Michele's Kale Smoothie

Are you saying to yourself, "Kale in a smoothie?! Seriously?!" I did when my friends Michele mentioned it. I assumed it had to be gross and green. Not gross, necessarily, because I do like kale, but it just didn't seem right in a fruity smoothie. I put it in the back of my brain and then remembered it when I was at the farmers' market this past weekend and saw gorgeous, full bunches of kale. I grabbed some, figuring I'd either give Michele's smoothie a try or make kale chips or some kind of soup that included kale. I texted Michele asking her to email me the recipe when she got a chance, and she ended up sending me what was probably the longest chain of text messages I've ever received! that girl must be speedy when it comes to typing on a phone! When my dinner tonight totally failed (more on that in another post), I made grilled cheese sandwiches for my kiddos and figured I'd offer up smoothies as well. I distracted them with some strawberries while I added the kale to the blender.

I should mention that Michele is an AMAZING photographer. She's taken maternity pictures of me, pictures of my kids...I've loved all of them! I tried to shadow her a bit when she did one year pics of the baby (who really isn't a baby anymore), but I ended up being too busy chasing and corraling him to really learn a whole lot. Maybe another time! If you're in the Phoenix area, definitely check out her website, Michele Stange Photography.

Michele's Kale Smoothies
Adapted from my friend Michele

1 cup almond milk
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup strawberries
2 large handfuls kale
1 banana, in chunks
1 cup ice
1 tsp honey

Combine ingredients in a blender, blend until ice is crushed and ingredients are combined.

*****

You can see Michele's recipe from the link above. The one she texted me was slightly different, so I kind of did a combo of the two. I couldn't remember the amount of kale, and I wanted to get it in there while my kids weren't looking (not that they're bad about veggies, but I figured they'd question the addition of a green leafy thing to their smoothie), so mine was probably more like one small handful. I think I also overdid it on the blueberries. I did less than a cup at first, but I thought it needed more fruit flavor, so I poured in what was left of a frozen bag of Trader Joe's blueberries, and I think it was too much. Not too much, per se, but I could have used less and still had a yummy smoothie. Oh well, just extra antioxidants for us I guess.

My kids LOVED THESE. I texted Michele while we were drinking them to let her know how good they were. The baby had two! The boy only had one because he wanted to make sure there was some left for later. They had no idea there was a vegetable in them which was awesome. Michele said she's used other kinds of greens, too, with good luck--both taste-wise and without her girls knowing what was hidden in them.

Kale smoothies, you will become a regular at our house!



My baby loved it!!

Frosty Fruit Smoothie

We were in desperate need of a new blender. The one we had we had received as a wedding present, and it was one of those smoothie maker ones with the spout on it, but the spout would always get clogged up or it would leak. I was just tired of it. So the boy got me a really nice new blender for my birthday. Isn't he sweet? Then it happened that we were at my friend Jessica's for a breakfast party last week, and she has an orange tree in her backyard that is producing copious amounts of oranges this year. So she gave us a bag to take home. I told the boy we could make smoothies out of some of them, so I went about looking for a recipe. I found this one on RecipeZaar.com, and thought it would be a good one to try, but I changed it up a bit.

Frosty Fruit Smoothie

1 cup orange juice, chilled
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 medium banana, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup small ice cube or crushed ice

In a blender, combine fruit juice and yogurt; add banana and vanilla. Add ice cubes, Cover and blend until nearly smooth.

*****

I ended up using two bananas and probably slightly more juice and yogurt so I could get two smoothies out of it. The boy and I both really liked these! The original recipe called for milk instead of yogurt, but I liked the idea of the yogurt better. Plus Greek yogurt is so yummy.

The downside of this? Now every day the boy asks if we can make smoothies! Not that it's a bad thing necessarily, just more work for a snack than I usually like to do. :) But we both really liked the smoothies, and I like controling what's in the snacks/treats/drinks we have.

My cool retro juicer. It was my grandma's.


Hello, fresh squeezed orange juice. Thanks Jessica and Dashel for sharing your oranges with us!


Mmmmm...smoothie!!


I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take a picture of everything in the blender. Oops!

Banana Bread

My friend Laura had a fun "end of summer" party at her house today for all the kiddos. She had two little pools set up in her backyard, a slip & slide, a water table, and we had a potluck picnic lunch. It was such a great idea!! The kids all played outside and had a blast while the mommies got to sit around talking. I mentioned at one point I had made banana bread yesterday, and Jen B. said I should post the recipe because it was super easy. I checked the Weight Watchers website for a recipe but didn't like what I found. I also checked Cooking Light and found some that looked good, but the ones I liked I was missing some of the ingredients. So I checked RecipeZaar.com and found one that was super easy and came up when I used healthy recipes as a qualifier in my search. (Wow..."qualifier in my search" is a phrase I haven't used in quite some time!) This was by far the easiest banana bread recipe I have ever made!

