Default Green Smoothie

Charming name, no?  I picked it because that's what it is: the default smoothie I make several times a week with the Vitamix blender we received as a gift (thanks, Mom!).  You can get creative with the fruit and use all the same kind or a mix.  Also, if I put in apples, I sometimes leave out the carrots because even with a Vitamix blender, there's a little more texture in the finished smoothie than I prefer.  It's not bad by any means, though.  You could also try adding cucumbers or zucchini or another mild tasting vegetable instead of the carrots.  I'll do that here one of these days and update the post then.  My husband and I both love this smoothie, no matter how I make it!

  

I would also like to add that an inexpensive blender may not do a good job with the raw carrot.

  

Default Green Smoothie

  

1 C plain greek yogurt

1/2 C cold water

2 bananas

about 3 C somewhat packed down spinach or torn up kale

3/4 C baby carrots

1 1/2 to 2 C fresh or frozen fruit, like strawberries, blueberries, mango chunks, pineapple chunks, peach chunks, apple slices, or peeled oranges

optional: 2 or so Tbsp lemon or lime juice

  

Place everything in the blender in the order listed in the recipe.  Put on lid and blend according to your blender's directions until smooth.

  

Yield: 2 large smoothies or 4 small ones

Fantastical Food Fight: PBJ Smoothie

Wow, my first post of the year and it's already March!  I've cooked this year for sure, but haven't experimented with new recipes as often as usual or written new posts.  My husband and I both started new jobs in December and January and adjusting to that has been taking up a lot of... well, everything.  Little bloggie has not been forgotten, just taken a backseat for a little bit.

 

So, this is a Fantastical Food Fight post.  I tried to participate in January, which had the focus of slow cooker soup.  Picked a recipe, bought the ingredients, then didn't actually make the recipe until late February.  It's funny, really, I ended up using all the originally purchased ingredients for other things and had to repurchase them when I actually made the soup!  The good thing about FFF though is that there's no obligation to participate every month, so I wasn't letting anyone down when I didn't participate.

 

This month's Fantastical Food Fight subject is peanut butter and jelly!  Yum, we love PBJs at our house.  I immediately thought of Ina Garten's amazing PBJ bars, but I've already made those and posted about them on the blog.  As much as I'd love an excuse to make that recipe again, the Fantastic Food Fight posts are supposed to be about new recipes.  Looking online, I found a couple of recipes and ideas I was interested in trying, but settled on a smoothie because we've been on a real smoothie kick since we got a Vitamix blender.  

 

Okay so there isn't actually any jelly in this smoothie.  I try to make my smoothies as healthy as possible and although I like jelly, I a) did not want to add sugar to the smoothie, and b) I wanted to use fresh fruit.  But strawberry jam is frequently used in PBJs and peanut butter banana sandwiches are pretty common, too!

 

This is actually round two of my PBJ smoothie experiment.  The first time I tried it, I used milk instead of yogurt and water, real peanut butter, two bananas, and about half the strawberries.  Neither of us were crazy about the result.  I didn't like how rich (from the fat in the peanut butter) and milky it was, and the banana totally obliterated the strawberry flavor.  Usually I use two bananas in a smoothie for two people, but that wasn't a good choice for this one.  This version uses peanut butter powder so it's not as rich, yogurt and water, just one banana, and more strawberries.  The banana was actually added after I had already blended everything up.  My plan had been to leave out the banana entirely, but it was lacking a little something without the banana, so I chucked one in.

  

It's actually a lovely shade of pale pink- the glass is light green!

  

So, how did it turn out?  Pretty good!  My husband and I both agree that we like green smoothies better, but this was good and a nice alternative if you happen to be out of kale or spinach or are low on yogurt but want protein in the smoothie.  The flavors of the peanut butter, banana, and strawberries all come through nicely.  One thing I'd like to add is to make sure all your ingredients are cold.  The yogurt and strawberries came right out of the refrigerator, and I used cold water, but the banana was room temperature and the resulting smoothie was not very cold.  Usually I don't mind room temperature smoothies, but this one was definitely at its best when cold.

