Monsters and Mayhem

One thing that seems to be making the rounds on more heath conscious blogs is something called The Green Monster. It is a smoothie with green veggies and fruit. My first introduction to this was through Kath's blog , but it has been popping up all over. Angie kind of got addicted to them for a short term, and I kept thinking I had to try one for myself. From what I had been reading, the base ingredient was fresh spinach, and from there you get creative. I did not have spinach, but instead had a boatload of assorted greens for salads ( romaine, escarole and Boston)that would go bad before we could use them all. Last week I went back to buying heads of lettuce, cutting them up on my own and storing in zip locks. I miscalculated the amount needed, so a surplus was created. I wondered if lettuce would make an acceptable replacement, and the only way to find out was to make one.

I was making this for two, so I took 2 nectarines and cut the flesh from the pit, 2 cups rice milk,4 handfuls of spinach, 4 scoops of protein powder ( this brand lists a serving as 2 scoops) and 4 ice cubes and placed them in the blender. Hit stun, and in a few minutes you have this lite mint green colored smoothie. Split it into two cups and....

It was delicious ! Son drank down the whole thing in two gulps. I nursed mine a little longer, and I was surprised how tasty and filling this was ! Then I realized that had I heard about these 17 years ago, I would have thought I stumbled onto the Holy Grail of kid food. We were dealing with so many food battles in those days !

Smoothies are a terrific way to get nourishment fast. They are a great way to get a big hit of nutrients fast, as the liquifying process is the first step in digestion. Nutrients hit your stomach in a form that is quickly absorbed, and you reap the benefits sooner. I noticed an hour after I had one that i felt like I had just gotten in 12 hours sleep, a weeks vacation, a good workout and a cup of coffee all combined.

We got in more walking last night at one of the stores we shop, and then the guys tackled a computer reformat. Son managed to pick up a very nasty Virus , and our spyware could not remove it, so a reformat was in order. For some this sounds like a major thing, but sadly in this house it is as common as the need to wash windows or steamclean a carpet. Son turned into little super hacker when he was 18 months old, and we have gone through every parental control and safeguard on the market. He bypasses them all , and not out of malicious action. He simply thinks in a very literal way and language nuances miss him. For example, the first couple of times that he used a disc washing software( a clean up thing for the hard drive) , he thought it meant he had to wash his monitor as well. Anyway, as a result the hubby has become a master at fixing computer problems , and has become everyone's go to guy when problems happen as a result.So the two of them sat down to reformat the computer ( daddy is teaching son what to do). My husband is very patient with him, and the two of them are the best buddies on earth. Between the technical stuff they joked with each other and got things working again. It was nice to watch them interact together.

It's a sunny day here finally. Off to walk in the beauty !