In my opinion there are two types of people who take up "Fad Diets," the ones who do it for the fashion and the ones who do it as a health neccessity. I try not to judge others, but since all of the diet changes I have made have been for my health I do sometimes get upset at the fashion dieters. Although, I suppose I should thank them, because without making it a fad I wouldn't have found half of the things I did.
Smoothies, for instance. I wrote a post about them when I started drinking them (and I really want to copy it here for you, but we'll have to find a loophole or something). It was when I was pregnant with Ellie the Adorable that I first took notice of the smoothie craze. I was supplementing my diet with an off-brand of the Ensure nutritional drink (this is not to be taken as endorsment), and that got expensive rather fast. So I naturally looked for an alternative that I could make at home. Thus it happened that I entered the Realm of Smoothie. (And if I can ever get the original post for you then I'll be able to give you the links for the original recipes).
My go-to smoothie recipe is ground oatmeal (which I do myself), a banana, half a jar of peanut butter, frozen spinach, yougurt (if I have it), and milk. I blend that until creamy, and pour it into jelly jars and freeze them. I let them thaw, one at a time, overnight, and in the morning top them off with more milk.
I've gotten the smoothies to the point where I don't have to think about them. My blender will make nine portions, depending on how thick I want them. And my kids have enough peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I have more than enough jars. This pregnancy, however, has knocked me for a loop; and washing out the blender has become daunting enough that I've stopped making them.
Until a just a few weeks ago, that is, when a friend let me in on a little secret. The screw top of a mason jar is threaded the same as most blenders.
Talk about mind-blowing. If I had any jars that would screw onto my blender then I could have my smoothies back, made fresh daily, with very little extra washing up. Unfortunately, the only jar I had that even remotely fit (and that at an angle) was an old salsa jar or something like that. I made that work until Nick went out and bought me a case of pint sized mason jars.
It is wonderful. I can make a smoothie as I need it, I don't have to wait for it to thaw. And I don't have to worry if I forget to thaw one the night before--or worry about one going bad if it has thawed and I didn't drink it. At the most I'm only using two jars, so I don't have the pain of washing the whole blender. Everyone except Minimus likes them, and I can now make personalized smoothies without haording the entire batch for my pregnant self. This week I've splurged a little and got a bag of frozen strawberries; I'm using about three per smoothie. I've had to refigure the ingrediant amounts per smoothie, and I've stopped using spinach cause I've started making kale chips (part 2).
--Zizi
--Zizi
Comments
Post a Comment