oh god new best smoothie ever

1 banana

handful of chopped walnuts

glob of kefir

half cup? of blueberries? I just throw stuff in until it feels right

2 ice cubes

HEAVEN.

Going veg again

For a little while. I really don't eat much meat... I don't remember the last time. But I've been eating all these beautiful and creative vegetable based dishes, and they have me wanting to be veg and be proud again. And thus, I give you...

The Most Beautiful Salad

1 bag Spring Mix salad mix

Half pound kale

One can mandarin oranges

Quarter of a red onion

4 beets, with greens

3 teaspoons flax seeds

2 ounces goat cheese (unless Vegan)

Sprinkle of chopped walnuts

Great big bowl - I had to use a soup pot

Wash and peel beets. Individually wrap in foil and roast in the oven at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes - until you can easily put a fork in them and remove it again

Remove leaves from the stems of the kale. Remove leaves from beet stems, tearing into smaller pieces. Toss with spring mix.

Chop onion into long slices and toss in.

Slice beets thinly, combining with salad. Add mandarin oranges and flax seeds.

Crumble goat cheese (if you please) over the top of the salad. Sprinkle in walnuts. Toss with two large spoons.

Great on its own, but I have an excellent lemon dressing that brings it all out. "Lemon Goddess" by Drew's. I got it at Hannaford. Whole Foods has a great lemon parsley dressing at their salad bar.

It's almost comical now.

This past weekend.

- I read 5 chapters of Research Methods in Social Work, and really, why even live

- I took an online exam from hell

- I wrote an entire paper in one shot

- I researched for two papers

- I planned for a group presentation

Today, I discovered the class that I did an exam for over the weekend also has another exam. This coming weekend.

Sometimes, things are just so awful they don't even bother you. So let's look at my coming weekend.

- More reading than I care to fathom (or probably do)

- Take another online exam, also from hell

- Make a cake for my grandmother and buy her a birthday present

- Spend Sunday afternoon/evening at said birthday party

- Finish writing those two papers

And next semester, it gets so much worse. I'll have three classes instead of two, plus my full time job, plus my internship 16 hours a week. 8 hours of which must be during the same hours I work. Mondays will be 14 hours long.

Remind again why I'm doing this?

Accordingly, the smoothie of the night:

half a banana
2 scoops thin mint ice cream
half bar german milk chocolate
big splash rice milk
splash whipped cream vodka
2 ice cubes

blend.

hate grad school so much less.

Continued adventures with a blender

Vegans love kale. Scientific fact. My 3 Vegan friends never stop talking about kale. I'm not even sure what the hell it is. But I do know two things:

1) I've had a smoothie at Maine Squeeze Juice Cafe that they snuck kale into and it didn't kill me.

2) Kale is 99 cents a pound at Shaw's right now.

Naturally, it was kale smoothie time.

2 big kale leaves (reasonable people would add much more, and I will next time)

glob of applesauce (told you, I don't measure anything)

couple of small pineapple chunks

handful of mango chunks

1 banana

3 ice cubes

teaspoon flax seeds, since why not make it as weird as possible

Combine. Revel in how surprisingly not terrible it is.

I always make myself so happy when I eat a vegetable.

Blocked.

Heart wants me to create.
Body wants me to move.
Brain wants me to work.
Mind doesn't want me to do a goddamn thing.

Things are hard right now. Too many changes all at once. Despite my assertion that I'd be ok, that's a lot to ask with the sheer amount I have to do right now. The school assignment list is daunting enough on its own. Of course, when there's that much to do, nothing happens. I know what I need to do. And I know what I'd like to do. But lately, there's too much of a disconnect between that and what really happens.

Which scares me.

It'll come together. It always does. It's just hard as hell being stuck in this cycle until it does.

An unhealthy obsession with a blender

Sometime last fall, I stayed over at a friend's house, and when I got up, he was making smoothies. All he had to do was just throw together a bunch of frozen fruit from Trader Joe's and soy milk. And it was amazing. My God, even I could manage this! If I had a blender. Which I do. At my grandmother's house. This fluttered in and out of my head all winter, but I found out it was in her shed which was totally blocked by ice. Then March came and it had been nice for a while so I figured I was safe. I bought a bunch of frozen fruit and yogurt and was ready for action.

The shed, however, was not.

So now I have all this stuff, and all this momentum, and no blender. I did consider that I have an electric mixer for my baking, and there's a slight chance that might work, but that's not really a 7:30 am kind of experiment. So naturally, I immediately ceded defeat and bought a blender, as patience is not my virtue (don't let the knitting fool you).

And then, it was ON.

I've been making morning smoothies every day, always trying new combinations of things. Thought I'd share some recipes here. Unless otherwise mentioned, everything comes from Trader Joe's. You could probably buy these things elsewhere if you're not a disciple of Joe like me. This has also lead to me having a constant supply of bananas in the house, and doing things like going to Trader Joe's at 9:30 pm in flannel PJ bottoms with cupcakes on them, because THERE IS A STORM COMING AND I ONLY HAVE ONE BANANA.

The Elvis Smoothie

1 banana

2 spoonfuls raw honey (it will never die)

3-4 spoonfuls of whatever peanut butter you have - mine is chunky

1 teaspoon flax seeds if you're into that sort of thing

Couple of spoonfuls of yogurt/kefir/something along that line to thicken, or a splash of non-dairy milk & handful of ice cubes if you're Vegan

Blend all of the above, put on blue suede shoes. Note - it doesn't really matter if you're already using chunky peanut butter, but if you're using creamy and don't want random chunks of stuff in your smoothie, you could use flax seed meal or oil instead of the seeds, as there is no way in hell you're going to blend those down to invisibility.

The Standard

1 banana

Handful of frozen strawberries - I have small hands so around 4

Generous amount of rice milk, soy milk, real milk, or yogurt - whatever you have. Note that the differing thicknesses of these will alter the consistency of your smoothie.

Basic strawberry banana smoothie. You can add any number of things to make it more interesting. I like to throw in raspberries to make it a little tarter, and make it a little more berry than banana.

Tropical Smoothie

1 banana

Big handful of pineapple chunks

Handful of mango chunks

2-3 slices of orange (or you can use a splash of orange juice if that's what you have)

The nice thing about mango chunks is that they blend so nicely into such a nice smooth texture that you don't have to use any additional thickeners like yogurt. If you like your smoothies to be easy to get through a straw, though, you might want to water it down a little with some rice milk/skim milk.

Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Banana Smoothie

1 medium banana

3 spoonfuls chunky peanut butter

1 teaspoon flax seeds (very optional)

Half bar of chocolate

Splash of dairy-like beverage - I use rice milk

Few squirts of chocolate syrup if not chocolately enough

4 ice cubes

I use the flax seeds because, well, someone I like suggested them, and I already feel smug about eating stuff with all natural ingredients (ignore the chocolate syrup) so I might as well level up the health benefit with something that doesn't add much flavor, though it's kind of fun to eat the little seeds. For chocolate, I used half a bar of German milk chocolate that I had on hand, when a friend gave me a bunch of them a while back. I found this wasn't enough chocolate flavor, so I added few squirts of some chocolate syrup I bought at Wal*Mart (I'm sorry) a while back for mudslides. This helped greatly. I'm sure this would be just as good, possibly better depending on how smooth you like your smoothies, with creamy peanut butter - this is just what I had on hand.

I've made a million more different combinations, but these are the ones distinct enough to remember. I really approach ingredients like Rachel Ray - just throw stuff in until it tastes right - so I don't know about exact numbers. As always with food, adjust to taste and preference.