Peanut Butter and Jelly Protein Smoothie

Oh boy guys, I am tired. And not like my-kid-was-up-all-night kind of tired (although, that did happen the night before last), I’m the I’ve-been-doing-so-much-manual-labor-lately kind of tired.

If I can be honest with you guys (and I know I can), we’re drowning a little bit in our Spring to-do list on the Plow. In the next two weeks, we have to build a chicken coop, get ready for a yard sale, plant our garden, and clean out and organize the barn. All, of course, on top of all the regular upkeep tasks like mowing, trimming, weeding, and baby wrangling.

We’re basically spending every second that we aren’t sleeping, working. And if it sounds like I’m complaining, let me clarify—I love it. Seriously, it feels so good to be working so hard at stuff that I love. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yes, it’s a little overwhelming, but being overwhelmed by too much awesome stuff is a great problem to have.

I’ve been really feeling the increase in manual labor in my muscles over the past few weeks. I lost so much muscle tone during my pregnancy, and while I’m slowly building it back up, I’m still not back to my strong, country girl ways.

Unfortunately, there is just as much work to do as there was back when I was at my fittest, so that means I’m just powering through. And wowzers, my muscles are tapped. My upper body and my lower back muscles are particularly taking a beating! Remind me to really work hard on building those back up once I have free time to spend in the gym again, okay?

To help with recovery after a long day out on our hobby farm, I’ve been trying really hard to make sure I consume a heavy hand of protein to help my muscles rebuild (and prepare for the next day of hard work). Good, quality protein helps your body recover.

Enter the snack of choice in our house right now—a peanut butter and jelly smoothie.

Smoothies are fast (great when you’re swamped), they are refreshing (which is awesome considering we’ve apparently skipped right past Spring here and are rockin’ Summer temps), and a great vehicle for all kinds of healthy, nutritious add-ins. And if you pay attention to your ingredients, you can get an entire, balanced drink in a glass! I’m all for sitting down and eating something delicious (with cheese, preferably), but sometimes, a drinkable snack is exactly what you need.

Whenever I’m building my meal-style smoothies—especially when I’m hurting from some shoveling—I work hard to make sure they really pack in the protein. Peanut butter and Greek yogurt do a lot of the heavy lifting, but I do add a little protein powder too. I don’t use a lot of it, but I do like to keep a container of good quality, organic protein powder around for when I need that extra protein boost. 

This peanut butter and jelly protein smoothie has been standard in our house for a while now—and it’s made a resurgence with all of our work outside. We’re working through the very last of our frozen strawberries (strawberry season is soon, yay!), so this is a great smoothie to help us clear out our deep freezer for the season and recover enough so we can get all those plants in the ground to help us fill it back up with goodies!

Enjoy.