"Practically Perfect" Smoothies

       I hate breakfast. Well, I probably shouldn't put it exactly that way. I just have this weird thing about not wanting to chew that early in the morning. I am fine at about 9:30-10:00 am, but honestly, it just doesn't work to wait that long to eat. If I have pancakes, or waffles, or an omelet, I want them for lunch or dinner. I basically just want to drink my breakfast. I used to always have a Carnation Instant Breakfast drink, but I have been slowly trying to clean up my eating, and while that is fine occasionally, I have decided that having a smoothie in the morning is really ideal. Unfortunately, it took me a really long time to hone my smoothie making technique, mostly because everyone has a different opinion on what a smoothie should be.I had to play around with fresh and frozen fruit, amounts of liquids, and blending times and techniques. So, this isn't so much a recipe, as a how-to fine tune your smoothie to make it perfect for you!

First, the proportions that I use are almost always the same. I add:
-1 c. frozen fruit
-1/2  a fresh banana
-1/2 c. non-fat plain Greek yogurt
-1/2 c. 1% milk
-1/2 c. loosely packed spinach (basically a handful of spinach leaves, baby or regular)
-1 tbsp. chia seeds or ground flax
Serves 1.

   I wanted a smoothie that was really cold, but I hated adding ice, which a lot of smoothie recipes recommend. It takes me a while to drink the whole thing, and I didn't like that it would get watered down. I also didn't like the little ice chunks. So that is why you need to use frozen fruit. You can freeze any type of berry, cherry or melon that you want! I love to buy the triple berry blend from Costco, and also frozen pineapple. You can use any combination that you like.

   Using frozen fruit makes for a really thick smoothie. I don't have a high-powered blender (Someday, I would love to!) but the Oster I have works just fine, as long as I am careful with it. I add my fresh banana first, then the fruit. After that, milk, yogurt, spinach. I turn it on high liquefy. I watch to see if it is mixing-if not, lift the frozen fruit up-*away* from the blades. This allows the machine to draw the fruit in from a different angle. It sounds kind of technical, but I was just wished that someone had told me that it doesn't work as well to try to shove the fruit onto the blades! I let it blend for about 30 seconds, re-arrange with a spatula, and then blend again. When everything is evenly colored, there are no visible chunks and it is pulling down in the center it is done.

   One of the most important things to know is: if you want a thinner smoothie that isn't as cold, use more fresh fruit (say, 1/2 c. fresh berries, 1/2 c frozen berries). If you want a thinner, cold smoothie add more liquid. You can swap out the milk for anything, occasionally I will add half milk and half orange juice, but you could use all juice.

   I don't like my smoothies to be super sweet, either. However, sometimes I will use Tillamook Vanilla Bean Greek yogurt-that stuff is amazing! You can use regular yogurt instead of Greek, but you will be sacrificing a lot of protein. And honestly, you won't be able to tell the difference! Once it is all blended together, it is liquid anyway.

   If you are having problems with your spinach not being completely blended in, try blending it with just the milk before you add anything else. Once your milk is smooth and green you are good to go! If you are tasting the spinach, just decrease the amount initially. I have never really had a problem with it. I have never tried adding kale, I have heard that is a little stronger. I just figure that if I don't notice the spinach it is a great way to get some veggies first thing in the morning!

   I also love that it is easy to freeze berries that are past their prime for eating, and they still taste great in smoothies. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries-they are so delicate! Once they are headed downhill, I just wash them, lay them out on a tray, freeze them for 30 minutes to an hour and then put them in labeled ziplocs. Don't skip this "flash-freezing" step, or you will end up with a giant lump of berries that you can't measure. And it will be beastly to blend!

    I have seen where you can freeze your ingredients in individual baggies so that you just have to dump it all in, but I haven't found that to be especially time saving for me, and it also prevents me from being spontaneous with my fruit combinations. I usually have a least two or three different types and I like to mix up the quantities.