Banana Bread

3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour one loaf pan.

Mix ingredients in the order listed. Pour into loaf pan and bake one hour or until the loaf tests clean.

*****

See? Totally easy! I tell ya, banana bread does not last long around here. There are maybe two slices left in the pan. A bunch of banana bread fiends I have on my hands! This was really good, and like I said, super easy. However, when I put it into the WW Recipe Builder tool, it came out as 4 points per slice (assuming 14 slices in the loaf), which doesn't really make it worth it to me. Yeah it's good, but I can think of better ways to use four points than on a slice of banana bread. Like...two light beers! ;)

Mango Banana Daiquiris

Quite awhile ago, my friend Jen B. told me about a blogging group that makes recipes from the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks called Barefoot Bloggers. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I heart Ina Garten, so I was very excited to find this group and be accepted as a member!

Each month, two members each choose a recipe from one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and all the members of the group make those two recipes. I missed the actual date this was supposed to be done, but I think as long as I post by the end of the month I'm still allowed in the group. ;)

The first recipe for August was Mango Banana Daiquiris, chosen by Veronica of Supermarket Serenade. The husband is from New Orleans, and if you've ever been to New Orleans you've probably seen (or gone through) a drive through daiquiri stand (apparently if there's a straw it's considered an open container but no straw is fine). He is always game for trying some kind of daiquiri. I thought this would be a great accompaniment to our grilled pizzas tonight (which actually might end up being baked in the oven instead of grilled because it's looking a bit stormy outside).

Mango Banana Daiquiris
serves 4 (or 2 if you're at my house!)

2 cups chopped ripe mango (1 to 2 mangos, peeled and seeded)
1 ripe banana, chopped
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
1/4 cup sugar syrup*
1 1/4 cups dark rum, such as Mount Gay
Mango slices, for serving

Place the mango, banana, lime juice, sugar syrup, and rum in a blender and process until smooth. Add 2 cups of ice and process again until smooth and thick. Serve ice-cold in highball glasses with the mango slices.

*To make simple syrup, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Chill.

*****

Mmmmmm...I love me a good fruity frozen drink. I hate cutting up mangoes, so I took the easy way out and bought a bag of frozen mango chunks at Trader Joe's. My bananas aren't super ripe, but I'm not too concerned about it. Heck, it may give me a reason to try these again soon. ;)

*****

You know what I just saw? This is my 600th post! How exciting!!

It's Saturday night now and the husband and I just finished off ANOTHER batch of these bad boys. We had two batches last night. I think we've found our summer go-to drink (fantastic, now that it's late August)! These are so super yummy. When I said my bananas weren't that ripe--wow, that was the understatement of the year. They were still green and difficult to peel. I think with ripe bananas, these would be even better. I added a little more simple syrup to try and compensate for the lack of extra sweetness ripe bananas would have added to it. I found the first batch to be too limey (which may have been because I just haphazardly squeezed in juice from four limes instead of measuring it out), and we left the lime juice out of the second batch. Now, whether they were really better without the lime juice or if it was just because we were on batch #2, I'm not sure. The husband wanted to add more rum, and I tried to convince him to just try them as they were, but he insisted that it needed another shot. He added one to his and then said it was too much rum. He obviously doesn't know to trust Ina!! Although, I did add 1-1/2 cups rum instead of 1-1/4, so I guess technically I did add extra but not once they were done.

Ina, once again you've done me right!!!!

Banana Bread

I'm still a bit under the weather, but I'm not quite as run down as I was yesterday. I'm still trying to take it easy. Like both kids are napping right now, so I feel like I should be mopping the kitchen or cleaning the boy's bathroom or putting away the ridiculous piles of laundry I folded this morning, but instead I'm relaxing on the couch playing online. Maybe I'll take the piles of laundry upstairs after I'm done here...that would at least be something.

Anyway, I had two bananas on my counter that desperately needed to be used, so I asked the boy if he wanted to make banana bread. He was beyond excited. He loves helping in the kitchen, so when we got home from grocery shopping (my first time doing it with both kids!) we made some up. I don't think I've ever shared my banana bread recipe, and I figured while I still had the recipe card out, now was as good a time as any. This is my mom's banana bread recipe, and honestly I've never found a recipe I like better.

Banana Bread
2 eggs
2 bananas
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. oil
1-3/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. soda
1/2 t. salt

Beat eggs well. Cut banana into 1-inch pieces into bowl with eggs. Mix well. Add sugar and oil. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to wet mixture. Stir to combine. Pour in greased loaf pan, and bake at 350 for 55 minutes.

*****

Yum. I've already had two pieces from the loaf, although one was really, really thin, so I don't think it counts. Also, I don't sift the dry ingredients. That just means I'd have more dirty dishes to contend with, and I hate dirty dishes. So I just pour everything in and go to town.