Coconut Berry Smoothie

There's no doubt about it, summer's warm temps are here and here to stay.  The warm temps are great for getting out to the pool, playing in sprinklers and on the slip and slide, eating lots more salad and fresh fruits and veggies as well as more smoothies.  I LOVE smoothies and have been making more of a variety than my usual kind of frozen fruit, yogurt, OJ, and spinach.  I came up with this new one recently and was pleasantly surprised at how yummy and fresh it was.
It was super quick and easy to throw together with only 3 ingredients:
Frozen berries (couple of handfuls)
1 can coconut milk
honey (sweeten to taste)

Throw all of these in your blender or use an immersion blender like I do.  Mix it all up. Then enjoy!

Do you have a favorite smoothie?
Linked up at A Little Nosh

Weekly Menu and Spring Break

Spring break has started--the kids are in heaven!  They didn't sleep in, but quickly ate breakfast, spent time in timeout, played Legos, wrestled, dressed, brushed teeth, and are currently playing basketball (indoors!) Good thing I have some play dates and activities lined up. :)
As much as I love fall and by the end of summer can't wait to start cooking all the warm comfort foods, now I'm looking forward to warmer weather and fresh food. Gardens and farmers markets!  I have these romantic ideas of having the kids truly help prepare dinner and maybe even make a meal all by themselves.  I think it's time to start making them responsible for prepping a bit more of the dinner meals.  I find this easier with garden fresh foods--nothing to risk burning themselves.

Doesn't this look good!?

All 3 of them are pretty proficient at browning ground beef too.

Saturday--Thai Chicken Pizza, Grilled Asparagus, Salad
Sunday--Baked Pasta with Meat sauce, Salad
Monday--Spinach Quinoa Salad with Roasted Grapes, Pears, and Almonds
Tuesday--Portobello Pesto Pizza, Roasted Broccoli
Wednesday--Taco Salad
Thursday--Grilled Chicken Salad
Friday--Sushi Salad

Can you tell that I'm in a pizza and salad mood? :)

A few extra meals since everyone will be home for lunches this week too:
Pizza Stuffed Potatoes
Chicken Enchilada Spaghetti
Broiled PB and Banana tostadas
Bean and Cheese burritos with guacamole
Frittata--kale, bacon, onion, potato

Quality Time with Dragons

Today I let the shower wait longer than usual, let the dishes sit, chose not to vacuum, and left the 2 loads of (clean but unfolded) laundry sit on the counter.  Instead I played, I played and played with Penelope.  We played a game on the computer, then we played a card game.  This card game is one that she has made up, so it seems to change every time we play it with her.  Today's card game led us to a LONG pretend playtime that involved dragons.  First we had to scare the dragon away.  This meant getting out a few pots and a wooden spoon to beat the pots. 

We beat those pots softly, we beat them LOUDLY, slow and fast.  Then we had to make crowns to wear in order to be able to properly scare the dragon while we beat the pots.  Beating the pots turned in to having to make lunch for the dragons (yes, somehow instead of scaring the one dragon away we ended up with 4 dragons for lunch!). 

Penelope stirred and stirred her magic brew in the pot while I whipped up some real lunch.  "Mom, the dragons can't sit at the table!" 

I wish I had taken a picture of the entire spread she set up, but lunch took over 30 minutes today and this was taken within the first 5.

So, lunch was eaten picnic style on the floor...and the dragons ate it ALL and drank their almond milk without spilling it.  At some point during this drawn out lunch/picnic, my daughter became a dragon too.  The wonderful lunch energized the dragons, so they HAD to play tag.  When one particular dragon slipped and bumped her head, all the other dragons disappeared and Penelope returned.  She decided it was time to read a real story and take a nap.
Sometimes letting the messy house be messy is worth it.  Today it definitely was :) 

Now to get to those chores....

Almond Butter

As mentioned before, I'm frugal and when it comes to buying or making nut butters, there's PLENTY of money to be saved when making your own, not to mention that you can make them healthier too.  This week I made 2 types of almond butter--regular (or plain as my kids call it) and chocolate.  Both start out the same, both are gluten and dairy free, both are SUPER easy, and both are pretty darn tasty!
Start buy buying raw almonds.  I get mine at Whole Foods in the bulk section.  FYI--they are really on sale this week, as in $2 off/pound!
Almond Butter
Ingredients
raw almonds
a bit of salt
some oil (I used both extra virgin olive oil and some Earth Balance coconut spread)
How To
Roast your almonds (for this batch I used about 3 cups of almonds) on a baking sheet for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Keep an eye on them and give them a little stir half way through.  This step is not necessary, but it adds some great flavor!
Remove almonds from oven and either let cool on the pan or pour into your food processor and let cool some there.  Be careful, these nuts are HOT!