   You can also use frozen bananas in place of fresh, I usually cut mine into 1 inch chunks before freezing. That will make your smoothie really thick! I love to use a fat smoothie straw, my sister gave me these great reusable ones. Be warned though: freezing your bananas seems to intensify the banana flavor, and if your banana is overripe it will taste even more that way. Just use those bananas for baking!

    You can also switch things up by adding peanut butter, or protein powder. I also find that smoothies are a great way to use up leftover fruit salad-that usually isn't appetizing to look at, but throw it in a smoothie and you won't even know!

   So, hopefully this will help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made. Smoothies are really one of the best breakfast foods ever-protein, fruit, some veggies, and all those omegas, minerals and vitamins for around 300 calories? Yes, please!

    If you have any great smoothie tips-especially for those of us without $200 blenders, please share!

Linked up:
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"Pin It Thursday" at Sweet Bella Roos 
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"Craft Frenzy Friday" at Craft Dictator
    

Easy Does It

  

     Sometimes, (okay, most of the time) I just want things to be easy. I like simple, uncomplicated, no-fuss. I do make exceptions (especially when it comes to party planning) but for the most part, I just want things to be easy.

   I like to make crafts, and I have some rules. To be easy it:

1. Can't take more than about an hour (somehow I have equated easy with instant gratification)
2. Can't require a sewing machine (mostly because I don't have one because I couldn't use mine, so I returned it!)
3. Can't involve drawing or painting (other than just actually covering an object with paint-if you want the paint to look like something, say a person, I am *not* your girl.)
4. Can't require anything that I can't find at Target/Hobby Lobby/ The Dollar Tree or a combination of the three.

I also have some rules about cooking. To be easy it:

1. Needs to take me less than 30 minutes to put it together. I don't care how long it has to cook-in my oven, on the stovetop or in the crock pot, but I don't want to prep it for more than 30 minutes.
2. Preferably it is cooked in my crock pot, because I don't need to attend to that in any way.
3. It can't require weird ingredients-especially spices I don't keep on hand. Like coriander, or cumin. Or pretty much anything that isn't taco seasoning or Italian spices.
4. It shouldn't require a thermometer. Candy, meat or otherwise. Those things hate me!

 I also have some rules about technology. To be easy it:

1. Needs to have explicit directions that my 5 year-old will understand. It should not include any type of instructions beyond: copy this, paste it here. 
2. It should pretty much be something I can do on my iPhone. See above. 

    Are you picking up on what I'm putting down? To me, easy equals proficiency, and clearly, that is limited on my part. I don't like to be out of my comfort zone, I don't necessarily like to learn new things. I hate to admit it, but it is true. However, that doesn't seem to be the life God has called me to.  And then, I read things like this:

"He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

 Ephesians 2, roughly verse 10, (the Message)

      God's work is simple-but it is not easy. Getting up every morning, schooling my kids, being kind when I don't feel like, doing laundry, making dinner-those concepts aren't complicated, but sometimes they are beyond easy. And sometimes He calls us to even bigger things- weathering a serious illness, or death, working on the mission field, heading up a major project. And those are even more complicated! But that is when I have to remind myself: this is what I was created for. Maybe those things are not always monumental, but they are important. 

   When I consider salvation- it is so simple! Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. But it certainly wasn't easy:

  Going a little ahead, He (Jesus) fell to the ground and prayed for a way out: “Papa, Father, you can—can’t you?—get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want—what do you want?”

Mark 14:35-36 (The Message)

    I will be honest- I had forgotten that I was searching in The Message (I use www.biblegateway.com for my translation work, if you were wondering.) when I looked this up. And when I read it, it just blows me away. "Not what I want-what do YOU want, Father?". Oh, for that to be my heart. That I would quit longing for easy, and long instead for simplicity: to simply be what God wants me to be. Trusting that He will provide all I need- that instead of my proficiency, I would rely on His provision. Instead of my competency, I would trust His compassion. Then, I think I will be surprised. Because then won't it really be so much more easy?

