Ode to Smoothies

Who doesn't love a good smoothie? I have a seasonal addiction that requires me to consume some sort of blender drink pretty much every day in spring and summer. I admit, some days it ends up being Kaluha, milk, and ice...but other days it's a touch more granola-ish than that.

I find my kids get excited for about the first two weeks of the smoothie season and then lose steam. However, I've found the cure to sustain smoothie enthusiasm. Popsicle molds. Feels like junk food, but isn't. Even better, I've started sneaking in veggies too - and they still beg for them.

While I think a recipe for smoothies is about as necessary as a recipe for a glass of water (my apologies to recipe hounds), here's a sample:

a banana
some strawberries (when organic ones go on sale, I stock up like a mad woman and freeze them for this purpose!)
some mango
enough fruit juice to lubricate the whole thing (orange in this case)
a few scoops of plain yogurt
a few ice cubes
a couple of carrots (blender will be happier if you slice them first) or a beet or both

Cheers!

Appliance Breakdown: The Mother of Invention

Our fridge kicked the bucket yesterday. The first sign was the curdling of 4 litres of ridiculously expensive organic milk. But it forced me to cook a meal using as many contents of the fridge as possible to prevent them from going rotten. What a surprise, it was our best veggie meal ever.

If you're looking for a stupidly quick, easy, and kick-ass vegetarian meal, try some variation of this:

1. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, add some beans. The equivalent amount of about 1 can I guess (I used a mix of organic turtle and kidney beans which I had soaked and cooked the previous day)
2. Add a whack of salsa. I used about a cup. (I've tried this with other salsas, but have got to say Garden Fresh - Jack's Medium was the best. I know it's at Loblaw's but not sure where else. I like hot stuff, but if you're sensitive to spice, you should definitely go with the Mild since the Medium has some kick)
3. Throw in some chopped green pepper and a bit of extra tomato (especially if you're trying to clean out your fridge!)
4. Cook it all for 5-10 mins. While it's cooking mash up an avocado (I just added in a bit more salsa to it for pretty much instant guacamole)
5. (Optional- slater tortillas with some cream cheese. Really, I probably would skip this step if my fridge wasn't broken, but it was extra tasty this way)
6. Put a scoop of the bean mixture, a scoop of guacamole, and some shredded cheddar into the tortilla.
   
7. Eat the big sloppy mess, grinning the whole time!
   

Next step, learn to make homemade salsa that exactly replicates Jack's medium, OR find the equivalent organic salsa.

Cheers!

Garden Update

It's growing!!! Above you can see my tomato plant collection, the experimental "self watering" container system, trellised peas and beans, and my earliest crop - spring onions and garlic grown on my deck (more successfully than in the ground surprisingly)

We've been eating lots of green onions this spring already. Chives and mint from the garden made their way to my salad last night. My spinach is just teeny tiny, so I'm supplementing with some hearty garden centre plants. I forgot to plant kale, so I'm doing the same with that. And I had the nice surprise of finding some sturdy looking baby bok choy plants yesterday which I will also plant this weekend. My indoor spring grow-op has yielded some presentable tomato plants which go into the ground this weekend.
I did get around to building my "self contained garden boxes", which are homemade versions of the commercial EarthBox™. They were reasonably easy, though not quite as cheap as I had hoped. I planted some cucumber seedlings in them which just sat and sat without really growing, so they have been replaced with tomatoes and peas. Hopefully my earthbox luck improves.
We'll be heading over to my pseudo allotment garden at my parents' place this weekend to check the progress and plant the tomatoes.
My dad warns me that his next door neighbour's garden is suffering from some sort of weird blight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's not spreading, since it is only separated from "my" garden by chain link. Geez, imagine if this was your livelihood. Gotta hand it to farmers. They work hard, and face financial risk and ruin if they encounter bad weather, drought, blights or infestations. Makes me think of the bumper sticker "Eat today? Thank a farmer."