Smoothie King's Daughter (12.30.2008)

Monday Night

Last night, after taking Oscar for a quick romp in the park, Kevin and I headed to the gym for spin class. I ran into my old roommate over the weekend and while I was telling her how hard the 7pm class was, she politely informed me that the 6pm class was the hardest they had and people fight to get into there.

That settled it - I had to try it.

Good thing I got there 10 mins before class because there were probably only 5 bikes left in a room full of at least 40. The spin instructor made me work so hard. My legs ached and I couldn't catch my breath. I was loving it. It might have been the first time that there was sweat on the floor around me. Gross, I know. I am one of those sweaty girls at the gym.

Someone once told me it is healthy to sweat a lot - so that is what I tell myself when I walk by girls that look perfectly primped after their workout. I am always a mess, but at least I am healthy. ;)

After devouring sliced raw zucchini dipped in TJ's edamame hummus, I decided to try making Meghann's award-winning Pumpkin Pecan Encrusted Chicken.

I had leftover pumpkin I needed to use up and it seemed like a simple, delicious, and healthy way to prepare the chicken. All true. It was fantastic. Great recipe!

I also made some cauliflower mash and pine nut couscous to go along with the chicken. Is it me or does my plate of food look like a face with a knife sticking out of the eye?

After dinner, I tried the Mango & Cream bars from Trader Joes. They were very refreshing, but may be better in the summer months. I was bundled up under a blanket eating it.

I spent the remaining hours of the night reading through my Vita-mix Recipe cookbook, watching The City premiere, and cleaning out my new blender to get it prepped for a morning smoothie.

The directions suggest you clean out the blender before using, which I did and was amazed at the suds it created. Is that weird to be excited about? It's the small things in life.

I put 5 cups warm water with one tiny drop of dish soap and blended on high for like 5 secs.

This blender is no joke. I had to spend 5 minutes rinsing all the suds out.

Tuesday Morning

(anyone else have this store near them? love it)

I really wanted to see if this blender could blend ice and not leave chunks. My old blender would never fully blend the ice or frozen fruit and it was annoying. I decided to come up with my own concoction and do a simple Banana/Almond Butter Smoothie.

Ingredients

• 1 cup light vanilla soy milk
• 1/2 large banana
• spoonful almond butter
• 2 large ice cubes

All the ingredients are ready to go.

I followed the directions for another smoothie in the cookbook that had ice and set the speed to Variable, and then quickly turned the level from 1-10. It blended for about 20 seconds.

Um...WOW. There was not a trace of ice in this thing. Perfectly blended and pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

I want to be fair and give the negatives about this blender as well, so if I had to come up with one gripe about the thing - it would be the noise. It terrified my dog so much that I had to coax him back downstairs with a treat. Maybe add a noise muffler on there?

As I sipped on my morning smoothie, I kept thinking that I could totally open my own smoothie shop with this thing. Or better yet, come up with some new, healthy smoothie recipes that my corner coffee shop could start selling. Then, I could be a guest smoothie maker on the weekends...using my new blender. I could also set-up stands at different post-race celebrations to get the word out. Fun!

I wonder if Smoothie King would want be cool if I opened up a spin-off called, Smoothie King's Daughter. I think it's catchy. Dibs on this idea. ;)