Showing posts with label green smoothies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green smoothies. Show all posts

Thursday, November 12, 2009

A Green Smoothie

I tried making green smoothies again. Success! I used the simplest recipe I've seen...two bananas, two cups of water, and a big handful or two of baby spinach leaves (enough to fill the blender). This made enough for about 3 or 4 glasses.




I was quite excited. I'm sure the kids think I'm a nut, but they indulged me by trying it. They agreed all you could taste was bananas, although they did make comments like "Looks like something Shrek would drink" and "I feel like I'm drinking pond scum."

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Hopefully green smoothies and the like will protect us against H1N1, because they're giving the virus away free at the local supermarket. Today, my cashier and the one behind me were trading stories about how they dragged themselves into work after three days home sick with aches, chills, and headaches. AARRGH. Now we know how pandemics happen.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Feeling Better

I had a good night's sleep after a two-day migraine, and feel like a million bucks. It's amazing what 7 hours of good rest does for my energy levels and my mental state. I try to encourage the older two to get to bed at a decent hour, but they have so much homework in addition to school activities and sports. (DS12 loves to sleep, so he's not an issue.) Since we've been unsuccessful trying to get the H1N1 shot so far, my approach has been more fruits and vegetables and more rest. It's all I can do to try to keep them healthy.

Yesterday I tried to make green smoothies for two of the kids. Green smoothies are all over the Internet and I confess to being intrigued by them...they are so green. Most recipes suggest fresh baby spinach leaves along with fruit, but I only had frozen spinach, frozen blueberries, and pears. The blueberries, unfortunately, turned the smoothie a muddy purple instead of the bright green I was hoping for. But the frozen spinach worked okay, after I let it thaw a bit. And you really couldn't taste the spinach, since it was masked by the sweetness of the fruit. I'll try making them again without blueberries, just because I think it's fun. (And while my kids will eat spinach now, they wouldn't when they were younger. I wonder if I could've gotten them to try a green smoothie back then. It would have been a great way to get healthy greens into them.)

Last night DS15's team won their game and will move on in the playoffs. I was not there, but husband reports that the fans--mostly parents--were a little out of control. I always find it interesting (and scary) how quickly parents can go over the top at a sporting event. I understand anger if your child gets hurt because of rough play and bad calls, but truly some parents set very bad examples. Uh, this is an upper middle-class community with educated people. You'd think they'd know better.