After some time, whiz them around in the food processor with a bit of salt (I always use Kosher salt--the bigger pieces of salt--instead of table salt, just personal preference) to start chopping them up. 

In this picture they are course ground.  If you keep going and don't add any fat, you'll have almond flour.  However, today I'm making almond butter so I keep going and add the fat.  I added a few tablespoons (sorry I just poured it in and eyeballed the amount) of EVOO.  It was still pretty thick and I was beginning to run out of EVOO so I thought I'd try adding the coconut spread.  It worked great.  Since my nuts were still warm, it just kinda melted right in when I turned the processor back on.

See how it's beginning to look like almond butter?  I dare you not to try some at this point!  It was so yummy when it was warm.  You can keep adding the fat until you get a desired consistency.  I keep our almond butter in the fridge, so it thickens more in there.  I just stick some of it in the microwave to soften it a bit before spreading on bread.

Chocolate Almond Butter
Follow same recipe as above, but mix in some cocoa powder toward the end.  When I made ours this time I just stirred in the cocoa powder in the jar.  Just taste it a bit as you go and add more cocoa powder until desired flavor.

The 3 cups of almonds made 1 1/2  jars of almond butter.


Honey Almond Butter
Follow almond butter recipe, but add in some honey.  Easy!

Of course a sweetener can be added to any of these, but since a favorite sandwich in our home is almond butter with honey and cinnamon, I don't add any sweetener (honey, agave, sugar, molasses) to my butters when making them.
Almond butter can be used to make sandwiches, used in smoothies, enjoyed by the spoonful, cookies (replace the peanut butter with the almond butter), etc.  So good!  Also, almonds are a good source of calcium.
Enjoy!

Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Last week I sauteed some baby bella mushrooms with all the fixings--butter, fresh thyme, red wine, LOVE.  Anyway, as fate would have it, by the time they were done me and my pregnancy had absolutely no desire for the incredibly awesome mushrooms.  Of course I wouldn't throw away such a loved food, so I put them in a dish and popped them in the fridge. 
Fast forward through the weekend and there I was Monday facing a fridge of various leftovers and a total craving for a grilled cheese sandwich.  If I weren't pregnant I may have just gone for the classic cheddar and bread and left it at that along with leaving all those left overs in the fridge.  However, I am pregnant and need to consciously eat well.  Also, I've been challenged to not waste any food.  So, I faced my fridge and pulled out most of it's contents.  And the result was love!
This week, yes the entire week (most of this pregnancy I've been able to stomach a food at most twice within the same week), I've been eating and LOVING grilled cheese sandwiches, mind you, not the classic plain Jane bread and cheddar ones.  This week, with the help of last week's cast off mushrooms, I've cooked up some fancy schmancy sandwiches with cheese and other leftover yummy-ness.
Like I mentioned, I started by taking out anything that might sound remotely good on a sandwich.  Things like chopped artichoke hearts, watercress, hummus, provolone, sauteed mushrooms, grilled chicken, garden fresh tomatoes, peppers, roasted peppers, fresh basil, mozzarella, oh the list is never ending sometimes! 
I had a beautiful sourdough loaf and some cheese from Whole Foods, called Belletoile, a triple ream Brie.  This cheese has the consistency of cream cheese but is sold in a wedge because when cold it is fairly firm.  My first gourmet sandwich of the week was on the sourdough with the Belletoile, some watercress, and sauteed mushrooms.  Delicious!  The cheese melted beautifully and held the sandwich together well.  The mushrooms provided a lovely meaty flavor and the watercress lent the sandwich a little peppery flavor.  I was hooked and was so happy that I had plenty more of the fixings to make more sandwiches.
Another one that was yummy was the provolone, chopped artichoke, hummus, couple last sauteed mushroom pieces, and roasted peppers (I bet some prosciutto would be tasty on this one too) on sourdough.  I loved the mozzarella, tomato, basil, splash of balsamic vinegar, and chicken grilled cheese sandwich too.  Just sitting her writing this up my mind is conjuring more combinations!
Besides using up leftovers in a surprisingly delicious way, I have been enjoying lunchtime much more than usual this week and have been inspired to create more gourmet grilled cheeses.
Are you inspired or just grossed out?