Sharing Some "Crockpot Goodness"

Please note that the photos above are all property of their respective owners, and are correctly linked on my Pinterest page!:)

Some of my friends and I were discussing the virtues of our crock pots this morning at church. I have to apologize to my mother: she tried to convince me that it was the most marvelous piece of kitchen equipment and I ignored her excellent advice for the first 7 years of my marriage. I have now seen the error of my ways!

I approach crock pots recipes a little differently than normal ones. A huge reason I use my crock pot is to save time. If I have to cook a lot of things, or the recipe has more than a few steps, I just skip it. I do have a couple of recipes that I like that I have to cook one extra component (rice, ground beef) but for the most part I want my crock pot to *cook* not just heat!:)

I also categorize those recipes differently on Pinterest. I have a board dedicated entirely to crock pot recipes, because usually rather than wanting a specific meal, I want to use my crock pot! So, I thought if you felt the same way, maybe you would appreciate it if I shared some of my best loved recipes with you. You can find all my crock pot pins on my "Crockpot Goodness" Pinterest board!

1. CrockPot Chicken Tortilla Soup This is my favorite tortilla soup recipe. It is soooo easy! I love that it calls for all "pantry" ingredients-that is a recipe that doesn't call for fresh ingredients, only frozen or shelf stable. I usually have all the ingredients on hand, so it is quick and easy to throw together. I have discovered that if I put my substitutions/recommendations in the comments of my pins, it makes them easier to keep track of, and then if I have a friend I want to send the recipe to, all the changes are attached! You can see my subs for this recipe on my pin. This recipes makes a ton, it would easily serve 8, so I always freeze half of it, and then heat it on the stove top. Two meals from one crock pot recipe? Yes, please!

2. Crockpot Baked Potatoes This is one of those that you probably think: isn't that easier to just do in the microwave or oven? Well, it is probably the same amount of work any of the three ways, but the skin is just delicious this way, and it is handy for me because I buy *gigantic* Costco potatoes, and they fit better in my crock pot than in the microwave! It is also nice to get started on this part of dinner earlier in the day. We usually have entree potatoes by adding ham and cheese, or chili on top. It also gives me a lot more flexibility about when dinner is ready!

3. Crock Pot Beef Stew This link leads to 8 crock pot meals that you can prep and put in your freezer. I am just not that organized so the ones I have made I just prepared the day of and put everything straight in the crock pot. (I have also made the taco soup and it is yummy, my notes about that are on the pin, too.) This beef stew is just amazing! It was so tender, definitely better than my attempts on stove top and so much less time consuming. Please notice that I recommend to wait until the end to add the peas, or they will be mushy and also unappealing in color.:)

4. Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken and Rice I learned the trick about adding the peas at the end of a crock pot recipe by reading the comments on this recipe. (I add peas to this to give it a little more nutritional value, about 1 and 1/2 cups cooked frozen peas.) It is a really tasty spin on chicken and rice, and I skip the part where she says cook the corn at the end and add it, and just put frozen corn in at the beginning when I put the chicken in. You do need to cook the rice separately, and I am never on point enough to do it the day before like she suggests, but for some reason it is just easier for me to think about dinner before lunch, so I just make the rice then. Another reason I love my crock pot!

5. Honey Sauced Chicken I make a lot of chicken dishes, and so that is probably why 3 out of 5 of these recipes are for chicken. This honey sauced chicken is really easy, however, if you have more than 2 adults and two small children, you will want to double this recipe. For some reason, I use about a pound (the recipes calls for 3/4 lb.) and it still doesn't seem like quite enough. But that could also be because Joel loves it! I serve it with rice and stir fry veggies.

I have tried several other recipes on my board, too, but I don't want to spoil all the fun! If you are looking for some inspiration, take a look around. May your crock pot be as useful to you as mine is to me!