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.

 

 

Today I made carrot pineapple smoothies.

All the smoothie recipes at Real Simple still have me trying different flavors of smoothies. But let me take a minute to first admire this cool little reflection thing on the photo that Windows Live Writer lets me do with the click of a button.

 

 

OK, so I chopped some carrots up  smallish so that hopefully there wouldn’t be these chunks of carrot floating around when I filled a glass.

Next, I went out to my back yard pineapple tree and picked a fresh pineapple.

 

 

Ok, so I don’t have a pineapple tree in the back yard, actually I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a pineapple tree in person.

 

 

Deep in the back of the fridge I retrieved a mostly empty marmalade jar. I put a few tablespoons into the blender.

 

Poured in some orange colored fruit cocktail juice and then blended with ice.

 

 

There were a few carrot pieces that I had to spoon out but aside from that it was just fine.

 

 

Someday I might get up the nerve to try the green smoothie.

 

 

But not just yet.

 

Carrot-Pineapple Smoothie

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup chopped fresh pineapple
• 1/2 cup ice
• 3/4 cup fruit juice
• 1/4 cup chopped carrot
• 1/4 marmalade

Directions

1. Place the pineapple, ice, fruit juice, carrot, and marmalade in a blender.
2. 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.

Mash strawberries with a potato masher.

Measure 5 cups prepared fruit into saucepot

Pour in the lemon juice

and fruit pectin.

and stir.

meanwhile the the jars are ready sitting in their hot water but not boiling hot water on the stove.

The sugar, yes, ALL that sugar is the only way to make it work.

Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar.

Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Skim the bubbles

and put into a separate jar because bubble jam still tastes real good on toast even if it doesn’t LOOK perfect.


Ladle immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of tops.


Place lids and screw on tightly.


Turn filled jars upside down on a dish towel and start timing for 5 minutes.

And sometimes recycling jars and lids doesn’t work. The leaky one got dumped back into the pot and put into another jar.




Keep filling hot jars until it’s all gone.

After 5 minutes turn jars to upright position and let jars set for 24 hours untouched.

Strawberry Jam

• 5 cups prepared Strawberries
• 1 box  JELL -ease Fruit Pectin
• 4 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. butter or margarine (optional)
• 7 cups  sugar, measured into separate bowl

Directions
Using a 1 C. measuring device, measure the 7 cups of sugar out into a medium bowl and set aside. This will allow you to pour the sugar while stirring the strawberries to prevent scorching. Pour all strawberries into a large bowl and mash until they are pulp-like. Using the same 1 C. you used to measure sugar, now use it to measure out 5 cups of mashed strawberries into a 6-8 quart pan. If the fruit is a little short in the last cup add water to make up the difference. The relationship is important to use the same 1 C. measuring device.
On medium heat, start cooking the strawberries. Add lemon juice,  and then  1 pkg. of Jel-Ease pectin slowly while stirring the strawberries constantly. Add butter to reduce foaming, if desired. Bring just to a boil. Start adding the sugar a little at a time while stirring as not to scorch. Continue stirring until mixture comes to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.  Continue cooking and stirring constantly for exactly 2 minutes. Remove from heat and  quickly skim the top to remove foam.
Immediately fill hot jars to 1/4 inch from top. Place lids and screw bands on tightly. Turn filled jars upside down on a dish towel and start timing for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes turn jars to upright position and let jars set for 24 hours untouched. After 24 hours, make sure all jars are sealed. Store in a cool place.
 
You will need 5 wide mouth pint jars with lids and bands, Sterilize by boiling jars for 10 minutes and keep hot until ready to fill. Place lids and bands in hot (but not boiling) water until ready to seal jars.

What is HDR? Well, it looks cool.
I know this much, I need three photos of the same thing

One under exposed

one over exposed

and one just regularly exposed. 

(To make this collage I used Picasa because it is SO easy to make a collage and it’s free) 
Then in Photomatix I select the three photos and tell it to align based on features, that  way if I moved a bit while taking my three photos it’ll do it’s best to line them up. It kinda stacks the photos on top of each other and then you can run these adjustments on how dramatic of a look you want.



A little over the top, maybe. I like it on this bus.I did a more subtle HDR on a waterfalls photo. I was inspired by some beautiful waterfalls photos nicely HDR-ed by a photographer from Nashville. Mine wasn’t nearly as nice as his
but I’ll keep working on it.

This looks like little gnomes might come hopping out any minute.
Or maybe trolls.