the not a big chia fan group.  because of her i have a big bulk package of seeds since they were only collecting dust on her shelf.

but you know what they say, one woman's trash is another woman's... pudding?


 shared at wellness weekends...