Peanut Butter Banana Chia Pudding - I promise, it won't make you sprout green hair and turn into a clay pot

I’m as curious as a newborn when it comes to food. Bizarre flavor combinations intrigue me; new ingredients make me giddy; and I just can’t seem to stick with one tried-and-true staple meal. I’m always looking for new recipes and ideas. So naturally, when I started to read about Chia seeds, all I wanted to do was try them. It wasn’t my trying to be a wannabe-vegan or anything like that – I just wanted to know what all of the fuss was about. When a beautiful little Whole Foods gift card found its way into my possession, I knew one of the things I would need to buy with it was a packet of these seed precursors to those crazy plant pets that were all the rage in the 90s.

The first thing I made with them was a Chia Pudding, which is a vegan-friendly recipe that borders on a substitute for yogurt. You soak the seeds in almond (or soy, or coconut, or, you know, whatever) milk and they create this gelatinous, creamy mixture. The seeds itself don’t have much of a flavor, they just add a nice crunch to the otherwise smooth pudding. I added rum extract (a bit too heavy-handedly, though), cinnamon, peanut butter, and half of a banana. It was mildly sweet in the way that overnight oats are, but it had a little bit of an edge from the extract. I can only imagine creating a dessert by throwing in some cocoa powder or fruit and honey (maybe even broil the honeyed fruit first before topping??). It was incredibly delicious, and ridiculously healthy, proving that you can have the best of both worlds.