 

PBJ Smoothie

 

1/2 C plain greek yogurt

1/4 C cold water

1 frozen or cold banana

2 C frozen or cold strawberries

3 to 4 Tbsp peanut butter powder (I used 3 but 4 would have been good)

 

Place all ingredients in blender, put on lid, and blend until smooth.

 

Yield: 2 medium sized smoothies

   

An InLinkz Link-up

Rainbow Float

This is definitely more of an idea than a recipe, but it's such a smashing idea that I had to share!  My brother's soon to be wife is the one who told me about rainbow floats when we were down visiting my family a couple of weeks ago.  We may or may not have stopped at the grocery store that night to get the ingredients, and after we got home to Alaska, I may or may not have taken myself right over to the store again!  That really says something coming from a person who is not especially fond of sherbet (until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't had sherbet for maybe 10 years) or root beer floats, and who has a dessert/sweet treat once a week.  There's just something about the sherbet-soda combination that is just perfect, though.  Three flavors of ice cream if you go with rainbow sherbet, the bubbly tartness of the 7 Up, the creaminess and foam of the two together.  Yum!

I even took a picture of my rainbow float to share, but it looked so bad that I figured we'd be better off without.  A decent photographer would make it look beautiful, though, and it certainly tastes beautiful!

Rainbow Float

rainbow sherbet (or whichever flavor you want)
cold 7 Up

Scoop sherbet into tall glasses, then top with 7 Up.  It will foam up a lot, so don't add too much soda at once!  Serve with a straw and a long spoon.

Orange Snowmen

Ah, Orange Snowmen.  I first came upon this recipe on AllRecipes a couple of years ago and immediately wanted to make it because of my lifelong love of snowmen.  Orange Snowmen are kind of hard to describe.  They're intensely orange-y and refreshing, but creamy and slushy and vanilla-y as well.  Look elsewhere if you're trying to make an Orange Julius, though, because this is not the same (I actually had a perfect Orange Julius recipe posted but it disappeared, I will re-post it in a couple of weeks).  These are definitely their own thing and very good if you love orange juice as much as I do! 

This is actually a slightly odd time of year for me to be posting the recipe for Orange Snowmen, because they've become a Christmas morning tradition!  Just because we drink them on Christmas doesn't mean they wouldn't be great any other time of year, though.  They'd also make a good afternoon snack or dessert, too- not just for breakfast.

Quick Note:  This recipe halves very well.  I've never made the full batch since it's just the two of us.

Orange Snowmen

14 ice cubes
6 oz frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 C sugar
1/2 C milk
1/2 C water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.  Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings

Easy Horchata

We loooove horchata, my husband in particular.  If you've never had it, here's an article with more info.  Basically, the horchata we are used to is sweetened rice milk with vanilla and cinnamon.  It has a rather unique flavor and is very good!  There are recipes out there to make it completely from scratch and I fully intend to give it a try sometime soon, but this "cheater's" horchata made with packaged vanilla rice milk is good, too!  I suggest you make it several hours ahead of time (or even the day before) so the sugar has time to dissolve and the cinnamon has time to soften and disperse through the milk.  The cinnamon will never blend in completely, but it will still be good!

Easy Horchata

1/2 gallon vanilla flavored rice milk
1/3 C sugar
1 t cinnamon

Place everything in a pitcher and stir to combine.  Refrigerate for several hours and stir again before serving.

Yield: 8 1 cup servings

Strawberry Lemonade

I hope everyone is having a great Easter! We aren't religious, but enjoy Easter anyway because it seems like the kick off for spring. Plus we have pet bunnies and they get extra spoiled on Easter :) I love holidays in general and see them as an excuse to make lots of yummy food, but I didn't make a lot today, or cook much in general this past week for a variety of reasons. Last Saturday one of our bunnies died, which is always heartbreaking because we (okay, mostly me) love them and they're part of our family. She died very unexpectedly and this past week was very tense and sad as we waited on lab results that would tell us what exactly she died of and whether our other rabbits were at risk of getting sick as well. Our thermostat also freaked out so it was 92 degrees in our house, and I had a test at school as well as a hugely important interview for my student teaching next year.

