Great App for Your Phone

And it's free! Check it out: Fooducate

This great little app has a scanner so you just scan your item and all kinds of info comes up on it, including WHY it's good or bad. You can also just search by product title.


My husband is having a great time with this. He's actually the one who showed it to me. He's been educating all the guys he works with on what a heart attack they're consuming every morning before even lunch, between their ho-ho's, dunkin' stix, lard roll, deep fried fat balls and drowned with 3 servings of the typical carbonated caffeinated death drink that includes 1/2 cup of sugar in total.... you get what I mean. He cracks me up, I just hope the guys are getting some eye opening awareness before they wind up orphaning a family. I forget how awful people can eat when they choose to just ignore it. I forget it's even out there because I choose to never look at it. But when you do, after you haven't... it's shocking, truly. I can't even believe some of this crap is legal.

Check out the app though. I was surprised to see that even some things I thought weren't so bad, are still in the grade of "C" range.

Fall Treat - Pumpkin Spice Latte with Honeycrisp Apples and Caramel Yogurt Dip

I found the yummiest fall treat ever! First, brew some coffee (decaf is fine too) and add about 1/4 tsp (or more) of pumpkin spice to your coffee grounds to infuse this wonderful fall flavor into your coffee (without he $4 Starbucks price!)

While that is brewing up and making your kitchen smell warm and heavenly, finely slice up a juicy honeycrisp apple, (think "chips") about 1/8" thickness. Take about 1/2 cup of some 0% Fage Greek yogurt and put into a ramekin or small bowl and add a tsp or more of this awesome Caramel dip I found in the health foods section at Hyvee (Walden Farms also makes some amazing salad dressings, marinades and other items too! See their nutrition page for all their products at a glance - I just noticed they have Alfredo sauce - yay!!) Add a couple drops of vanilla extract, a few dashes of pumpkin spice, mix and taste, add more of any ingredient until it is to your liking.


Add some sugar free french vanilla creamer or sugar free almond milk to your coffee when it's done brewing and sit back to sip on your pumpkin spice latte and crunch on those divine honeycrisp apples, savoring that sweet caramel yogurt dip. All of this with no guilt - you're still under 200 calories : D Super treat!

Monday Morning Blast - aka Cinnabun & Coffee Smoothie

Okay, stay with me, alright? This is going to sound a little unconventional, so just bear with me for a minute.

I always have leftover coffee in the morning that I want to drink, but microwaving it is NOT always my first choice. I think about making a blended iced coffee, but then I feel like I should be blending a smoothie instead. So I just recently found an awesome new secret weapon in my world of making veggie smoothies... an AWESOME whey protein that has nearly no carbs and tastes incredible! ...I think it's better than even the shakes at the health clubs. Today, Hyvee had 10% off the health food section so I bought a bunch of different flavors of NNW 100% Healthy Whey protein powder because I loved the samples I had tried.

(samples- $1.97)

The kids have been LOVING these too. I thought the Cinnamon Bun sounded really good, so I thought I'd experiment.

(medium bags- $12 something)

Here's what you need:


coffee (I'm not sure how much I added, but maybe 12 oz? Cold coffee would be best) (10 cal)
1/2 frozen banana (50 cal)
big handful of kale, maybe 3 leaves, no stems (36 cal)
heaping tsp of flax seed (17 cal)
quick pour of liquid sugar free vanilla creamer (30 cal)
2 Tbs of Cinnamon Bun protein powder (50 cal)
2 splendas
Ice as desired
(less than 200 cal, roughly)

First blend the coffee, powder and flax seeds to pulverize them, there's benefits to this which I'll talk about further, but there are also benefits to eating them whole, so if you don't mind drinking the seeds whole, that's really okay too.
Then add the other ingredients and 6 cubes of ice, then add more ice until it's to your desired thickness.

This tasted like a cinnamon roll flavored coffee frappucino, SO good.

