Whew!  What a crazy few months!

Luckily, things have returned to a semblance of normalcy, so I can return to this blog!

So!

Tomorrow I'm starting a little "challenge" to have a green smoothie each day.  I love smoothies anyway, they're so easy, cheap and delicious!  And of course nutritious!  I'll post the ingredients and pics as often as possible, for those who are new to the green smoothie idea, if you want to take part.  There are also lots of recipes out there--just be SURE that all your ingredients are whole foods.  Adding something like white sugar pretty much defeats the purpose!  If you have any doubts at all, shoot me a message/comment, and I'll do my best to help you out. :)

Green smoothies are incredibly good for you.  Think about the last time that you had fruit and vegetables for breakfast.  And no, fruit danishes don't count!  If you do it right, you can have 2 or even 3 servings (or more, depending on the size of your blender!) of fruits and veggies, just with your breakfast!

I found the image on the right online (click here for the website and page), which illustrates just how much you can put in a smoothie.
Isn't it amazing?!  Would you eat all that for breakfast?  Maybe some would, but I can say for me, definitely not.  And not every day!

Tomorrow, I'm going to buy apples and frozen fruit.  Well, after I "spring clean" my freezer.  I just have a regular old fridge freezer, so it fills up quickly.  It seems like just a month or so ago that I clean it out last, but I know it was a lot longer ago than that.  I always apply the "if I haven't reached for it recently/don't know what it is, it's gone" part of spring cleaning, so it won't take long.

I have some strawberries, a few persimmons I found at the farmer's market this weekend (they were quite the find!), baby spinach (I prefer baby for smoothies because they're tender and blend better), kale, and bananas in the fridge.  I also have raw almonds I'm soaking, to make almond milk tomorrow morning (since I have a vast amount of almonds but no almond milk in the pantry).

I think I have frozen cherries, the very end of a mango/berry mix (well, it was berries, and mango, which I combined to save space)...maybe some blueberries...and I think that's it for the freezer.  So I think I'll buy pineapple (which is GREAT in a green smoothie), mango...we'll see.  Maybe something will be on sale!

Frozen fruit is great for smoothies, particularly off-season.  They're frozen at the peak of their freshness and nutritional density, and they're MUCH cheaper Autumn-Spring in northern climes.  Just make sure you look at the ingredients.  It should ONLY say the fruit that's in it, and nothing else. Some brands even add sugar!  I mean really!  It's FRUIT PEOPLE!!

Tomorrow I'm going to make roasted root vegetables for lunch or dinner.  A work friend of mine from work, asked if I'd help her to try to figure out what's in a spice blend she bought from 10,000 Villages a couple of years ago.  She loves it, but had poured the spice blend into a container when she bought it, throwing away the bag.  D'OH!  Apparently she's been trying to make it last as long as possible, but hasn't been able to figure it out yet, so decided to sacrifice a bit.  I think I have about 1 tsp, so that should be enough to cook with.  I could taste it before cooking, but "raw" spices often taste so different than cooked, I think making a dish is a better idea.  It smells like some sort of Moroccan blend, so that's a good start.

Anyway, it's after midnight (!! How did that happen?!) so I'm hittin' the hay.  See you tomorrow!