Super Smoothies

So, in case someone missed it, I am doing a funny challenge to make all the recipes from the Jan/Feb issue of Everyday Foods. The main reason this challenge started was the 8 recipes for smoothies they have in there . . . I instantly said I wanted to try all 8.
After my first 2 posts about entrees I made with several substitutions/alterations my sister suggested I make this challenge about how I change recipes and if they turn out or not! Ha ha.
Since smoothies have like 4 ingredients in them, I tried my best not to alter these recipes at all. Stephen and I have started looking forward to these nightly treats. Here are the 5 we have tried so far:

Peach, Berry and Spinach

Blend 1 cup fresh or frozen peach slices, 1/2 cup fresh or frozen blackberries, 1 cup packed fresh spinach leaves, 1 1/2 cups white grape juice and 1/2 cup ice (if using fresh fruit). Serves 2, 160 calories

*I think this is my favorite so far, and it made enough for the girls to have some too. (this is the only smoothie I made substitutions to- I promise! I had frozen blueberries instead of blackberries and no white grape juice yet . . . because I know blackberries have more of an acid punch than blueberries, I used pineapple juice instead of white grape- turned out awesome)

Odessa loved it- and drank Ada's too

Pineapple and Ginger

Blend 1 cup fresh or frozen pineapple, cut into 1-inch pieces, 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced, 1/2 cup lowfat plain yogurt, 1 cup pineapple juice, 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1/2 cup ice. Serves 2, 156 calories

I love ginger, so I was a little disappointed in this one- it was a little runny and I didn't like the cinnamon, next time I would leave it out. It did have a nice warming effect from the spiciness of the ginger. Stephen liked it better than me . . .


Green Machine

Blend 1 cup packed fresh spinach leaves, 1 1/4 cups white grape juice or pear juice (I used white grape), 1/2 avocado, 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces, and 1 cup ice. Serves 2, 193 calories

I was also really excited about this one! But too much apple maybe? It was really thick which I like but it also tasted a little like drinking applesauce, so I think half an apple in this one would be fabulous. This was Stephen's favorite so far . . .



Cucumber Blueberry

Blend one medium cucumber peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces, 1 cup frozen blueberries, 1 cup white grape juice or pear juice, and 1/2 cup low fat yogurt. Serves 2, 164 calories.

I loved this one! Wouldn't change a thing . . .

Berry Orange

Blend 1 orange, peel and pith removed with a sharp knife, quartered, 1/2 cup lowfat plain yogurt, 1/2 cup raspberry sorbet, and 1/2 cup 100% cranberry juice. Serves 2, 169 calories.

We both LOVED the taste of this, but a couple texture things- the membranes on the orange still are a little chunky and I blended it so long that it was pretty runny. I think next time I would blend the orange and juice together until super fine and then add the other ingredients and maybe throw in a bit of ice to thicken things up a little. Very good- what's not to love about raspberry sorbet?

Incidentally, I did find all the juices I needed in the frozen section much easier and much cheaper than in the regular juice section (that's a no brainer I guess, but I was surprised how easy it was to get 100% cran and white grape and pom there vs already made and bottled).

Ok, 3 more coming up soon! Oh, Almond Date, aren't you excited??

Name Game

Most of you know Stephen and I are pretty tight lipped about baby names. Part of the reason being we have such a hard time deciding on a name together. My pregnancies consist of many nights like this: I lay in bed with a baby name book reading aloud names I like and Stephen responds.
"Hazel" - "No"
"Vivian" - "No"
"Adelle" - "No"
"Nola" - "No"
"Nora" - "No"
"Ada" - "hmmmmm . . . . might work"

Seriously, we usually can only agree on 2 names through this entire 9 month process . . .
So I checked out a couple of unusual baby naming books from the library and one actually walks you through these exercises of how to come up with a working list of names. Last night I was reading a section on combining parent's names or grandparent's names. This is the conversation that ensued:

Stephen: Be-phen (Stephen and Ben- our father's names)
Me: St-en!
Stephen: Lew-ben (Lewis- middle name of his father, Ben- my dad)
Me: I think most people use the parents of the BABY'S names
Stephen: Ta-phen
Me: St-ara! How about middle names? (his is Boyd and mine used to be Ann)
Stephen: B-ann
Me: Ann-oyd . . . Annoyd!!!!

This is the point where I burst into uncontrollable laughter until I started crying which was not hard considering the week I had . . . but at least the belly laugh I got helped me out of my funk.

Next Recipe: Spice-rubbed fish with lemony rice

We have been holding on to the last package of halibut Stephen's dad caught in Alaska. These are like worth their weight in gold, so you have to be careful when you select a recipe for them.

Spice-rubbed fish with lemony rice

4 tsp unsalted butter
1 small yellow onion
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 cup basmati rice
1/2 tsp poppy seeds
1 TB lemon zest + 1 Tb lemon juice
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 medium zucchini, halved and cut into 1-inch pieces
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 # cod or other firm white fish cut into 4 fillets
2 tsp coriander spice mix

Coriander Spice mix
Stir in a small bowl:
1/4 cup ground coriander
1 Tb each: ground ginger, paprika, coarse salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground pepper

In a med saucepan, heat butter over medium. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, 4 minutes. Stir in rice and poppy seeds and cook one minute. Stir in lemon zest and lemon juice, broth and zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook 13 minutes. Sprinkle spice on top of fish. Arrange fish snugly in a single layer, spice side up on top of rice, cover and cook until rice is tender and fish is opaque throughout, 5 to 7 minutes.

