Monday, May 17, 2010

blender days



This is a staple of our mealtimes of late. We go through phases with our smoothies. I'm never sure why. This is such a simple way to get in good amounts of fruits and vegetables each day.

I've got a current favorite mix of stuff:
* a bit of whole milk
* a bit of nonfat plain greek yogurt (I know that probably seems weird, but we happen to have full fat milk and nonfat yogurt)
* spinach or kale
* banana
* strawberries
* agave nectar (depending on the sweetness of the berries...they haven't been very sweet)
* dark chocolate chips
* ice cubes (if none of the fruit is frozen...just to add to the chill factor)

I'm thinking we could throw a bit, or much more, of avocado in with the strawberry smoothies. Cardo seems to think this'd be disgusting, but I like strawberry and avocado salad, so why not throw them together in a smoothie?

Oh, so good. Mmm. We've all been enjoying these smoothies...excepting, perhaps, our blender. If it takes to long to blend, the blender starts to get cranky. I'm waiting in fear for the day it dies. Although, that'll mean we'll need a new one and I'm considering a hand-crank blender. Am I strong enough to blend up our frozen fruits? Chissa?

We bought a whole bunch of fruit on Saturday at the farmers' market in Roseville and we got some kale at the Coop. We're working through the food rather quickly.

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I've been reinspired to regularly eat/drink smoothies in large part from my recent devouring of beauty that moves. If it was a book, I'd say of it, "I just couldn't put it down." So, the equivalent of that for blogs.

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I think I'll stick to focusing on food for this week, what with the crackers yesterday and the smoothies today. We're keeping it simple and inexpensive right now. That's the plan for...forever. We're getting better about it.

5 comments:

kate said...

Those look so good. Oh, and I've heard some people swear by those immersion blenders for smoothies. You just stick the thing into the cup of stuff and it blends it all up together. Might be something worth looking into. Oh, and I still love you piggy glasses. :)

v said...

I've heard that about the immersion blenders too. We went looking for one about a year ago, I guess, but we just never bought one. I'm tempted, though, because I'm lazy and I'd like less to wash every day.

We're down to our last two piggy glasses.

Kat said...

yum.I want a smoothie now. I have been using the agave nectar too! It is a recommended sweetner by Clean Eating.

We have a vita mixer, so we tend to use that. It blends whole fruit smoothies (peel, seeds, pulp, everything) But, the immersion blender is a good idea. I will have to try that.

I'll let you know how it goes.

v said...

I bought the agave on a whim at Costco. Thank goodness I like it.

The first time I read about the Vita-Mix, I really wanted one...until I got to the end of the post (it was a blog post), and learned how expensive they are. (I still kind of want one.)

Kat said...

I actually don't think the Vita Mixer is worth the money. We rarely use it. We grind out own flour in it (wheat, oat, corn), make whole food smoothies, and my Dad makes his salsa in it... really, we don't use it all that much. Maybe if you could get a used one for a really good price.