But here's why I really liked it, especially for a Monday...
I really need a super boost on those mornings, so the coffee is a great addition to my smoothie (two birds with one stone) the kale and the flax is an awesome way to sort of detox after a weekend of kids' birthday cakes and eating out for social stuff, which usually makes me feel pretty horrible by Sunday night. The kale is fantastic for digestion and the flax seed is amazing for taking care of your lower system after a rough weekend. (I'm trying to put this gently : ) You know what I mean. I didn't add any fruit besides the banana so the carbs are good and low. I only use 1/2 the serving suggestion on the protein powder package just because I think 1/2 is enough and the stuff is a little pricey, so I want to make it stretch. I saved a bit for my husband and he even liked it. Really, give it a shot, it's good! and really good for you!

Lunch Combo with Watermelon Smoothie

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been crazy busy with work plus the kids' camps and activities are all over now, so they're home 100% of the day. Be patient with me, blogging is a privilege for me.... I haven't read a book without pictures since before my 5 year old son was born, if that tells you what kind of "free time" I have with working full-time from home.

I just had this yummy lunch combo and had to share. You never know what might spark an idea for someone else : )

I typically eat lighter lunches since I have to cook pretty large dinners to fill my husband and son. (the ultimate bottomless pits!) We're having veggie lasagne and that will be pretty heavy for me. So, I made a smoothie, had low fat cottage cheese and a seedy crunch bar from the Wichita Farmer's Market last weekend. (it's filled with sesame seeds, coconut, pepitas, sunflower seeds, etc. probably brown sugar, not much holding it together)

The Watermelon Lime smoothie:

• 1 1/2 C. watermelon chunks (some seeds still in- these are actually good for you! plus my Blendtec pulverizes them)
• 1/3 frozen banana
• lime wedge with 1/2 the peel left on
• big handful of fresh spinach leaves (maybe 3/4-1 C?)
• a few blueberries 15-20

This came out more like an agua fresca than a thick smoothie because the only thing frozen was the banana, so I poured it into a frosty mug and added a few cubes of ice. I'm sure there's enough for nearly two mugs, I put the rest in the freezer until I finish this mug, then I might just drink the rest! I call it Watermelon Lime because that is mostly what I taste. Refreshing, summery-- yum-mee!

Hope this inspires you. If you have a great smoothie combo you've discovered, please share, I'd love to post it!

New Favorite Site for Recipes

I'm always looking for new smoothie recipes. I stumbled onto this site that has an "app" built into the web (you can also download for your iPhone/iPad here: Visit the App Store

http://greensmoothiesblog.com/recipes/index.php?view_page=categories

You can categorize by recipe, ingredient, or type of recipe by the navigational tools at the bottom. Check out these great webshots:






If you find a great recipe source, please share in the comments below! I would certainly love it if I could find one site that had them all!

Celery Smoothie!

....whaaa???? It's good. And this coming from the girl who has hated raw celery since I was born. I would hide it in my mouth and spit it in the toilet, bury it in my mother's house plants, conceal it in my napkin to throw it away... ANYTHING to avoid swallowing it! I don't mind it cooked in stuff, but it's one of only maybe two or three vegetables I cannot stomach. So when my daughter decided today that she had changed her mind and no longer liked it raw either, well, I couldn't really say too much. I had only bought it because the kids said they had it at camp and she liked it. Jack has never liked it either.

So I looked up celery as a keyword at the Vitamix recipe site and tried this one:
1 celery stalk (about 8 inches)
1/2 frozen banana
1 orange, peeled and quartered
3 baby carrots
1/3 C dried cranberries
1 C ice
(a bit modified from the original with more carrots than called for and dried cranberries since I didn't have fresh, and frozen banana, not raw)

It's good! Really didn't expect that. Perfect amount in my frozen mug. And even the kids liked it. Cheers!

