No School Smoothie Day!

Today is going to be AWESOME! The boys have no school today, and mom is home too, so we will all be together!

We have ahead of us a whole day filled with No School Friday Fare starting with Baked Homemade Mini Donuts with cinnamon and sugar, then we will have Vitamix Smoothies. Ash is head chef today preparing a three course meal consisting of Homemade Mozzarella Sticks, Russian Poppyseed Pasta with veggie side, and Double Fudge Chocolate Cake for dessert! I'm drooling . . . . and so glad I owned the StairMaster this morning! And so glad I had the food channel on that day for him to run across . .  .

I will be sure to take a lot of pictures of our creations today to share with you. 

Yay Vitamix!

<><>I scrimped and saved and finally bought the blender of my dreams. The Vitamix. It was waiting for me at work Monday morning. And when that baby went down for a nap, I went to town in the kitchen. The first thing I made was the baby's Green Monster Smoothie. I change the recipe up from time to time, and this time I used applesauce, spinach, and banana. This is the most beautiful green color I've ever seen. Just looking at it makes me feel healthy. 

<><> The next thing I did was put some Prego in the Vitamix and added a big handful of spinach and half of a small zucchini. I added my boosted sauce to the rest, warmed it up and served it with spaghetti for dinner. Unfortunately, when you mix color opposites- green and red- you will always get a less saturated, muddy color. The sauce was less pretty after I added my greens, but healthier. And the boys never noticed. 

<><>For my lunch, I made a Veggie Soup. First, I diced up 1/3rd of an onion and fried it up in a small pot to carmelize it a little. I added one or two diced garlic cloves and various spices halfway through: parsley, tarragon, pepper, salt, and one other. When the onions were about halfway through yummy carmelization, I added one small diced potato and water. When they were soft and the broth was tasty, I threw them in the Vitamix with fresh spinach and zucchini. I added a little sour cream and pepper and enjoyed a tasty, hot, half-raw veggie soup! Yum!

<><>The last thing I did was make each of the boys their own personal smoothie as they came in the door from school. The first two chose strawberry banana with huge baby carrots as a boost. BBB chose banana and carrots. The loved them. I used Dole's Strawberry Banana Orange juice blend, vanilla yogurt, baby carrots, fresh strawberries and bananas and ice.

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Green Monster Smoothie with Vitamix

Veggie Soup with Vitamix

Dandelion Sculpture at the Park. V's flowers fell out : (