Oh, my. I love a good smoothie. At first, I'd prepare one blender's worth of smoothie, which was enough for a large glass each for Nathan and I. Then, I discovered the joy of the immersion blender, and now I'm not even sure why our regular blender even gets a spot on the counter anymore. Immersion blenders are vastly superior to regular blenders.
I like to make things in bulk: soups, cookie dough, muffins, pot stickers, enchiladas... and then freeze large portions for later. There's nothing quite like the thrill of being absolutely tuckered out--so tuckered that all you can imagine cooking for dinner is Annie's mac'n'cheese-- and then remembering that you've got a dish of homemade chicken and sweet potato enchiladas sitting in the freezer, just waiting to be popped in the oven. Hooray!
Last weekend Nathan and I scored a small chest freezer off of Craigslist, and we've started filling it with casserole-y type dishes, as well as bags and bags of frozen fruit.
Currently, we buy most of our frozen fruit at Trader Joe's. It's inexpensive, and they have a decent selection of organic fruit. It's important to buy organic strawberries and raspberries rather than conventional, because conventional berries tend to have large amounts of pesticides on them. We can't afford to buy everything organic, so I use the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen list as a guide to prioritize our organic purchases.
Every few weeks, I dump a couple bags of strawberries, mangoes, blueberries and/or mixed berries in a bowl, add a few scoops of yogurt (the only way I can tolerate the stuff) and some hefty pours of juice. Maybe a big scoop of flaxseeds if I'm feeling fancy. Give it a solid whir with the immersion blender, and I've got smoothies for a week! I pour the smoothie in jars, put them in the freezer, and every night I put a jar in the fridge to defrost. So easy!
When I wake up in the morning and start my day off with a smoothie, I find that I'm more motivated to eat healthy throughout the day. Why is that?
And, magical awesome bonus? Luke LOVES smoothies. I should start sneaking other foods into them, like salmon, or oatmeal, or squash. I do add extra yogurt to his to boost the calories.
(The purple detritus is remnants of a perfectly good blueberry pancake that Luke used for a gravity testing experiment.)
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