The Blendtec

I did a lot of research on blenders before investing in the Blendtec. The Vita-Mix looks pretty good too, but I liked the design of the Blendtec, especially because it would fit under my cabinets, and it seemed more powerful than any others and I believe that it is. You'll have to do your own research to choose for yourself, but this is what I like about it…

• one touch buttons and self timing categories for blending like: soups, ice cream, smoothie, etc. So whatever it is you want, there is no complicated techniques to blend.
• it's fast and very thorough, it creates a vortex, sucking everything down into the blades and blends everything finely including ice and does not need a tamper to push the food into the blades like some other blenders (even other expensive ones). You only need just enough liquid to get things moving if you're using mostly frozen foods. This means you can put the whole fruit in and benefit from so many more micronutrients that you would normally cut off to eat whole (fibrous centers, leafy tops, seeds, etc.
• so versatile, you can make your own nut butters, dressings, soups, smoothies, baby food, ice cream, you name it! For this reason, you could wind up using the blender all day… fruit/veggie smoothies for breakfast, soup for lunch, dressing/sauces at dinner, blended cocktails or ice cream for dessert! And we do use it a lot.

Here are a couple sites and a few websites where you can see various demos:

http://www.blendtec.com/roadshow
http://www.willitblend.com



(click on image to enlarge detail)


Look for online coupons at RetailMeNot.com (type in Blendtec to see what the best current coupon is) or go to Sam's Club or CostCo. I saw an awesome demo at Sam's before we bought ours, but it looks like the demo closest to us is coming up in KC at a CostCo. You can look here for a schedule nearest you:

http://www.blendtec.com/roadshow


I'm not going to lie, this is not an inexpensive purchase. It is an investment in an appliance that will change your lifestyle forever IF YOU USE IT. You have to be committed to real change. You can make smoothies with your home blender. You CAN. It's just that a typical blender will not blend whole fruits without a lot of cutting or ice without burning up over time. Results vary, smoothies may be chunky with fruit or ice. For some people, those textures make it harder to swallow and much harder to motivate yourself to choose to use green smoothies as a healthy option for some meals or to accompany meals. I don't want to make my blog out to be about meal-replacement shakes. I'm not an "all-exclusive" thinker. I don't necessarily believe you need to replace all of your meals with veggie/fruit smoothies. But if your breakfasts normally consist of high saturated fat, high refined carbs, and you don't have time to sit down to eat a banana, an apple, an orange and a handful of kale or spinach, then a green smoothie is a great alternative to your current habits.

Reviews:
• ConsumerReports.org... editors include the Blendtec Total Blender in regular testing and performance comparisons with other models, but they also give the Blendtec special consideration in this preview. Its ability to go beyond normal blender duties is assessed and compared with its main competitor, the Vita-Mix 5000 (now the Vita-Mix 5200).
• Amazon.com... more than 100 owners award the Blendtec Total Blender an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Owners say that this is a powerful, heavy-duty blender that can handle any vegetable or fruit, no matter how fibrous. Owners also report that the Blendtec is extremely noisy.
• Epinions.com... there are reviews of several different Blendtec models here. According to Blendtec, the HP3A model has a menu button that allows you to access a screen with more speed selections, while the Blendtec TB-621-20 model has nine buttons, one for each available speed. The blenders are otherwise the same. Owners say that the Blendtec Total Blender is powerful and easy to clean, but also say it's noisy.
• PerfectSmoothie.com... the editors evaluated several blenders, although their methods aren't detailed. In the High End Blenders category, they praise both the Vita-Mix and Blendtec blenders but choose Vita-Mix as a top pick.
• GreenSmoothieGirl.com.... editors compare the Blendtec and Vita-Mix blenders, noting the difference in features between the two. that the reviewer says she's had to send her Vita-Mix back to the manufacturer several times but not so with the Blendtec.

My review:
It's amazing! I've had mine for over a year and absolutely LOVE it still. There are a ton of recipe sites out there if you look. Sign up here for a weekly recipe to be emailed to you. Vitamix recipes work just as well, too. I have a few links in the nav bar to the left of this page. Have an open mind, you will find ones that you like. This is a fun and super easy, time-saving way to get way more fruits and vegetables in your diet when you choose to adopt a healthier plant-based lifestyle.