Pretty Food!

I made a green smoothie today.  Into the blender I put the following:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1/2 bag spinach
• 1/2 small bag frozen cubed mango
• 3 apples
• 1/2 cup green tea

Here's what it looked like when I started to blend it:

Here's what it looked like while it was blending:

Here's what we do with it when it's done.  Well, OK, we actually put the salsa jar lids on and store them in the fridge ...

I used a spatula to get the last of the smoothie out of the blender jar, and I let DH lick the spatula.  He declared it good enough to eat, and told me that it was a Pretty Color!

Usually DH doesn't like to eat it, and only because it's green.  For example the other half bag of spinach was used in an "apple pie" smoothie a few days ago, and he refused to eat it.

Here are the ingredients for the Apple Pie Smoothie I made last week.  I usually use coconut milk, but wanted to use up the last can of coconut water:

• 1 tall can coconut water
• 3 capsules psyllium fiber (it was still quite liquid)
• 3 small apples
• 1/2 bag spinach
• 1/2 small bag frozen strawberries
• 2 teaspoons (if not more) apple pie spice

Have you ever made a fruit smoothie or a green smoothie?

Sewing and Eating, More of it

Yesterday I made a sample napkin holder.  I had intended to make it in the style of these baskets on Debbie's blog, and I drew the pattern here:

After thinking about it and discussing it with my cousin, who I invited into the creative process, I changed how I wanted to do it.  The calculations are shown here:

The sides are made from the long strip which is folded at the top.  This strip encloses plastic canvas pieces.  The bottom is a double layer square of fabric which is attached to the bottom of the sides.  The bottom encloses a piece of craft foam.  I cut the fabric pieces and did the sewing, while my cousin cut all the plastic pieces.  Here is my first napkin holder for the kitchen:

Even though St Patrick's day was yesterday, we had a very St Paddie's day breakfast today.  The crust of the quiche was nut meal and egg.  The quiche filling was eggs, spinach leaves, and sea salt, blended.  There was cheese sprinkled on top, but it got cooked into the quiche.


The biscuits were made from this recipe.  They are made with mostly eggs and coconut flour, and they are very good.  This was a mostly paleo meal, except for the little bit of cheese:

Today, I went out with DH to buy a step ladder, and we had burgers at Steak n Shake - no fries, no bread, no cheese, but all the other condiments!  Then we went to JA's to get buttons and a zipper.  We got a small pack of very sturdy buttons for the next time I need to replace buttons on his shorts.  We got a 30" light-weight nylon zipper so I can make a cover for the wedge pillow I bought last weekend.

After that, cousin and I laid out in the sun to get our natural Vitamin D and to sweat out the toxins.  The day is not yet over!

Avocado Green Smoothie

I made a new green smoothie today.  This was my first successful attempt at a non-sweet green smoothie.  My usual green smoothie tastes like apple pie with apples, spinach, coconut milk, ginger, and cinnamon.

No traditional fruits were used to sweeten today's green smoothie.  The ingredients are:

• 1 haas avocado
• three-inch piece of cucumber, peeled
• handful of spinach
• 3/4 can of coconut milk
• five dashes of salt
• one dash of lime juice

The taste is not exciting, but simply tastes like the list of ingredients.  The coconut milk and avocado make it very creamy.  I like it because sometimes un-exciting is good!

This batch filled a salsa jar and refrigerated so I can eat it tomorrow.  I put the rest in a coffee cup for my evening snack:

Green Kiwi Smoothie

I made the kiwi smoothie for tomorrow's lunch. It has one banana, one kiwi, and half a bag of spinach.

While my kids were here, we ate out too much (but it was So Good!), and I gained some weight. I'm making myself keep up with making smoothies because I need to lose that weight for the wellness fair at work. If I lose one BMI point since last year OR if my BMI is below a certain number, I will not have to pay the insurance increase for this year. I think that's a pretty good incentive to get or keep in shape. I've also been trying to ride my Trikke every evening (unless it's raining).

Spinach Bisque Soup

Yay!! I found an interesting recipe at the Raw Epicurean site. I subscribe to their RSS feed via Google.

I made Spinach Bisque Soup last night, and the first taste test was yummy.

Kiwi Smoothie

The smoothie I ate today had one kiwi fruit, one banana, and about 1 cup (packed) of spinach.

I think that the spinach has the most nutrients of these ingredients. The predominant flavors are the banana and kiwi fruit. I could not taste the spinach in this smoothie, but it was Very Green!

Spinach in Smoothies

My sewing pal mad-SewIKnit2 questions spinach in smoothies. Spinach has a much milder flavor than most greens. Give it a try!

We are expecting delivery of our VitaMix, which is a super-charged blender. That doesn't begin to describe it, but I will be sharing pictures of it in future days. Keep watching!