Thankfully the lab results came in yesterday and our other bunnies should be fine, it's less hot in here (though the thermostat still isn't fixed), and the test and interview went well, so I'm feeling much more chipper now even though I still miss my bunny a lot.

Saturday night I finally started thinking about what I'd like to make for Easter, and this strawberry lemonade was the first thing I thought of. The recipe is from Southern Plate and I've made it countless times now. It's so fast to make, tastes good, has less sugar than many drinks, and is so incredibly cheery with the strawberries and bright pink-red color. Perfect for Easter and the coming of spring, or the 4th of July, or any other not snowy occasion!

Quick note: This lemonade DOES have strawberry seeds that float on top. Once I tried to strain them out with a fine mesh strainer and even added lots of water to the puree to make it thinner, but it took forever and was totally not worth it. Just consider the seeds to be part of the charm and proof that the lemonade uses real strawberries!

Strawberry Lemonade

1 lb strawberries, fresh or frozen (rinse and hull if fresh, thaw if frozen)
1 packet Pink Lemonade Crystal Light (the packet that makes half a gallon)
cold water

Fill a 1/2 gallon pitcher half full with cold water and stir in Crystal Light packet. Place strawberries in a blender and blend until smooth. You can add some cold water to help blend them. Pour pureed strawberries into pitcher and fill to the top with water. Stir to combine. Done!

Yield: 8 one cup servings

Spiced Orange Tea Mix

There are many versions of this drink mix. Sometimes it's called Friendship Tea or Russian Tea but I'm more to the point and prefer Spiced Orange Tea. I first saw a version of it on the back of a Tang canister but I've also seen it in cook books and online. Whatever you want to call it, it's wonderful! I was hooked the first time I made it a few years ago and I've made it every winter since because it's so good and always puts me in a good mood. Mostly it tastes citrusy but you can taste the spices and tea too. It's pretty unique and definitely worth trying if you've never had it before. If ya don't like it, you can always give it to a friend or bring it to work to share with your coworkers. And if you DO like it, you can make a double batch, package it in cute little canning jars, and give it away as little gifts at Christmas!

Usually I wait to mix it up until we have snow on the ground (which will probably be about 2 weeks from now!), but my husband has a bad sore throat today and this tea is soothing. And anyway, we've been having gorgeous fall weather here in Fairbanks the past few days. Brilliant blue skies, not too chilly, lovely turning leaves. Usually we seem to rush from summer to winter over the period of a couple days so I'm enjoying the beautiful autumn. Everyone seems to be enjoying the weather. We were at the very last day of the farmer's market this past Saturday and little kids were running around having a ton of fun playing in the leaves. We watched one little girl dumping leaves on her mom's head over and over. She was so cute and it was hilarious :D Then today a young boy in our neighborhood stopped me and asked if he wanted me to rake the leaves in our yard. He said he made $25 so far and was just so pleased with himself! Love it! And Spiced Orange Tea is perfect for this kind of weather :)

Okay, enough yammering. Here's the recipe:


Spiced Orange Tea Mix

1 1/2 C sugar

1 C Tang

1/2 C instant tea powder

1 .23 oz packet lemonade Kool-Aid mix

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t allspice

Place all ingredients into a jar, put on the lid, and shake to mix. To serve, mix desired amount (about .5-1 T) with hot water in a mug and stir to dissolve. Store in an airtight jar or else the mix will clump up and be sure to shake up the jar each time you want some tea because it tends to settle.

Yield: 3 cups, about 50-100 mugs depending on how strong you like it.

Here's a mug of the tea that I mixed up for my husband. The mug features a panel from an Alaskan comic strip called Tundra. The artist is named Chad Carpenter and he sells books, calendars, shirts, and obviously mugs. We see him at the Tanana Valley State Fair every year and usually buy a calendar or another book and my parents (who do not live in Alaska) have received Tundra gifts on more than one occasion. Here's the Tundra website if you would like to have a couple laughs.