Here is my notes: (I usually don't make so many changes to my recipes, it just happens that I decided to make the last 2 meals late in the game and was not going to the store). I didn't have zucchini or basmati rice. I used spinach which I threw in at the end and wilted it and brown rice which changed the water amounts and cooking time- still it was really good. I didn't make all that spice rub, I am not good at using those up, so I lessened all the amounts and made enough for the fish. We had about 2# of fish, so I put just salt and pepper on some of the pieces and broiled them all on a cookie sheet together (no room in the saucepan plus steamed is not my favorite way to have fish). I rubbed a drizzle of olive oil over the fish fillets because you can imagine a dry rub broiled would be . . . really dry. Wallah! It was very tasty, enjoyed by all. The girls never fail to eat copious amounts of the halibut- maybe because it was caught by grandpa? Anyway, we usually run out of fish before they run out of appetite but I saved enough of the plain fish for fish tacos the next night. Those we had on toasted corn tortillas with pico de gallo and cabbage slaw- so delicious. What a nice way to say farewell to the fish. Thanks Steve! We talked about personally helping you fund another Alaskan trip . . .




(by the way, the cat was going nutso over the smell of the fish- here she is begging for some)

Cold and clear

My mom and dad came for a visit last week over the New Year. We had a great time and New Years Eve we decided to take a day trip to get out of the city. It's been forever since we took a ferry anywhere, so we headed over to Port Townsend and Poulsbo but it was a killer cold day even though the sun was super bright. I must say Port Townsend is my new destination of choice- we have got to get back there this summer to explore. Here are some photos . . .

From the Ferry

The Olympic mountains looked so amazing!

She knows how to take a picture- needle in the background

See what I mean?

Mt Rainier from ferry- not it's finest moment, but it never ceases to impress

Ok, I couldn't stop taking shots of them . . .

From the peninsula- outside Port Townsend in Fort Worden State Park- loved this place!

Looking back East at Whidbey Island and the mountains on the mainland behind Whidbey

Point Wilson Lighthouse at Fort Worden

They loved climbing the rock wall surrounding the lighthouse

Stephen even got them leaping around

Mom and dad

With the girls, the Port Townsend/Whidbey Island ferry in background

My Nordics

Port Townsend has several really gorgeous houses and buildings- they had their heyday in the late 1800s

On to Scandinavian Poulsbo

Ummm . . . . delicious!!

Surrounded by amazing pastries, we all found at least one we wanted to try

Goodbye Poulsbo and the peninsula, we'll be back on a warmer day!

Thanks Mom and Dad for spoiling us, we had a great time!

Trash talking

One of Odessa's My Little Ponies got chewed up on the legs by a visiting canine a while ago. We hid it from her and she hasn't missed it much- until yesterday. She was crying about not having a pony collection anymore. I thought a damaged pony was better than no pony, so I pulled it out. Not so. Hysterics ensued. I finally calmed her down with 2 bandaids to cover the mangled hooves of the pony. Several small plastic chunks are missing.
Today in the car she was ruminating that when the dog who chewed on the pony started feeling sick, she would have to have surgery to remove the pieces from her stomach (this has been months now) and then they would take the pieces and make something else out of them (like all good plastic- it would get recycled, right?).
I had to explain that the dog probably just pooped out the pieces and they got thrown away in the garbage.
Odessa: So it would go to the compost?
Me: No, dog poop can't be composted, it would go to the garbage.
Odessa: What do they do with garbage?
Me: Ummm . . . . nothing really
Odessa: It doesn't get recycled?
Me: No.
Odessa: Where does it go?
Me: Into a big pile called a landfill or dump.
Quiet for minute . . . .
Odessa: (under her breath) Sounds like littering to me.

A few minutes after that she came around the idea of a big pile of garbage and how fun it would be to sled down it because of course it would be slippery.
And that started a whole new conversation . . .

Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

I forgot to take a picture before they were dished up. I was interested in making these for 2 reasons- homemade enchilada sauce has got to be cheaper than my favorite Trader Joes enchilada sauce and the instructions were to heat the filled tortillas and then pour the heated sauce over individual enchiladas right before serving. This is a method I have been trying at my house recently to cut down on tortilla sogginess. I will admit I cheated on the filling- I did not have the cottage cheese to blend into a nice, smooth filling and add beans to- I wanted to use rice and black beans, so I did.
I have decided if you want the recipe, I will email it to you. At least for this one- I may be more motivated next time and actually post it.
Sum up- homemade sauce isn't AS good, but it IS good and of course cheaper than my favorite kind . . . although I think Cooks Illustrated has a homemade sauce that is just as good or better, maybe I better dig that one up and do a little taste-off.

New challenge

I have lots of things I would like to do in 2011, but one of them is just silly enough to blog about. I want to make every recipe from this month's issue of Everyday Food and blog about them. Do I have time to do this? Not really. Will I do it in a month? No way. But it's high time there were some food entries on this blog.
Let the games begin.