If you’re like me and loved WindowsLiveWriter for blog post writing it was a very sad moment to find out Microsoft discontinued it. Now what?

 

 

Well after a little talking to my friend Google I discovered I am not alone others lived WLW too and loved it so much they continued it and it’s now called Open Live Writer and free still. Yay!

 

 

It’s got a new purple look but it’s still the same old Windows Live Writer functions. High five to you people who give up personal time to make Open Writer live on!

 

I did it! I made the green spinach smoothie and green just isn’t a breakfast color! I discovered spinach is a very mild flavor all I really tasted was maple and peach and that’s a pretty good combination. Close your eyes and you’d never know it was green. But it is a creamy bright green. Here’s how to make it:

 

 

Go to the fridge and get out the sad looking spinach, it wont matter it’s going to be cut up into tiny shreds in the blender in a minute anyway.

 

 

Then go to the freezer and get out the container of sorry fruit and try to identify what exactly is in there. Grapes, red grapes that is , plums and blueberries.

Then think back to you first watercolor set you got as a kid and what happened when you mixed the red paint with the green paint, yup, it made mud.

Then put that container of sorry (red ) fruit back into the freezer for some other recipe another time.

 

 

While you have the freezer door open pull out a container of sorry peaches, ya know those peaches that just weren’t nice enough to eat out of hand.

This time do not think too much about you first watercolor paint set, just put about 3/4 of a cup of chopped up frozen peached into the blender,.

Guestameasure a cup of spinach with your hands and stuff that in the blender.

 

 

Pour in 3 tablespoons of maple syrup then add a little more in panic that this green smoothie will be awful and you’ll have to spend the next week trying to eat it.

 

 

Pour in a cup and 1/4 rice milk, or coconut milk or if you just have Great Value whole milk use that. Blend on high until the frozen peach chunks are nearly gone.

 

 

It’s green alright. Pour and serve.

 

 

 

Spinach Peach smoothies

• 1 cup packed spinach
• 1/2 cup chopped frozen peaches
• 4 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/4 cup milk

Blend until smooth and frothy.

 

I like smoothies. I especially like smoothies in the summer. Often they are more along the lines of desert and are kind of similar because I keep putting the same ingredients in.

I was inspired to make some different smoothies from Real Simple.

 

 

I started by chopping up some fresh ginger.

 

I put water in

 

 

Next I poured in the oats to let them soak a bit but not the whole 15 min I’m not that patient.

 

 

I used super natural yogurt, I’m sure there’s some meaning to that but I really can’t tell you what.

 

 

 

I cut the strawberries in half so they blend a little quicker.

 

 

Pour in the Maple syrup and blend with ice.

 

Now it’s time to see what it tastes like.

I kind of missed the glass there. Things are closer than they look when I’m taking the picture.

 

 

The oats were a little gritty but not bad. I couldn’t taste the ginger. I’ll have to put more next time.

I had the rest the next day and the oats had softened and were much better.

 

Gingery Berry and Oat Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup frozen strawberries
• 1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt
• 1/2 cup ice
• 4 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger

Directions

1. Place the oats and ½ cup water in a blender.
2. Let soak until the oats have softened, about 15 minutes.
3. Add the berries, yogurt, ice, syrup, and ginger.
4. Blend until smooth and frothy.

I read some good reviews about WLW So I tried it. And it's free so why not.
Setting it up was pretty self explanatory. Plus, if I ever get in a jam I go watch a YouTube tutorial.

I love all of you who take the time to make how-to videos to help me out of jams and mental blocks!

 WLW has photo edges/frames boarders that are in Microsoft word! And it offers you the option to go with the default style of your blog too. Something called CSS, i wouldn't know but that's what they say. I like the drop shadow.
What I like best is I can easily choose what size I want to display my photo without going to the HTML and manually typing exact height and width. Click and drag! Blogger's editor only offers 3 image sizes and the large is is about 70 pixels too big for my blog layout so this is the best news for me! No more clicking on edit HTML, when I really don't know what I'm looking at.

But,
I must confess that I am writing this post on the blogger editor because, I'm a dork and forgot to open WLW.

Check it out you might like it.

Pros