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Thursday, June 28, 2012

My New Favorite Breakfast

I want to share with you today my new favorite breakfast! It's amazingly tasty, healthy, and packed FULL of vitamins! It gives tremendous immediate energy as well! And best yet, most everyone in my family loves it!


MOVE UPDATE: Before I tell you about my favorite breakfast, I will let you know that we're STILL waiting for keys to our new farm. Hopefully, we get them tonight or tomorrow. Progress is being made, it's just slow. I cannot wait to get out of boxes and to live in a place that is tidy and put away again!


MY FAVORITE BREAKFAST: OK, my favorite breakfast is a Green Smoothie. Now let me just say that, for most of my life, I haven't cared for smoothies at all. I've never really been into them.

So why did I start drinking them? Well, I'm becoming more and more aware of the extreme benefits of eating what God made - and ONLY what God made for us to eat. Every first of the year, our church does a 21-day fast, and I usually do the Daniel Fast. I feel so good on the Daniel Fast, and always lose a significant amount of weight.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian or anything, but I do strive to make the majority of what I eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. I feel the best when I eat this way. My body performs better.

Green smoothies are like an extreme dose of vitamins shooting through your body. It's so awesome! My husband and I both report feeling much more energy throughout the day when we start with a green smoothie.

So what's in my green smoothies? Well, first, let me say, they really aren't green in color. The name "green" comes from the fact that vegetables are included.

My green smoothie recipe is more of a template than a recipe. It really just contains whatever I have on hand. I am subscribed to a blog called The Green Smoothie Girl, and I got my template from her. I use a Ninja mixer right now, but it doesn't do a very good job getting things really smooth. It leaves a few chunks. I would love to get a BlendTec or VitaMix blender someday.

The template pretty much goes like this:

STEP 1: Start with filling the blender with about 1 cup of filtered water. Add any sweeteners or other liquids or powders. I use agave nectar for a sweetener, as well as local honey (our family has horrible allergies, so local honey helps with this). I add Flax Oil, or ground flax seed, as well.

STEP 2: This is where I add all the vegetables. I typically add a handful of both spinach and kale, one large carrot and a celery stalk (with leaves), and a pinch of alfalfa sprouts. Some days, I get all of this in there. Some days, I'm out of one thing or another, but whatever I have is what I put in. Then I blend that all together for about 90 seconds.

STEP 3: Now it's time for fresh fruit. I reach into my fruit bowl and add whatever I have. Usually, that includes one whole peeled orange, a peeled banana, a cored apple, a cored pear, a pitted peach, and I usually add a quarter of a lemon WITH the rind, as lemons have tremendous health value. Then I blend that all together.

STEP 4: Lastly, I add my frozen berries. This is where the color changes to an appealing purple/pink. I buy frozen strawberries in large bags at Costco, as well as their organic mixed berries. I add about six strawberries, and then pour in about 3/4 - 1 cup mixed berries. I blend it all up for as long as it takes to get the consistency I like (which, in my current blender, doesn't really ever happen, but I get it close).

Every day, my husband and I shoot to drink 4 cups of this smoothie. We may only do 2 cups at a time, but we try to drink the remaining 2 cups later in the day. My kids just drink as much as they want. If I have leftovers, I've recently enjoyed making those into frozen pops for the kids. I ordered these Norpro Silicone Ice Pop Makers, and I love them! You can even fill them with applesauce, ice cream, fruit, yogurt, pudding, just about whatever.

So that's my new favorite breakfast. I hope you give it a try and experience the benefits our family has experienced. Let me know what you discover!

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