A Funky Giveaway and a Project

Well, I hope you didn’t have a case of the Monday’s as much as I did! I stayed up WAY too late watching the Oscars and just felt like I was dragging all…day…long. What about those Oscars? I was bummed my girl Meryl didn’t win, but I know Sandra Bullock deserved it.

Anyways-I woke up and made a smoothie from Living Raw Food, which you can now find in my *NEW* Amazon store. I love this book for many reasons. Not only does it have great recipes, but there is so much information about eating raw and why it is so good for you.

My smoothie was a variation of Nicks No 7 Shake. It had:

• Hemp Milk -that I made from hemps seeds and water in the blender
• 2 Tbs raw coconut flesh
• 2 Tbs raw cacao nibs
• 3/4 C frozen blueberries
• 1 banana
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• squirt of Agave

It was…excellent. And filling. But the cacao nibs did not give me as much energy as I had hoped.

Lunch was literally the same as yesterday so instead of showing you that, I will tell you about my new project. Project Rise and Shine!!! If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know by now, I am NOT a morning person. In no way, shape, or form do I like waking up in the morning. What can I say-I love my sleep! And on top of that I usually don’t have to be into work until 11am, so given that, I ALWAYS want to sleep in as late as possible. However, I’m always running late, I never feel prepared, and I’m always running behind schedule. I hate feeling that way. And now with spring right around the corner, and the sun shining every morning, I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to start getting up earlier to get more done in the morning before I go to work. But the main key, however, is to go to bed early! So my goal for Project Rise and Shine is to be IN BED LIGHTS OUT by 10:30pm and no later. I’m a sucker for late night TV, and get carried away watching Chelsea Lately and E! News until 12am, but that needs to stop because I’m tired of feeling tired. I am hoping going to sleep earlier will help me wake up earlier. So tonight starts Project Rise and Shine, and I will be letting you know how it goes through out the week. If you are anything like me, or just want to go to bed earlier, feel free to participate in Project Rise and Shine with me and let me know how it goes.

Dinner was epic. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this meal ever since I saw it on Gina’s blog. I love shrimp salad so I wanted to give this a whirl. Epic I tell you..Epic.

I served my shrimp salad on butter lettuce wraps with some leftover rice from last night and avocados and raw broccoli on the side. The avocados were a perfect addition to the wraps if I do say so myself.

The shrimp salad recipe was taken from the lovely Ina Garten, but I followed Gina’s *healthier* version by using canola mayo instead of regular.

You can see the original recipe here.

Best. Shrimp Salad. EVER! Oh my gosh, it exploded with flavor and was soooo good. Words just don’t even describe.

And now it’s time to bring on the GIVEAWAY!!!!! Have you guys ever tried Funky Monkey Snacks? I was introduced to this cool snack back at the Health and Nutrition Showcase, and it was one of the products that really stuck out to me. Funky Monkey is simply freeze dried fruit. Simply and literally…freeze dried fruit! No added sugars, no preservatives, nothing but fruit.

I was really surprised at how great it tasted. The flavors are endless including Applemon, Bananamon, Carnaval Mix, JiveALime, ManjoOJ, Pink Pineapple, and Purple Funk. The Bananmon, JiveALime, and Purple Funk are 100% organic. The Pink Pineapple is 95% organic, and the Carnaval Mix is 70% organic. The freeze dried fruit is really crunchy and sweet, great for dessert or a snack, and way better than dried fruit in my opinion. The snacks come in 2 sizes; 1oz and .42oz. The 1oz has 3 servings of fruit, and the .42 oz has 1 serving of fruit. My favorite so far is the Carnaval Mix and Pink Pineapple. Sometimes dried fruit can be pretty high in calories, but an entire 1oz package (which is way more than enough for a snack) has only 90 calories and 3 servings of fruit. I love that!

Now it’s your chance to win some!!! The awesome people over at Funky Monkey have offered to give one Eat, Drink, and Be Hopeful reader a variety pack of all their flavors of Funky Monkey.

I’m telling you-you are going to love this stuff! As usual you have 4 ways to enter.

1. Go to the Funky Monkey website (www.funkymonkeysnacks.com) and leave me a comment letting me know what Funky Monkey flavor you would most like to try.
2. Mention this giveaway on your blog and link it back to mine. Then comment letting me know that you did so. If you don’t have a blog leave a comment letting me know.
3. Tweet “@LaurenEDBH is giving away Funky Monkey snacks! http://wp.me/pAJNI-1sQ″ Then comment again letting me know.
4. Subscribe to Eat, Drink, and Be Hopeful. Then comment again letting me know.

I will be picking a winner on Thursday at 5pm EST. Again-sorry to any International readers-this giveaway is for US residents only.

Don’t forget to follow Funky Monkey on Twitter and on Facebook!!!

Good Luck and have a fantastic Monday night!!!!

Tagged as: Funky Monkey giveaway, Funky Monkey Snacks, hemp milk smoothie, Ina Garten, living raw food, Project Rise and Shine, shrimp salad